Family & Divorce Lawyers

Passionate Advocate for Dispute Resolution

Tracy is a passionate advocate for reasonable resolutions guided by fairness and the ‘best interests of children’. She does not shy away from the Courtroom and has a proven track record as a tenacious, well-prepared, thorough and successful litigator at all levels of Court, but she will first work tirelessly to help clients avoid Court. Litigation should be the path of last resort in most Family matters.

Strategic Counsel

Trained in Mediation, Interest Based Negotiations, Collaborative Law, Parenting Coordination and Arbitration, Tracy is increasingly guiding her clients away from unnecessarily adversarial legal processes. She takes a collaborative approach to all matters unless and until this strategy becomes impossible. Litigation is never the better way in family disputes – even when it becomes the only path to resolution.

Even in litigation matters, Tracy is not a ‘hired gun’. She will make every effort to provide clients with the legal information, advice and guidance to come to reasonable positions centred on what really matters. Clients should never set foot in a Courtroom unless they have a legally defensible position, which is objectively seen to be reasonable. With information and advice, Tracy strives to enable clients to make informed and reasonable decisions throughout the legal process.

Collaborative Divorce

Tracy is a registered Collaborative Divorce Lawyer and increasingly prioritizes Collaborative practice as the better way for the well-being of both clients and their children.

Mediation

Tracy offers mediation services, including Divorce Mediation packages.

Personalized Service

When retained Tracy really gets to know a client’s personal circumstances in depth. She tailors legal strategy to every specific situation. She is honest and upfront about a client’s legal case. If she believes you have unrealistic expectations, she will say so. She will refuse to take your money to advance a position which she believes to be legally indefensible or harmful to children. As with most Family lawyers, Tracy has a lot on her plate on any given day, but she makes every effort to be as responsive as possible and required by the circumstances.

Commitment to “Do No Harm”

In family disputes with children involved, Tracy believes that Family lawyers have an ethical obligation to “do no harm” to children, to the extent lawyers can influence how the legal process or the choices of their parent-clients impact on the children. Tracy is a Family lawyer who will advise against legal action that is unreasonable, vindictive, mean-spirited or losing sight of children’s best interests.

Representing Children

Tracy has always had a child-focused practice, and she has considerable experience in working with high-conflict families and the children caught up in these conflicts. She loves working with children and has specific training in meeting with children affected by family breakdown and parenting disputes. She is also trained in how personality disorders, mental illness and addiction affect children in separating families and has long coordinated with mental health professionals on Family disputes. She is well-versed in the detrimental effects of alienating behaviours of high-conflict parents during separation and divorce and has developed expertise in working on matters involving parent-child contact problems and children resisting contact with parents following family breakdown.

Mentoring & Teaching

Tracy loves teaching and training on all aspects of Law practice and child-focused Family Dispute Resolution, and devotes considerable time and resources to providing on-the-job training and both formal and informal mentoring to Law students, Law graduates, Articling Students, junior lawyers and Mediators. She has been a Principal to 12 Articling Students and occasionally lectures on Family Law topics at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law.

Volunteering & Policy Advocacy

Tracy is engaged in efforts to advance access to justice, Family Justice systems and to elevating the ethical practice of Family Law through extensive volunteer contributions in mentoring, training, public legal education, fundraising, organizing events, seminars and conferences, strategic planning, program development, policy advocacy, and pro bono legal services. Current volunteer commitments include the CBA National Family Section – Vice Chair, CBA Alberta Agenda for Justice Committee, CBA Alberta Voice of the Profession Committee, AFLA Legal Aid Committee, AFCC Alberta Parenting Coordination Committee, Legal Aid Alberta Family Law Consulting Group, and the Law Society of Alberta Lawyer Competence Committee.

Education

B.A. Hons (1994) from the University of Toronto in International Development Studies and a Juris Doctor Law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School (2009), with a Certificate in Litigation, Dispute Resolution & the Administration of Justice

While at Osgoode Hall Law School, Tracy excelled in competitive mooting, helped establish a Mediation Clinical Program, worked as a Division Leader in the Community & Legal Aid Services Program (CLASP) where she handled a full caseload of refugee, immigration, disability and human rights claims, and employment matters. As a 2nd year Law student Tracy had already conducted her first solo Trial in a Wrongful Dismissal action obtaining maximum damages.

Select Training

National Family Law Arbitration Course (Oct – Nov, 2022: Online).
Harvard Negotiation Institute, Mediating Disputes (June 11-15, 2018: Cambridge, MA).
Meeting with Children – AFMS (Lorri Yasenik PhD & Jon Graham Jan 24-27, 2018: Edmonton).
Parenting Coordination Training – AFCC (Dec 4-5, 2017: Baltimore; Mar 7-8, 2018: Chicago).
Mediation of Separation & Divorce – ADRIA (Oct 11-16, 2018 – 40 hrs and Jan 24-25, 2019 – 14 hrs: Edmonton).
Collaborative Law & Interest Based Negotiations Training (Sep 24-27, 2015 and Sep 28-30, 2017: Edmonton).

Professional Memberships

• Law Society of Alberta
• Canadian Bar Association (CBA)
• Association of Family & Conciliation Courts (AFCC)
• Alberta Family Lawyers Association (AFLA)
• Association of Collaborative Family Professionals – Edmonton (ACFP-E)
• Collaborative Divorce Alberta Association (CDAA)
• International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP)
• Alberta Family Mediation Society (AFMS)
• ADR Institute of Alberta (ADRIA)
• Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice (ICAJ)
• The Advocates Society
• Alberta Civil Trial Lawyers Association (ACTLA) / Women’s Legal Forum (WLF)
• Edmonton Bar Association
• Legal Education and Action Fund for Women (LEAF)
• Legal Archives Society of Alberta (LASA)
• National Association of Women & the Law (NAWL)

Languages

Spanish, Portuguese