Law Times

PAGE 8 NEW An online resource tool 1.800.263.3269 Bestcase earlug.indd 1 3/26/08 11:52:01 AM Focus On FAMILY LAW Nicholas Bala wins LSUC and OBA awards 'Great privilege' to be a family law prof This is the first in our series focusing on recipients of the LSUC awards honouring the best of the profession. BY GRETCHEN DRUMMIE Law Times with a "firm intention" to prac- tise. Thirty-five years later — he's still there . . . teaching. "When I graduated I thought I was never coming back, but the reality was I was almost nev- er going to leave," Bala tells Law Times in an interview. Indeed, but while it has been more than three decades since choosing the alternate path, Bala has made his mark on the law and countless stu- dents of the profession. And, while it probably wasn't planned to mark the 35th anni- versary, it can reasonably be said this is the year of Nicholas Bala. The well-respected Queen's University Faculty of Law fam- ily law professor is raking in the N icholas Bala went to law school at Queen's University in 1974 hardware, starting earlier this month with the 2009 Ontario Bar Association Award for Ex- cellence in Family Law and in September he'll be presented with the Law Society Medal for his outstanding service. "I'm thrilled and deeply hon- ored," Bala says about the OBA award. "I particularly respect the family law bar, which is a very dedicated, sometimes underap- preciated, segment of the bar where there's a lot of collegiality." "Throughout his legal career Professor Bala has been a leader in teaching and advancing fami- ly law in our province and across North America," says Tom Dart, chairman of the OBA's Family Law Section. "His contributions to the body of law, legal educa- tion, and his community are truly remarkable." Dan Goldberg of the Of- fice of the Children's Lawyer, and Philip Epstein, a partner at Epstein Cole LLP nominated Bala for both awards. "I'm very grateful," Bala says. "Professor Bala is Canada's leading academic and has made very important contributions to family law," Epstein tells Law Queen's University law profes- sor Nicholas Bala has 'tremen- dous respect' for lawyers. Times. "He has taken a keen in- terest in children's issues and has contributed countless hours to legal education. He exemplifies the kind of person for whom the Law Society Medal was created." Bala says he's "also deeply honoured to receive the Law Society Medal. It is wonderful recognition for myself as well as for the importance of the contributions of family law scholars to the profession." In 2006 Bala won the Queen's University Prize for Excellence in Research and was awarded the Stanley Cohen Dis- tinguished Research Award by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts in 2008. Bala, 57, was born and raised in Montreal, went to the Uni- versity of Toronto for an under- graduate degree, and from 1974 to 1977 studied law at Queen's. He articled at the Ottawa law firm then called Burke-Robertson Chadwick and Ritchie, when fate stepped in. "I was actually sent down to Kingston by my firm to see a client who was in the pen. "Then I stopped at the law school and they just had some- one quit and so the dean hired me for a one-year contract" as assistant adjunct professor in the legal aid clinic. He went on to collect his LLM at Harvard Uni- versity, and returned to Queen's as a professor the same year. He was also a visiting professor at McGill and Duke universities and served as associate dean at the University of Calgary for two years. Since 2006, Bala has been the academic director of the Os- goode Hall Law School part-time family law LLM program. While the main area of his teaching and research interest is family and children's law, Bala has taught a range of other subjects including civil procedure and contract law. But this teaching business "Marriage Contract" Precedents One researched and prepared by S. Christine Montgomery, B.A., LL.B. Our Marriage Contract precedent is easy-to-use, comprehensive, well-drafted and can be applied to a full range of marriage contract scenarios - from the most basic to the very complex. The check box format allows you to select required clauses based on the needs of your client. Once you have selected the appropriate clauses, click the "create" button, and you've got your customized Marriage Contract draft in your word-processor... ready for legal review and easy completion! It's that simple. Available as: "Pay Per Use" or "Annual Subscription" Visit www.divorcemate.com today! DIVORCEmate One...From Marriage Contracts to Divorce Judgments and Everything in Between. a product of DivorceMate_1-4_LT_Feb2_09.indd 1 Toll Free: 1-800-653-0925 or 416-718-3461 x446 e: sales@divorcemate.com www.divorcemate.com www.lawtimesnews.com 1/28/09 4:29:23 PM wasn't Bala's original vision, es- pecially while he was a student himself. "I always at that point saw myself as a lawyer but I spent a lot of time with help- ing my classmates." In fact, Bala made a name for himself with his "Nicky Notes." He explains that "law students have been handing around their notes for millennia, and at the time notes were hand- written so you knew whose you really had unlike today where students get canned notes on a memory stick . . . I was quite famous for Nicky Notes, and a number of my classmates I still remember said, 'Well you'd be a great professor,' and I said, 'No, I'm not going to be a professor, I'm going to be a lawyer.'" Having said that, Bala did ultimately follow his classmates' advice, and now admits he feels "very fortunate to be a professor; to me it's been a really good fit. I also very much of course respect what lawyers and judges do." Bala should know — the teaching, continuing educa- tion work, with both lawyers and judges, and his research has been closely tied to the work of the bar and bench. A great deal of it has been interdisciplinary, in other words involves ob- serving what's going on in the courts or dealing with lawyers. He has also undertaken collab- orative projects with psycholo- gists, social workers, criminolo- gists, and health professionals. Although some of his research has been theoretical and doctri- nal, "I've also done a lot of applied research, so I've spent a lot of time working with, talking to, study- ing, debating, interacting with lawyers and judges, psychologists, and probation officers." Bala has also done a fair amount of traditional legal scholarship, and his work has been cited extensively by the courts and used in various educational programs. In fact, Bala has been cited by all lev- els of courts in this country, including the Supreme Court of Canada and courts of ap- peal in several provinces. He confides, "I get a thrill every time the Supreme Court cites me, even in fact if anybody cites me. I'm just sitting there reading a judgment and I'll think, 'I know about that,' and all of a sudden in the middle the judge quotes me, and I'm thrilled. I've had an impact on the real world . . . That's nice." An expert on family and children's law, Bala's research fo- cuses on issues related to paren- tal rights and responsibilities af- ter divorce, child witnesses and child abuse, spousal abuse and its effects on children, young of- fenders, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. He has also published exten- sively in journals in law, psychol- ogy, social work, and medicine, and written or co-authored 14 books, and 130 articles and book chapters. His fifteenth book, the second edition of Youth Crimi- nal Justice Law will be published this summer. Bala has worked with the Na- tional Judicial Institute on plan- ning and delivering education programs for judges on subjects including child witnesses, do- mestic violence, support obliga- tions, and young offenders. He tells Law Times that for both judges and lawyers there's growing recognition that "we are lifelong learners and that it's in- creasingly important of course. . . . The law is now so complex and so much of the law, particu- larly family law, requires interdis- ciplinary knowledge that I think any good lawyer has to go on to be educated, and of course there are a range of formats in which that can be done." See Many, page 12 June 22, 2009 • Law Times ANOWVAILABLE

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• A Criminal Mind
• Focus On Family Law