Amendments to Superior Court’s Notice to the Profession

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s Notice to the Profession, Parties, Public and the Media was amended on August 2, 2022. Regarding civil matters, the amendments are contained in Part II, paragraphs 1 to 4 of the Notice. These amendments are as follows:

• Parties must provide accurate time estimates for hearings.
• Compendiums are required for hearings and conferences. “Hearing” is defined in the Rules of Civil Procedure as meaning the hearing of an application, motion, reference, appeal or assessment of costs, or a trial.
• Compendiums are to contain key materials that will be referred to in oral argument and must be uploaded to CaseLines. Examples of key materials are fair extracts of documents, transcripts, previous orders, and authorities.
• Compendiums must have a table of contents hyperlinked to the sections within it and hyperlinks to authorities cited.
• Materials that are uploaded to CaseLines, but are not brought to the attention of the judicial officer at the hearing, may not be considered by the judicial officer.
• Paper or electronic copies of books of authorities are not permitted to be filed, unless ordered otherwise by the court. However, authorities that are not available on a free public website, such as CanLII, shall be included in an abbreviated book of authorities and filed electronically in PDF format. The book of authorities must have a table of contents with internal hyperlinks.
• A factum shall hyperlink authorities to a free public website, when available.
• A factum must include paragraph references each time a case is cited in the factum, with the applicable paragraph hyperlinked.