Brief Update on Technology in Estates Litigation – Calendly and CaseLines

A. Calendly

Calendly is a cloud-based scheduling tool that allows counsel/parties to canvass the court’s availability and request an appearance before the court directly, without the need to contact the scheduling office to seek dates. Once parties have consented to or conferred regarding a date, one party can use Calendly to book the date and time for their matter. If the booking is successful, Calendly will send the scheduling party an email confirming that the request was received by the court.

Calendly is only used for scheduling court appearances. Parties are expected to follow the appropriate timelines, practices, and notices for filing documents and confirming their appearance. The court is entitled to vacate any matter scheduled through Calendly if the matter is not deemed eligible to proceed.

Calendly tip sheet:

https://www.ontariocourts.ca/scj/notices-and-orders-covid-19/tip-sheet-counsel-selfrep/

Calendly is currently being used in the following regions for the following matters:

Central East Region	Civil – Pre-trials: https://calendly.com/ce-civil-pretrials Civil – The Running Civil Long Motions List: https://calendly.com/ce-civil Civil – The Central East Trial Scheduling Court: https://calendly.com/ce-civil
Central West Region	Brampton Civil – Regular Motions (less than 1 hour): https://calendly.com/brampton-scj
East Region	Ottawa Civil – Short Motions: https://calendly.com/ottawa-scj-civil
Northeast Region	Civil – Pre-Trial Conferences Cochrane: https://calendly.com/cochrane-scj  North Bay: https://calendly.com/northbay-scj Sault Ste. Marie: https://calendly.com/saultstemarie-scj Sudbury: https://calendly.com/sudbury-scj Timmins: https://calendly.com/timmins-scj
Southwest Region	Civil – Pre-trials for matters proceeding during Virtual Civil Trial Sittings: https://calendly.com/sw-civil
Toronto Civil	Civil Practice Court Civil To Be Spoken To Court/Short Trial Scheduling Court  Civil – Long Trial Scheduling Court Civil – Case Conference before a Judge Civil – Short Motions before an Associate Judge https://calendly.com/toronto-region
Toronto Estates	On the Estates List, implementation is moving forward, starting with the booking of scheduling appointments. Estates List will have questions that will need to be answered in order to schedule different types of appearance.

 

B. CaseLines

Since mid-2022, lawyers have been required to use CaseLines to share documents on which they intend to rely at a hearing or other court appearance, even where the attendance is in person.  The uploading of documents to CaseLines does not replace service or filing, but it does provide a platform on which lawyers and judicial officers and court staff can navigate and direct participants to specific documents or portions of documents.

There are numerous resources available at: https://www.thomsonreuters.ca/en/caselines/ontario-courts-support.html

Although the Consolidated Provincial Practice Direction for Civil Proceedings sets out various requirements for the use of CaseLines, certain Courts have established additional requirements. 

On the Estates List, the following are requirements to be noted by litigators:

• Compendia, containing excerpted portions of cases and evidence on which a party intends to rely, are required, notwithstanding the ability to hyperlink to specific paragraphs of the case law and to specific evidence within the bundle.
• Counsel must ensure that all Orders and endorsements have been uploaded to CaseLines, even those not directly related to the attendance.

In March 2023, Thomson Reuters announced that it would be changing the name of the platform to Case Center.  Users had to update their log in, but the interface remained substantially the same. 

Thomson Reuters has indicated that the Case Center interface will have additional functionality and has provided e-learning modules for various tasks:

1. Getting started
2. Uploading case materials
3. Reviewing and annotating your case
4. Presenting your case

It also provides bimonthly webinars, which can be found at: https://answers.legalprof.thomsonreuters.com/casecenter_canada/webinars 

The OBA is also providing webinars, the next of which is schedule for June 19, 2024.

Any article or other information or content expressed or made available in this Section is that of the respective author(s) and not of the OBA.