When I was a young lawyer, I was in Court 2-4 days per week. These were not days spend in trial, although, there were some trials.
Most of the time I spent in Court had to deal with Motions (opposed, on consent or unopposed) in order to move personal injury cases forward. The cases were stalled until the motion could be heard. The motions were not “rocket science” incredible complicated. They were completely normal motions which any personal injury lawyer would need to bring. The motions were for such things as:
- Motion to Amend the Statement of Claim
- 30.10 motion for Third Party Records
- WAGG Motion for the complete, unedited police file and Crown Brief
- Motion to extend to time to serve the Statement of Claim
- Motion for substituted service
- Motion to compel the production of undertakings, questions taken under advisement and refusals
- Motion to transfer the jurisdiction of a case to another jurisdiction
- Motion to have an action heard at the same time, or one after another along with another matter
- Contested motions for a Plaintiff to attend a second or third defence medical examination
- Motion for Judgment for the approval of an infant settlement
These motions were brought across courthouses all over Ontario. And what might amaze you reading this in 2025. heading into 2026 is that the majority of these motions needed to be brought in person if they weren’t on consent. And the majority of these motions were not on consent. They were largely unopposed, but even if the motions were unopposed, they still needed to be heard in person.
When I was not arguing or presenting motions to Judges, I was in Court on Pre-Trials also needed to be done in person in Courts across the province of Ontario. These in person appearances were not a waste of time. They were very helpful for all of the parties. It gave the Plaintiff, the adjusters and their lawyers the real feeling like this is the sort of tension that you will feel at trial x 10. The Plaintiff, for the first time in the litigation process got to step inside of a Courthouse, and to see a real Judge and to listen to what s/he had to say about their case. Even if the Judge didn’t read the materials (which was known to happen), you could see that the Judge’s words carried significant weight and had real meaningful influence on the Plaintiff themselves and even on the Defence. The Judges were tremendously influential and powerful in person; more so compared to Zoom. Even if the Judge wasn’t experienced in personal injury law, they were Judges and being a Judge particularly to a Plaintiff who was not familiar with the litigation system is a very powerful thing.
When I was not doing Pre-Trials, I was doing the most wasteful thing the Courts have ever seen. It remains to this day the single greatest resources drain on the civil justice system that I can remember. This was Trial Scheduling Court or Call Over Court. What this was is you cases which had been set down for trial and that Court required lawyers to attend at Court in person before a Judge and Court Reporter to schedule a Pre-Trial Date and a Trial Date. This was insane. You had a room of 30+ lawyers, some in gowns, some not in gowns, all sitting and waiting for their number to be called. The Judge would go through the list, one by one, and schedule dates either on consent, or not. Even in the early 2000s,when computers, internet and phone lines all worked perfectly well, this system was archaic and dated. There was no reason to have tens of thousands of dollars of billable hours wasted on scheduling when everything could have been done online or even over the phone in a large conference call! What was even more embarrassing was that the government was spending thousands of dollars of Court resources to host all of these lawyers just to schedule matters. Even crazier was that only 1-2% of the matters at Trial Scheduling Court actually went to trial. It was a all a part of the litigation show. I mentioned Call Over Court; which; if you could believe it; was an even bigger waste of time and resources of Trial Scheduling Court. Call Over Court took older cases, put them all before a Judge, and set timelines as to how these cases would be dealt with moving forward because the cases had gone stale and this was the only way which the Court knew how to deal with them. Parties were setting timetables either on consent, or by way of Order in terms of how these cases would get back on the rails in order to move forward. Sometimes cases would get dismissed. Other times, lawyers would attend only to tell the Court that the case had settled at that the appearance at Call Over Court was no necessary. These Court appearances took hours. Sometimes, there were well over 200 cases on the list and lawyers would wait well after the lunch hour for their number to be called. You can only imagine the dollar figure on the billable hours waiting for their turn. Just like Trial Scheduling Court, there was no reason why Call Over Court could not have been done over the phone or online. But, that’s just how things were done back then. While there were better ways, the Courts were not open or adaptable to using those better ways in order to make better use of their resources.
Here is the good news. These large wasted days which I have described above don’t exist as often, or to the same extent today, as they did in years past. Courts have been more open to embracing technology in order to improve their efficiency and to save money and resources which are oh so scarce. But here is the bad news. Fewer and fewer personal injury litigators, both new and not so new, are able to get enough hours in Court in order to develop their advocacy skills. Those oral advocacy skills will only further erode with new proposed changes on caps to examinations for discovery.