BARRISTER & SOLICITOR

ISAAC J. PAONESSA
Founding Lawyer

He's not the lawyer you plan to meet. Isaac has a background in investment services and financial planning from my time on Bay Street at the Bank of Montreal.

From those experiences, he learned the power of a team approach on complex property and business matters for high net worth individuals. He carries those lessons with him in family law where a separation involves the division or equalization of significant assets that are mixed in personal, corporate, and trust holdings. He works with your other experts to ensure the best set of options are explored and presented to a client, including collaborating with colleagues.

Bay Street experience enables him to offer an in-depth perspective when personal, farm, or corporate assets are at stake in a legal dispute, especially in a family law or divorce matter.

He completed articles of clerkship at a full-service law firm. This exposed him to a wide variety of legal experience, such as family law litigation, commercial litigation, mediation and arbitration, creditor-debtor litigation linked to insolvency and bankruptcy, and regulatory & white collar defence. This diverse legal experience allows him to understand the importance of a forensic approach to help clients advance and protect their economic and parental interests.

When undergoing lawyer training in the early years, he had the opportunity to help his supervisor on many cases in the criminal law system. He assisted on jury trials and appeared regularly before judges of the criminal courts on guilty pleas and procedural matters.

Because one's past can continue to haunt them later as they try to negotiate a property matter in a separation or try to achieve a fair amount of parenting time with their children, his appreciation for the impact of the criminal justice system on a family law matter helps him to be a better advisor to and advocate of his client.

Isaac regularly appear for clients in the Ontario Court of Justice and the Superior Court of Justice. His law practice focuses on divorce and family law matters and brings extensive trial experience to the table. This ranges from high-conflict court proceedings and complex property division to mediated settlements and domestic contract drafting.

He is able and willing to guide a client through any legal path available that best suits their situation. This includes negotiated settlements, mediation, mediation-arbitration, collaborative family law, and court proceedings, such as the standard track and binding judicial dispute resolution. His office argues in motion, focused hearings, and all the way through multi-day trials if necessary.

As a student, he worked for the Government of Canada. Collaborating with government lawyers at Transport Canada and Innovation Science and Economic Development, Isaac analyzed the impact of legislation and assessed legislative proposals, gaining invaluable insights into the workings of the legal system at the point where law is made.

Isaac earned his law degree (Juris Doctor) from Western University in London, Ontario. As a law student, he volunteered as a caseworker at the Western Intellectual Property and Legal Innovation Clinic. He also served as a staff editor and then managing editor for the Western Journal of Legal Studies, which has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in its decisions.

For clients who are in close-knit religious communities, Isaac understand the complex dynamics that come into play when a person is separating or divorcing while in such a community. This allows him advise on the application of specific areas of law that apply to divorce and parenting time with children in those niche settings. Having this knowledge allows him to be sensitive to what his client is going through.

Because of the amount of time and effort needed to give clients the best chance of success, Isaac accepts only a select number of cases at a time.

EDUCATION
Bachelor of Arts (Hons), Concordia University (Montreal)
Juris Doctor (JD), University of Western Ontario

MEMBER OF THE LAW SOCIETY OF ONTARIO

LSO Licensee Number: 87676H

OTHER CREDENTIALS:
Notary Public

SELECT PUBLICATIONS:

University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review

Vol. 80 No. 2, March 2022 - "Side Wind: The Right Holder's Quest for IP Enforcement"

Western Journal of Legal Studies - Chambers

"The Puzzling Case of Reference Re Genetic Non-discrimination Act"

MEMBERSHIPS

Law Society of Ontario

Middlesex Law Association

Middlesex Family Lawyers Association

Lambton Law Association

Advocates' Society