Our firm, though located in Toronto, ON, starts most of its law suits in the Town of Milton, located approximately 30 minutes west of Toronto. Today, as I sat in Toronto’s Motion Scheduling Court for almost 3 hours, to stand up and book a date (lawyers are required to attend in Robes) I was reminded why we prefer Milton and why our clients enjoy the fact that we prefer Milton.
In order to show the impact of how the two court houses operate, I’m going to take you through the process in each Court House for a simple collection law suit on an unpaid invoice of $ 75 000.00 that is defended with the simple defence “I never received the goods” . We will assume we have a signed delivery receipt in the possession of the plaintiff.
Let’s start off with Milton:
1. Claim is issued and served May 1, 2013.
2. Defence is received May 21, 2013.
3. Affidavits of documents are exchanged by June 21, 2013.
4. We bring a motion for Summary Judgment at the earliest available date for a three hour motion, September 13, 2013.
Time to judgment from date of service: 4.5 months
Here are the comparable times in Toronto:
1. Claim is issued and served May 1, 2013.
2. Defence is received May 21, 2013.
3. Affidavits of documents are exchanged by June 21, 2013.
4. Attend motion scheduling Court July 11, 2013. (this will add at least another $ 1000.00 in legal fees not incurred in Milton)
5. We bring a motion for Summary Judgment at the earliest available date for a three hour motion, August 2014.
Time to judgment from date of service: 1 year, 3 months.
In addition to the quick time to trial, Milton has friendly Court staff and an excellent panel of Judges who are great at adjudicating Business Law Issues – it’s worth the drive to Milton for many reasons.