Perspectives
Stay informed with curated legal updates, firm commentary, and actionable insights on developments affecting your practice and clients.
Working for Workers Act 5: What Employers Must Know Now
The Ontario government's latest amendments to employment protections introduce significant compliance obligations for employers. This analysis covers key changes to constructive dismissal standards, notice requirements, and expanded definition of work-related harassment.
Also in This Issue
The Hidden Costs of High-Conflict Divorce
Understanding litigation expenses, emotional toll, and long-term financial impact
Read →Estate Planning for Business Owners
Protecting your legacy and minimizing tax burden, April 24, 2025
Learn More →Lexaltico Recognized: Top Boutique Firm 2025
Ranked among Ontario's most innovative legal practices
Our Story →Legal Insights & Commentary
Curated analysis on practice areas, regulatory updates, and case developments
Upcoming Events
Estate Planning for Ontario Business Owners
Learn strategic approaches to succession planning, tax minimization, and protecting your business legacy.
Know Your Rights: Wrongful Dismissal & Severance
Employee-focused seminar on understanding termination rights, severance packages, and negotiation strategies.
Immigration Law Updates, Newest Case Law
LexKonnect exclusive: Recent Federal Court decisions and IRCC policy changes affecting practitioners.
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Legal Insights FAQs
Junaid arrived in Canada two decades ago as an ambitious student. Today he is an experienced business advisor to investors across Ontario, the United States, the Middle East, East and South Asia, Europe, and Africa. His approach bridges legal precision with commercial strategy, a rare combination that has made him the first call for investors navigating complex cross-border transactions.
Educated at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College and the University of Ottawa Law School, Jia is a legal entrepreneur who founded Atlas Law Group, a boutique firm that merged with Lexaltico. A decade of practice and a life lived across ten countries has shaped a legal mind equally at home in a boardroom negotiation and a contested custody hearing. She built the firm that became Lexaltico on one conviction: that clients deserve a lawyer as invested in the outcome as they are.
Estate litigation: will challenges, executor misconduct, and POA disputes across Ontario's Superior Court.
Residential and commercial closings, title disputes, and builder contract review across Ontario and Alberta.
Immigration and refugee matters, work permit applications, spousal sponsorship, and humanitarian claims.
Criminal defence across Ontario courts. Bail hearings, trials, and appeals.
Wrongful dismissal, constructive dismissal, severance negotiation, and workplace human rights matters.
High-conflict divorce, child custody, support enforcement, and property division under Ontario family law.
Lexaltico LLP
Legal Notices
How Lexaltico LLP handles personal information, under PIPEDA and Ontario law.
What we collect
What you give us
When you use a form on this site, email us or telephone us, we collect what you choose to send: your name, email address, telephone number and a description of the situation. Nothing on this site requires you to give more than that.
What is collected automatically
We collect non identifying technical information when you browse: IP address, browser type, pages viewed and time spent. It is used to understand how the site is used and to improve it. It is not used to identify you.
What we do not collect here
We do not collect sensitive personal information through this website. Detailed personal and legal information is collected only after a solicitor client relationship exists, through the channels set up for that purpose.
How we use it
Purpose
What you send is used to reply to you, to run a conflict check, to assess whether the firm can assist, and, if a retainer follows, to carry out the work.
Marketing
We do not use your personal information for marketing without your express consent, and we do not sell, rent or trade it. If you consent to receive anything from us, every message carries a way to stop, as required by Canada’s Anti Spam Legislation.
Sharing and disclosure
Privilege
Information given to us in the course of a legal matter is protected by solicitor client privilege. We do not disclose privileged information without your consent, except where the law or a court order requires it.
Service providers
Non privileged contact information may be shared with the providers who help us run the firm and this website, and with people engaged on your matter such as translators, agents and court reporters. All of them are under confidentiality obligations.
Processing outside Canada
Information submitted through a form travels through third party services in order to reach us by email, and may be processed or stored outside Canada, where it can be subject to the laws of that place. Submitting a form is your consent to that transfer. If you would rather not, telephone us instead.
Cookies and measurement
What is set, and when
This site uses cookies to understand how it is used. Advertising cookies are set only if you press Accept. If you press Decline, measurement is switched off for you entirely, nothing further is sent, and anything already stored on your device is cleared. The site works either way.
You can change your answer at any time by clearing this site’s cookies in your browser, which brings the question back.
Your rights, and how long we keep things
Your rights under PIPEDA
Under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, S.C. 2000, c. 5 you may ask what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct anything inaccurate, and withdraw consent to our use of it, subject to legal and contractual limits. We reply within thirty days or explain why we need longer.
Retention
Client files are kept for the period the law and the Law Society require, ordinarily seven years after a matter closes, which reflects limitation periods and the possibility of later proceedings. After that they are securely destroyed or anonymised. You may ask for earlier deletion, subject to those obligations.
Enquiries that do not become files
If you contact us and no retainer follows, what you sent is retained only as long as our conflict records require, then destroyed.
Contact
Privacy Officer
Privacy Officer, Lexaltico LLP
55 University Avenue, Suite 1100, Toronto, Ontario M5J 2H7
privacy@lexaltico.com
+1 416 333 6200
If you are not satisfied with our answer you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Short, and written to be read rather than scrolled past.
The four things that matter most
- Nothing on this site is legal advice, however specific it looks.
- Using the site or sending a form does not make us your lawyers.
- Do not send confidential information before a retainer is signed.
- Past results depend on their own facts and do not predict yours.
What this site is
Information, not advice
This site publishes several hundred pages about Ontario law. They are written carefully, they cite statutes and cases by name, and they are reviewed. None of that makes them advice about your matter. Law is applied to facts, and we do not know yours.
The difference is practical rather than technical. A page explaining that spousal support is usually indefinite after a twenty year marriage is accurate as a general statement and may be wrong about you, because of a domestic contract you signed, a period of separation you have forgotten, or an income that is not what a tax return says it is.
Law also changes. Pages carry a review date where one is relevant. A page reviewed last year may not reflect an amendment made since, and a page about a subject currently before an appellate court may be overtaken between your reading it and your acting on it.
When we become your lawyers
Three things must happen first
A conflict check must be completed. We act for a great many people and businesses, and we cannot act against a current client or use what we learned from a former one. That check happens before anything else and occasionally means we have to decline.
We must confirm in writing that we are prepared to act. Not every matter is one we can take, and saying so early is better than taking a file we cannot properly serve.
A retainer agreement must be signed. It sets out what we are doing, what we are not doing, who is responsible for what, and how fees work. Until it is signed no relationship exists, whatever has been discussed.
Confidentiality before a retainer
Why you should not send us documents yet
Information sent through a form, or by email, before a retainer is signed is not covered by solicitor client privilege. That is not a policy we chose. It follows from there being no solicitor client relationship for the privilege to attach to.
It can also create a problem for you. If you send us detailed information about a dispute and we are later approached by the other side, what you sent may affect whether we can act for either of you.
So tell us the shape of the problem and leave out the detail: the area of law, roughly when it arose, and whether anything is urgent. That is enough for us to say whether we can help. The documents come after the retainer.
Results, testimonials and reviews
What they do and do not tell you
Case results described anywhere on this site are real and are described accurately, and they are specific to their own facts. A settlement at three times the original offer happened because of that employer, that contract and that person’s history. It says nothing about what your matter is worth.
Client reviews are the views of the people who wrote them. We do not offer anything in return for a review, we do not write them, and we do not ask only the clients we expect to be positive.
Calculators on this site produce estimates from the figures you enter. They apply published formulas and they cannot know about the facts that most often change the answer.
Copyright, links and governing law
Copyright
The content of this site belongs to Lexaltico LLP or its licensors. You are welcome to read it, print it and quote it with attribution. You may not republish it as your own.
Links
We link to statutes, regulations, court decisions and government pages because a reader should be able to check us. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for them, and a link is not an endorsement.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law permits, Lexaltico LLP is not liable for any loss arising from your use of, or reliance on, anything published on this website.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the law of Ontario and the federal law of Canada that applies in Ontario. Lawyers and licensed professionals at the firm are regulated by the Law Society of Ontario, and marketing on this site is intended to comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct.
Every limit on what this website tells you, and every thing it does not do, in one place rather than in small print at the bottom of each page.
Before you rely on anything here
Four limits, and they matter in this order.
Not legal advice
Everything published on this website is general information. It is not legal advice, it does not take account of the facts of any particular situation, and reading it does not create a solicitor client relationship. Do not act, or decide not to act, on anything here without speaking to a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction about your own circumstances.
Jurisdiction
These pages describe the law of Ontario, and of Alberta only where a page says so expressly. They do not describe the law of any other province, territory or country. Law that looks similar across jurisdictions frequently is not.
Currency of the law
Each page states the law as at the review date shown on it. Legislation is amended and case law develops. A page accurate when written may no longer be.
Generality
These pages describe how a rule usually works. That is not the same as how it applies to your facts. The exceptions are where most real matters live, and a page written for a general reader cannot tell you whether you are inside a rule or inside its exception.
If you contact us
If you are in danger
If you or a child are in immediate danger, call 911.
This website is not an emergency service. Enquiries sent through a form here are read during business hours and a reply may take up to one business day.
Open at all hours:
Assaulted Women’s Helpline 1-866-863-0511
Talk4Healing 1-855-554-4325
Kids Help Phone 1-800-668-6868
No solicitor client relationship
Using this website, submitting a form, sending an email or speaking to us on the telephone does not make us your lawyers. That relationship arises only when the firm has confirmed in writing that it has agreed to act, a conflict search has been completed, and a retainer has been signed.
Confidentiality of enquiries
Do not send confidential or sensitive information through this website or by email until we have confirmed in writing that we can act for you. Information sent before that point is not treated as confidential and may prevent us from acting for you, or for someone else, in a connected matter.
Response times
We aim to reply within one business day. Contacting us does not guarantee a reply within any particular period, does not oblige the firm to act, and does not stop, extend or satisfy any limitation period, filing date or court deadline.
Our telephone line
Our line is answered 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Outside office hours calls are taken by our intake service, who record your details and pass them to the firm. A lawyer responds during the next business day, or sooner if the matter is urgent. Answering the telephone is not the same as giving legal advice, and no relationship arises from that call.
Who we are and how we are regulated
Law Society of Ontario
Lexaltico LLP is regulated by the Law Society of Ontario under the Law Society Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. L.8. All lawyers practising in Ontario through the firm are members in good standing.
Law Society of Alberta
Alberta matters are handled by lawyers licensed with, and in good standing with, the Law Society of Alberta. A lawyer licensed in Ontario is not thereby licensed in Alberta, and the reverse is also true.
Immigration regulation
Immigration consulting is provided by Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultants in good standing with the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants under the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants Act, S.C. 2019, c. 29, s. 292.
Lawyers, paralegals and consultants
Not everyone at the firm is a lawyer.
- Licensed paralegals in Ontario may act only within the scope the Law Society permits, which does not include most family, estate or criminal matters.
- Immigration consultants are regulated by the College, not by a law society, and are not lawyers.
- Law clerks and managers support files but do not give legal advice.
Each page and biography states which applies. Ask at the outset who will handle your matter and under which licence.
Languages
We serve clients in thirteen languages. Every page of this website is written and published in English. Where anything is provided in another language, the English version governs in the event of a difference. If you need an interpreter, tell us when you book and we will arrange one.
Fees
The initial assessment
The complimentary 15 minute initial assessment is a brief introductory conversation. It does not include a review of your documents and does not constitute legal advice.
The firm charges a fee for substantive consultations, including in civil litigation, criminal defence and immigration matters. The firm may waive that fee at its discretion. Any fee is disclosed in advance and credited in full toward your account if you retain the firm.
Referral fees
All referral fee arrangements, including through LexKonnect, comply with Rule 3.6-6 of the Law Society of Ontario’s Rules of Professional Conduct. Fees are disclosed to and consented to by the client, and no arrangement impairs the independent professional judgment of any lawyer at the firm.
What is published on this site
Calculators and estimators
They produce estimates from what you type and cannot know the rest. They do not account for the terms of your contract, statutory exceptions, or the discretion a court will apply. Do not make a decision on a number produced by a calculator.
Past results
Any outcome described happened on its own facts, before its own decision maker, under the law as it stood at the time. Past results do not predict or guarantee the result of any other case.
Reviews and testimonials
Reviews shown here are written by third parties and published on platforms we do not control. Each describes one person’s experience of one matter. They are not a promise, a prediction or a guarantee about any other matter.
Links to other websites
This site links to regulators, courts, government sources, professional associations and social platforms, all operated by others. We do not control them, we are not responsible for their content or accuracy, and a link is not an endorsement.
Other notices
Limitation periods
Failure to start a proceeding within the applicable limitation period may permanently bar your claim. In Ontario the general period is two years from discovery under the Limitations Act, 2002, S.O. 2002, c. 24, Sched. B. Shorter periods apply to many claims. Seek advice promptly. Nothing on this website extends a limitation period.
Accessibility
We aim to meet the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and WCAG 2.1 Level AA. If any part of this site prevents you from reaching us, telephone +1 416 333 6200 or write to hello@lexaltico.com and we will provide the information in another format, at no charge.
Copyright
Content on this website is © Lexaltico LLP. It may be read and printed for personal reference. It may not be reproduced, republished or used commercially without written permission.