Practice Background
Michael J. Marra has been a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada since his Call to the Ontario Bar in 1981. After his first 6 years practicing in a small general practice with an emphasis on Family Law and General Litigation, he was appointed as Regional Solicitor for the newly created Support and Custody Orders Enforcement Program (SCOE - now Family Responsibility Office – FRO ) branch of the Ministry of the Attorney General. He was actively involved in the implementation of this new and controversial program on a province wide basis and in the Hamilton centered region in particular.
He was responsible for the staff legal training while working on a team basis with the administrative managers and the introduction of the program to the judiciary, local bar, and public. He was responsible for all litigation in the Hamilton centered region which included St. Catherines, Welland and Niagara Falls, Cayuga, Simcoe, Brantford, Milton , Burlington, Oakville, Guelph, Kitchener, Cambridge and Hamilton Courts both at the Ontario Court and Superior Court level including all appeals.
In March of 1989 Mr. Marra left his position with SCOE/FRO in response to an offer to practice family law with George Czutrin (now the Honourable Mr. Justice George Czutrin, Superior Court of Justice) in his dynamic family law group in Hamilton along with their colleague Virginia Mendes de Costa.
This was an incredible practice which involved new approaches to rapidly evolving areas of family law, particularly in the areas of spousal support, complex financial situations, fraudulent spouses, trust claims, unfair agreements, protection of children's rights, estate litigation, high conflict custody and access situations and mediation methods. At the same time, Mr. Marra continued his excellent working relationship with the Hamilton SCOE/FRO Branch and carried out legal services on behalf of the Director on a fee for service basis for three Courts each week, typically Hamilton, Kitchener and Guelph and/or Welland.
Upon Mr. Justice Czutrin's judicial appointment in June 1993 Mr. Marra assumed carriage of his practice in tandem with his colleague Virginia Mendes de Costa. Since that time, Mr. Marra has practiced as a sole practitioner carrying on a selective private practice along with extensive representation of the Family Responsibility Office. When the Hamilton FRO office was closed by the Harris Government in October of 1996 Mr. Marra continued to represent the FRO as a primary area of his practice carrying out the majority of the FRO court work in Kitchener, Cambridge, Guelph, Milton, Burlington, Oakville, Welland and Niagara Falls.
Mr. Marra was a member of the Family Law Executive of the Hamilton Law Association from 1987 through 1994 during which time extensive reforms were initiated in Hamilton that formed the foundation for the new Family Law Rules that exist throughout the Province.
In addition, Mr. Marra was part of the comprehensive mediation pilot project at the Unified Family Court and is a trained mediator.
Mr. Marra is a former member of the Office of the Children's Lawyer panel for Waterloo-Wellington and Halton and is a past member of the Hamilton-Halton Collaborative Law Association and current member of the Waterloo-Wellington Collaborative Law Association.
In July of 2003 Mr. Marra relocated his practice from Hamilton to Guelph. Since 2005 he has been at his convenient location in South Guelph across from Stone Road Mall and is offering a full range of Family Law services based upon his extensive experience.
Mr. Marra provides representation in a full range of family issues including high conflict custody and access cases, complex financial cases, and appearances at all levels of court throughout the province.
In early 2005 the Family Responsibility Office elected to change the method in which they were delivering legal services to the Court in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). FRO decided to have representation in these Courts by more staff government lawyers rather than private independent counsel such as Mr. Marra. Since that time Mr. Marra no longer represents the FRO.
As part of Mr. Marra's representation of the Family Responsibility Office over the years he clearly saw the need for representation of those individuals who need to have their child support orders changed but have difficulty locating or retaining counsel who have sufficient experience to deal with these issues for an affordable fee.
As such, over the years he has developed a model for delivering high quality legal services in such cases by way of a modest flat rate based retainer agreement.
Obviously Mr. Marra's many years of representation of the Family Responsibility Office and its predecessor organizations has given him special expertise in such matters. He continues to have an excellent working relationship with the Family Responsibility Office Legal Department.
Mr. Marra's highly trained Legal Assistant Leanne Smith and Mr. Marra work together with extensive knowledge of child support variations and Family Responsibility Office implications and are available to use that experience, skill, knowledge and training to assist as many people as possible find their own FRO Solution.