The Zoom paradox: When a judge’s words and his court’s actions collide

Law360 Canada (April 16, 2026, 2:40 PM EDT) --

Steve Benmor

There is something deeply ironic unfolding within Ontario’s family court system — an irony that cuts to the heart of what access to justice actually means in practice.

On one hand, judges have delivered passionate, reasoned endorsements of virtual proceedings as transformative tools for making litigation more affordable and accessible. On the other hand, those same courts have moved to eliminate Zoom hearings for short motions, requiring parties to attend in person once again. The collision between these two realities deserves serious scrutiny.

In Worsoff v. MTCC 1168, 2021 ONSC 6493, Justice Fred Myers wrote what amounts to a manifesto for the modernization of civil litigation. Tasked with resolving a simple dispute over whether an examination for discovery should proceed virtually or in person, the judge used the occasion to say something much larger about the direction civil justice must take.

His words were not timid. Addressing the argument that in-person proceedings are simply “better,” he responded directly: “It’s now 2021. Virtual proceedings have proven to be one of the first significant enhancements in access to justice since Hryniak was decided in 2014.”

Justice Myers was referring to the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark 2014 decision in Hryniak v. Mauldin, which identified access to justice as “the single biggest problem facing the civil justice system.” The Supreme Court called for a culture shift toward modernization, decreased cost and increased efficiency. That was over a decade ago.

The judge went further, cataloguing the concrete, real-world savings that virtual proceedings deliver to ordinary litigants:


For a party in a court case, these are not minor inconveniences. They are meaningful barriers that determine whether justice is genuinely available or merely theoretically so.

For a lawyer in a court case, attending virtually avoids travel and waiting time, and working productively at their desks on other matters until the moment they sign in helps improve access to justice. This translates directly into lower fees for clients. In a legal system where hourly rates range from $400 to $900 or more, eliminating a half-day of travel and waiting is not a small thing.

The judge’s observation is pointed and honest: those barriers had not really been addressed despite the highest court in the land calling for fundamental change. It took a global pandemic — not a policy choice, not a committee report, not a years-long consultation — to force the civil justice system to actually adopt the virtual tools that technology had made available for years. A virus accomplished what a decade of well-intentioned reform efforts could not.

The legal backdrop to Worsoff is Rule 1.08 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, amended effective Jan. 1, 2021, as part of a modernization package implemented by the Civil Rules Committee in response to the pandemic. A matching rule exists in the Family Law Rules. The rule formally recognized three methods of attendance at hearings: in person, by telephone conference and by video conference. It established a framework for resolving disputes about which method applies, directing courts to consider factors including the balance of convenience, cost and access to justice.

Justice Myers applied these factors methodically. He noted that counsel in the Worsoff case were located in both Toronto and Ottawa. He said it was not sensible for the Ottawa lawyer to travel to Toronto for a routine examination for discovery, limited to three hours per side. In his words, that drive was “just a wasted expenditure.” Altogether the factors pointed overwhelmingly toward a virtual examination, and that is what he ordered.

Crucially, the judge rejected the premise that in-person proceedings should be the default to which parties must justify an exception. The analysis, he held, must be a genuine balancing of the relevant factors and, in most routine steps, that balance will favour the more efficient and less costly virtual option.

Here is where the irony becomes impossible to ignore.

The very court to which Justice Myers belongs has since cancelled presumptive short family motions that were conducted by Zoom in favour of presumptive in-person motions at 361 University Avenue in downtown Toronto. These short motions are the kind of brief, routine court appearances that are the bread and butter of family court — temporary parenting schedules, financial disclosure, sale of the matrimonial home.

Effective April 2026, parties are now required to attend in person for these short motions.

The policy reversal affects precisely the category of hearing where the access-to-justice argument for virtual attendance is strongest: short, one-issue, interlocutory, contested motions where the stakes may not justify significant travel and attendance costs.

Consider what this means in practice. A party in a straightforward motion must now arrange to appear physically in court. They must take time off work. They must arrange transportation. They must pay their lawyer for travel time. The client and lawyer must both pay for parking in downtown Toronto. All of this for a hearing that is under one hour.

Justice Myers addressed precisely this scenario in Worsoff by writing that when “the cost of participation can be decreased for parties and counsel by use of remote methods, access to justice will be improved.”

One of the more striking passages in Worsoff is Justice Myers’ assertion that “counsel and the court alike have a duty of technological competency.” He acknowledged, with admirable candour, that older judges and counsel may lag behind younger practitioners in their comfort with technology. He argued that this is no justification for reverting to older methods.

Justice Myers’ analogy is worth revisiting: should we reject the printer because someone once preferred their typewriter? Should we return to fax machines because email felt unfamiliar? Each generation of legal practitioners adapted to new tools. The question is not whether virtual proceedings feel comfortable, but whether they serve justice better than the alternative.

The decision to eliminate short-motion Zoom hearings in family court implicitly answers that question in the negative. There is no indication that the decision was preceded by a rigorous consultation or balancing of convenience, cost and access to justice. It appears, rather, to reflect an in-camera institutional preference.

Fairness requires acknowledging that Justice Myers himself identified shortcomings of virtual proceedings. Some participants lack reliable technology. Questions arise about the solemnity and decorum of the process. There are real concerns about the potential for abuse — witnesses being coached off-screen, poor virtual decorum and lack of professional courtesy.

These concerns are not trivial. Where the gravity of the proceeding warrants the formality of a courtroom, an in-person requirement may well be justified. Justice Myers was careful to note he was not discussing trials where the judge must assess credibility and demeanour.

But short motions are not trials. They are procedural steps. The evidence is in the paper record. The legal arguments are in a factum. Oral submissions last 15 to 30 minutes for each party. The concerns about credibility assessment and witness demeanour that might justify in-person attendance simply do not apply with the same force.

The real victims of this institutional inconsistency are not lawyers who will pass the cost to the clients. The real victims are the litigants themselves. Justice Myers put it plainly: access to justice is not an abstract principle. It is measured in bus rides and parking fees and afternoons spent in courthouse hallways. It is measured in lawyer bills that reflect travel time to and from downtown courtrooms for 20-minute appearances. When those costs are unnecessary — when a video call would accomplish the same purpose with no meaningful sacrifice in quality — requiring in-person attendance is not a neutral procedural choice. It is a choice that makes justice less accessible.

Worsoff v. MTCC 1168 stands as a judicial endorsement of virtual proceedings that is unusually direct, unusually candid and unusually attentive to the economic realities facing ordinary litigants. It deserves to be taken seriously.

The decision to eliminate Zoom hearings for short motions in family court is not simply a procedural matter. It is a statement about whose convenience the court system prioritizes. If the answer is “the institution’s” rather than “the litigant’s,” then the culture shift that the Supreme Court demanded in Hryniak and that Justice Myers believed virtual proceedings were finally beginning to deliver remains as elusive as ever.

The judge was right that we should not assume the “good old days” were actually good. The question now is whether his own court agrees.​​

Steve Benmor, B.Sc., LLB, LLM (family law), C.S., is the founder and principal lawyer of Benmor Family Law Group, a boutique matrimonial law firm in downtown Toronto. He is a certified specialist in family law and was admitted as a fellow to the prestigious International Academy of Family Lawyers. He is regularly retained as a divorce mediator, arbitrator and parenting coordinator. As a divorce mediator, he uses his 30 years of in-depth knowledge of family law, courtroom experience and expert problem-solving skills in divorce mediation to help spouses reach fair, fast and co-operative divorce settlements without the financial losses, emotional costs and lengthy delays from divorce court. Read his resumé here. He can be reached at steve@benmor.com.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.

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