2. Figure out your deadlines and how to count time

In most child protection cases, a Children's Aid Society (CAS) is the applicant. This means they have to serve their Settlement Conference Brief or Trial Management Conference Brief at least 6 days before the date of your conference.

In most child protection cases, the parent is the respondent and must serve their Settlement Conference Brief or Trial Management Conference Brief at least 4 days before the date of their conference.

Rule 3: Time tells you how to count the days you have to serve and file your documents. Counting days is important because court staff won't accept your documents if you haven't followed the rules.

If you have less than 7 days to serve or file your documents, then Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays when court offices are closed are not counted.

For example, say your Settlement Conference is on Friday November 16. If there are no court orders or agreements with another deadline, the court rules say that:

• CAS has to serve and file their Settlement Conference Brief at least 6 days before the Settlement Conference: this means the latest they can do it is Thursday November 8 because you don't count Saturday or Sunday
• you have to serve and file your Settlement Conference Brief at least 4 days before the Settlement Conference: this means the latest you can do it is Monday, November 12

Sometimes you have to serve and file your documents by a certain time on a certain day. For example, by 2 p.m. at least 3 days before your conference.

You won't have a lot of time to review the CAS brief. So you should start working on your own brief before you get it. After you get the CAS brief, you can change your brief to respond to things CAS said that you don't agree with.