2026 Ontario Southwest Regional Update: Superior Court Operations, Caseloads & Practice Changes | CPDonline.ca

2026 Ontario Southwest Regional Update: Superior Court Operations, Caseloads and Practice Changes

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Credits
Professionalism (Ethics, etc.): 0.5
30 minutes
Published
2026
Presenter(s)
J. Paul .R. Howard
Source
Middlesex Law Association
Provider
CPDOnline.ca
Language
English
Length
30 minutes
Price
$139.00 plus tax
26th Annual MLA Straight from the Bench Conference
Includes Handouts

This presentation provides a 2026 update on the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Southwest Region, including judicial complement, upcoming departures, regional caseload data, active homicide and cause-death matters, Civil Regional Long Trial Sittings, London Family Court Rule 39 scheduling changes, in-person and virtual hearing practices, court digital transformation, and Case Centre obligations. It is procedural and operational rather than case-law focused, with practical takeaways for Ontario counsel on regional scheduling, document upload requirements, virtual hearing expectations, and the risk of adjournment if properly filed materials are not uploaded to Case Centre.

Presenters

The Honourable J. Paul .R. Howard

Justice Howard was appointed a Judge of the Superior Court of Justice for the Province of Ontario on March 30, 2015, and was chambered in Windsor. He was appointed Regional Senior Judge for the Southwest Region on November 29, 2024. 

Prior to his appointment to the bench, Justice Howard was a partner at the law firm Shibley Righton LLP and was the Managing Partner of the firm’s Windsor office for many years. Justice Howard was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1988. He practised law for 27 years, all of those years at the Shibley Righton firm, initially in Toronto, and then in its Windsor office, which he helped found. His civil litigation practice was devoted almost exclusively to education law and other public law matters, including human rights, constitutional law, administrative law, judicial review, as well as employment and labour law. 

Justice Howard graduated from the University of Toronto in 1983 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts With High Distinction, and in 1986 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He obtained his Master of Laws degree in 1995 from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. His graduate thesis examined “The Special Education of Mentally Disabled Pupils: Full Inclusion’s Use of Equality Rights Arguments” and was filed with the Supreme Court of Canada in the Eaton v. Brant County Board of Education case in 1997 and relied upon by legal counsel during oral argument in that case. 

Justice Howard was formerly a full-time Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor and up until his appointment to the bench, he remained on faculty at Windsor Law as a Sessional Instructor in “The Legal Profession,” an upper-year seminar on legal ethics and professional responsibility, and “Advocacy before Administrative Tribunals,” a course that he created with the late Mr. Justice Robert Abbey. 

In his judicial capacity, Justice Howard previously served as the Local Administrative Judge for Windsor and, before that, the LAJ for Chatham. For some ten years, he served as the chair of the Windsor-Essex Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN) Committee.