---
title: "Ian Solloway ✦ Of Counsel ✦ Goldwater Droit"
meta:
  "og:description": "Ian Solloway is Of Counsel at Goldwater Droit, where he brings more than fifty years of family law experience to complex litigation and international matters."
  "og:title": "Ian Solloway ✦ Of Counsel ✦ Goldwater Droit"
  description: "Ian Solloway is Of Counsel at Goldwater Droit, where he brings more than fifty years of family law experience to complex litigation and international matters."
---

![Ian Solloway](https://goldwaterdroit.com/_vercel/image?url=%2F_composites%2Fv1%2Fprofile%2Fian-solloway%2Fportrait@2x.webp&w=1280&q=100)

###### Our Team

# Ian Solloway

[Email](https://goldwaterdroit.com/mailto:ims@goldwaterdroit.com)

[**Book Now**](https://book.goldwaterdroit.com/v2/#book/service/47)

[Email](https://goldwaterdroit.com/mailto:ims@goldwaterdroit.com)

[**Book Now**](https://book.goldwaterdroit.com/v2/#book/service/47)

- ###### Bar Admission
  - Quebec, 1975
- ###### Education
  - B.C.L., McGill University, 1973
  - B.A. (Honours, Political Science), McGill University, 1970
- ###### Languages Spoken
  - English, French
- ###### Honours & Distinctions
  - Lifetime Achievement Award, English-Speaking Section of the Bar of Montreal (2025)
  - Chair Emeritus, English-Speaking Section of the Bar of Montreal (2023)
  - D'Arcy McGee National Assembly Citizenship Medal (2016)
  - Mérite du Barreau de Montréal (2015)
  - Past-Presidents' Medal, Lord Reading Law Society (2014)
  - Fellow, International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL) (1990)
- ###### Groups & Associations
  - The International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL)
  - The Family Law Lawyers Association (AAADFQ)
  - Canadian Bar Association
  - American Bar Association
  - Lord Reading Law Society (Past-President, 2002–2003)
  - English-Speaking Section of the Bar of Montreal (Past-President, 2009–2017)
  - La Fondation du Barreau du Québec (Governor; Board Member, 2017–2022)
- ###### Appointments
  - Commissioner, Quebec Appeal Commission on the Language of Instruction (1992–2002) — first anglophone appointed; authored or co-authored over 600 decisions
  - Member, Comité de révision du processus d'attribution de la distinction Ad. E., Barreau du Québec (2018)

##### Practice Areas

- [Family Law](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/family-law)
- [Divorce & Separation](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/divorce-separation)
- [Child & Spousal Support](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/child-spousal-support)
- [Parenting, Custody & Access](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/parenting-custody-access)
- [Asset & Property Division](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/asset-property-division)
- [Constitutional & Appellate Litigation](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/constitutional-appellate-litigation)
- [Marriage & Cohabitation Agreements](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/marriage-cohabitation-agreements)
- [Religious Divorce & Faith-Based Marriage](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/religious-divorce-faith-based-marriage)
- [Youth Protection (DPJ)](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/youth-protection)
- [Estate & Succession Disputes](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/estate-succession-disputes)
- [Civil Law](https://goldwaterdroit.com/en/services/civil-law)

**Ian Solloway** is Of Counsel at Goldwater Droit, where he brings more than fifty years of family law experience to complex litigation and international matters.

His practice has focused on family law since the 1980s, covering the full range of domestic and international disputes: divorce and separation, custody and access, child and spousal support, relocation, international child abduction and return, division of matrimonial property, marital regimes, prenuptial and cohabitation agreements, and enforcement of foreign orders. He appears before the Superior Court and the Court of Appeal.

In 1990, Ian was admitted as a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL), a worldwide association of practitioners recognized by their peers as leading family law specialists in their respective countries. He has taught family law at the university level and writes the _Family Law Matters_ newsletter.

In 1992, the Quebec Minister of Education appointed him Commissioner of the Quebec Appeal Commission on the Language of Instruction, the first anglophone named to the tripartite tribunal. Over three mandates spanning ten years, he authored or co-authored more than 600 decisions, several of which reached the Court of Appeal and a few the Supreme Court. In 1998, he appeared before the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons on child custody and access, recommending the replacement of "custody" and "access" with parenting-based terminology and greater weight for domestic violence in parenting decisions. Those recommendations were incorporated into the 2021 amendments to the _Divorce Act_.

His recent trial and appellate work includes cross-border custody and support files litigated across Quebec, Ontario, Ohio, and other jurisdictions; a leading Court of Appeal decision establishing that forum-selection clauses in out-of-province parenting plans cannot override Quebec's jurisdiction over custody and support when a child is domiciled in Quebec; the graduated reduction and eventual termination of indefinite spousal support against a trilingual, healthy ex-spouse who had made no effort toward financial autonomy; and youth-protection revision hearings securing the temporary entrustment of an adolescent to a parent's care with court-ordered psychological evaluation addressing parental alienation. He has litigated provisions for costs on both sides of the ledger (obtaining reductions against modest-income opposing parties and securing awards for his own clients) and has defeated six-figure private-school-fee claims on variation motions.

A long-standing contributor to the bar, Ian served eight consecutive terms as President of the English-Speaking Section of the Bar of Montreal from 2009 to 2017 and was named Chair Emeritus of the Section in 2023. He is a Past-President of the Lord Reading Law Society (2002–2003). In May 2025, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the English-Speaking Section of the Bar of Montreal.

He completed his B.A. (Honours, Political Science) and B.C.L. at McGill University, graduating in 1970 and 1973 respectively, and joined the Quebec Bar in 1975. Early in his career, he practised civil and commercial litigation at the firm of the late Premier Jean Lesage.

He works in English and French.

If not a lawyer, he would have become a linguist. He has spent fifty years attentive to the fact that legal categories live or die by their language.

##### LITIGATION & PRACTICE HIGHLIGHTS

- [_Droit de la famille — 23624 (2023)_](https://canlii.ca/t/jx3cb) - Advocated for the mother in a variation application before the Superior Court seeking modification of parental time, child support, and special expenses for a child in a post-separation matter; the court approved an agreement modifying the father's parenting time to include specific summer, spring break, and Christmas arrangements, ordered the father to pay arrears of child support totalling $10,993.55 with ongoing monthly support of $1,402.52, and allocated special expenses on a 50:50 basis.
- [_Droit de la famille — 21672 (2021)_](https://canlii.ca/t/jfk3g) - Appeared for the mother in a contested custody and child support matter before the Superior Court seeking primary custody of a seven-year-old child; the court awarded shared custody with specific parenting time allocations and ordered the father to pay child support, with subsequent adjustment following indexation under article 590 CCQ, while dismissing the father's emergency protective order application.
- [_Droit de la famille — 191902 (2019)_](https://canlii.ca/t/j2j8q) - Appeared as counsel for the husband in a variation application before the Superior Court seeking to eliminate spousal support and modify child support on the basis of material change in circumstances; the court found the wife remained capable of employment and accepted the husband's contention regarding her financial irresponsibility, annulling the spousal support obligation of $4,660 monthly while modifying child support and ordering the wife to pay the husband the difference.
- [_Protection de la jeunesse — 197575 CanLII (2019)_](https://canlii.ca/t/jn9nm) - Appeared for the mother in a contested youth protection revision hearing before the Youth Division of the Court of Québec involving a 13-year-old whose security and development were declared endangered due to inappropriate educational methods; the court revised a prior order, entrusting the adolescent to her father's care for nine months while ordering supervised contacts between the mother and her daughter as determined by the Director of Youth Protection, and mandating a psychological evaluation with a parental alienation component for all parties.
- [_Droit de la famille — 182346 (2018)_](https://canlii.ca/t/hw165) - Advised and represented the husband in a motion for provision for legal costs before the Superior Court in the context of the wife's opposition to his application to annul spousal support; the wife sought $11,497 in costs, but the court awarded her only $5,000, finding that although she demonstrated financial necessity and disparity in means under established criteria, the simpler nature of the modification proceeding and her failure to provide detailed cost justification did not support the full amount requested.
- [_Droit de la famille — 152222 (2015)_](https://canlii.ca/t/gl7x5) - Advised and represented the father on appeal to the Quebec Court of Appeal challenging an interlocutory judgment concerning jurisdiction and a forum selection clause in a custody agreement involving an Ohio-Ohio separation with Quebec domicile issues; the appellate court dismissed the appeal and upheld the Superior Court's refusal to decline jurisdiction, confirming Quebec courts' competence to hear the matter notwithstanding the forum selection clause in the Ohio Shared Parenting Plan.
- [_Droit de la famille — 101032 (2010)_](https://canlii.ca/t/29rfk) - Served as counsel to the plaintiff in a motion for provision for costs before the Superior Court pending trial on the merits concerning a claimed renunciation of patrimonial property through an opting-out agreement; the court granted a provision for costs of $10,000 in favour of the defendant, finding significant disparity in the parties' financial means and recognizing the defendant's uphill battle to challenge the validity of the notarial renunciation despite evidence of family contributions during the marriage.
- [_Droit de la famille — 083369 (2008)_](https://canlii.ca/t/222fr) - Advocated for the wife in a modification application before the Superior Court seeking to maintain spousal support ordered in a prior divorce judgment despite the husband's claim of changed circumstances; the court found no material change warranting cancellation of the monthly support of $2,032, rejecting the husband's arguments and confirming that the wife's financial and health circumstances at the time of the original judgment remained substantially unchanged.
- [_Droit de la famille — 072200 (2007)_](https://canlii.ca/t/1ss2s) - Served as counsel to the plaintiff in a contested divorce and accessory measures proceeding before the Superior Court involving three minor children; by consent and agreement between the parties, the court established custody arrangements with the mother retaining custody of all three children subject to shared parental authority, confirmed the father's alternating parenting time including specified weekend access and holiday periods, and ordered child support payments in accordance with the parties' settlement.