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→The basic arbitration process
Most of the time, the next step after the prehearing conference involves exchanging the documents and information that are relevant to the legal issues in the dispute. If child support is an issue, for example, financial statements might be prepared and documents like income tax returns, T4 slips, and paystubs might be exchanged. If property is an issue, you might need tax assessments, purchase documents, mortgage statements, and maybe a professional appraisal of the current value of the property.
You need to think carefully about what sort of documents and information you need. For complicated problems, you might also hire an expert to give an opinion about things like the value of a pension, a tax problem, or the best parenting arrangements for the children. (That last kind of opinion is called a ''parenting assessment'' or a ''section 211 report'', and is usually prepared by a psychologist, clinical counsellor, or social worker. You can get more information about these ''reports'' and ''assessments '' in the first section of the [[Children and Parenting after Separation]] chapter, under the heading ''Reports and Assessments''.) You might also need to exchange bank statements, credit card statements and corporate financial statements. The nature of the documents that are important, the extent of the disclosure that is required, and the type of expert opinions that are most useful will change depending on the circumstances, the legal issues, and how the parties have decided to approach the arbitration process.
Once the relevant documents have been exchanged and any expert opinions have been completed, each party will start to work on how they're going to present their case to the arbitrator and on the documents they'll want to refer the arbitrator to at the hearing. These might include: