Michael Cochrane

Michael Cochrane is Counsel to the firm Brauti Thorning LLP in Toronto (www.btlegal.ca) and an author (www.michaelcochrane.ca). He has published a number of books about Canadian law including his best-selling books, Surviving Your Divorce (6th edition), Do We Need a Marriage Contract, Do We Need a Cohabitation Agreement (both published by Wiley), Family Law in Ontario for Lawyers and Law Clerks (Thomson Reuters), Class Actions: A Guide to Ontario’s Class Proceedings Act, as well as Night Soil and Night Soil II: Inferno, two novels about the exploits of a nasty Toronto family law lawyer (LegalIntel). A regular columnist for Lexis Nexis legal affairs news, he is frequently featured on television and radio as an expert in a number of areas of Canadian law, including legal disputes over lottery winnings. Over his 45 plus years of practice, he has been an advocate for a more humane system for separating and divorcing families.

He was the host of BNN television’s national legal affairs program Strictly Legal for three seasons and published Strictly Legal: Everything You Need to Know About Canadian Law (Insomniac Press) based on the program.

His best-selling book, Olympic Lyon: The Untold Story of the First Gold Medal for Golf is the only book ever written about Canada’s forgotten Olympic golf legend George Lyon.

He has lectured in law at Osgoode Hall Law School, Ryerson University (now TMU), the University of Ottawa, Common Law and at Carleton University, Department of Law.

He was a recent recipient of the King Charles III Coronation Medal for his contributions to politics, public policy and law.