Julien D. Payne, CM, KC, LLD, LSM, FRSC, is one of Canada's pre-eminent family law specialists and has been called the architect of Unified Family Courts and no-fault divorce. He has taught family law at the universities of Alberta, Ottawa, Western Ontario, and Saskatchewan and has written very extensively about family law and family dispute resolution. He is the author of Payne on Divorce, fourth edition (Carswell, 1996), and is the co-author with his wife, Marilyn, of Canadian Family Law and its companion text, Child Support Guidelines in Canada (2022), both of which are published by Irwin Law. His writings have been cited more than 2,000 times by trial courts and appellate courts in Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada. He was awarded the Law Society Medal by the Law Society of Ontario in 2002 and was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada in 2004.