Transforming spousal support from the ground up: Carol Rogerson and the development of the spousal support advisory guidelines

It is not an exaggeration to say that Carol Rogerson has been instrumental in shaping Canadian family law. Along with Rollie Thompson of the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, Carol created the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (SSAGs), a set of informal and non-binding guidelines that have fundamentally reshaped the Canadian law of spousal support. The importance of the SSAGs is impossible to overstate; they have given coherence and structure to an area of law that had become uncertain and unpredictable. The SSAGs have made spousal support orders more consistent and more principled, and the clarity that they provide has also improved access to justice by encouraging negotiation and settlement. Through her ground-breaking work on the SSAGs, Rogerson not only transformed the law, but she also improved the process for all Canadians involved in spousal support claims.