Erica is an associate lawyer practicing Family Law. Erica was called to the Bar and has been a member of the Law Society of Ontario since January 2020. Erica began her legal career at a general practice firm in Timmins, Ontario where she primarily practiced Family Law and Wills and Estates.

Erica obtained her undergraduate degree at Carleton University, where she double majored in Law and Women’s and Gender Studies. After finishing her undergraduate degree, she traveled to Iqaluit, Nunavut where she lived and worked until she attended Lakehead University’s Bora Laskin Faculty of Law where she received her Juris Doctor in the Spring of 2019, graduating with First Class Standing. Erica has a passion for continuous learning and a desire to gain a deeper understanding of the law and how it can be used to serve individuals and the community, she completed a Master of Laws degree from the University of Ottawa in 2022.

In Erica’s spare time she enjoys taking nature photography, kayaking, bird watching and spending time with loved ones.

Scott has been practicing a wide range of solicitor work since his call to the Ontario Bar in 2002. He spent his first four years in a small firm dealing with corporate and commercial, wills and estates, and real estate matters. He also assisted various municipalities with their legal challenges and then went on to spend twelve years working as in-house counsel for the City of Sarnia.

Prior to earning his Bachelor of Laws at the University of Windsor, Scott completed his Master of Business at Queen’s University (1994) and a Bachelor degree at Brigham Young University (1991). He has taught general business law and personal finance courses at Fanshawe College and has worked in the residential construction and land lease industry. Scott has also spent many years volunteering with a variety of youth groups.

Outside of work, Scott enjoys spending time with his family hiking, kayaking, and motorcycling. He and his wife Janet enjoy travelling to distant places around the globe. For over a decade they have enjoyed coming to the family cottage so much they decided to make Bracebridge their new home and make the most of Muskoka life every day.

Jean Polak is an experienced litigator who also enjoys assisting clients with estate planning. Her practice focuses on wills and estates, estate and commercial litigation, and municipal prosecutions.

Jean was called to the bar in 1989, and began her legal career in Toronto at what was then Tory Tory DesLauriers & Binnington. She took a leave of absence to spend a year in England as a Fox Scholar, working with barristers of the Middle Temple, London. Jean returned to Torys as an associate and continued her busy practice as a civil litigator. In 1993, Jean chose to relocate to Muskoka, where she initially worked for a small firm, then opened her own practice in 2000. She successfully ran that sole practice for over twenty years before joining Barriston LLP as Counsel in 2021. Starting in 2010, she served for more than a dozen years as a member and alternate chair of the Ontario Review Board.

Jean has always been an active volunteer in her community, going back to her roots in Ajax, Ontario, and continuing through her student years, then in her early professional career while still in Toronto.

Since moving to Muskoka, Jean’s volunteer involvement within her community includes being a member and past president of the Rotary Club of Bracebridge, an assistant governor with Rotary International District 7010, volunteering with Community Living South Muskoka and serving on the boards of the local hospital, the Muskoka Heritage Foundation and its successor the Muskoka Conservancy. At a provincial level, she has also served as a member of the Chief Justice of Ontario’s Advisory Committee on Professionalism, as a grant review team volunteer for the Trillium Foundation and as a director of The Advocates’ Society. Jean is a Rotary Citizen of the Year, recipient of the Town of Bracebridge Good Citizenship Award, and in 2019 she was awarded the Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship by the Province of Ontario.