How It Started 

In December of 2016, things were very challenging in my life and I felt ready for a change.  I decided one morning to start a new, fresh and dynamic volunteer lawyer association that could hopefully work with any others out there who were similarly minded, advocating for the rights of individuals with serious mental health issues. I felt strongly that it was time for LAMDA and I believed in it.  Well before it was even born.  It was born on January 1, 2017 and we had, once again, as with the precursor group of the 90s when I started it, five members. I appear to have a habit of starting new organizations once roughly every 20 years, whether anyone likes it or not!

How It’s Going – “Never Underestimate the Power of Community, Support and Care” – a lot of good things come from genuine respect and affection!

• We are a huge Twitter HIT, first of all, with 725 followers, garnered in about five months.
• We have a strong membership of 175 lawyers & some law students
• Our membership is extremely diverse: in a host of ways:
• We have a solid mix of new, young members and let say: “wise experienced ‘elders'”
• We are truly national:, we have members from literally every province and territory as far as I can tell (albeit geography is not my strong suit)
• We have significant representation of racialized lawyers, likely as many women as men; we extend a warm welcome to our non-binary colleagues, of course
• We have an active discussion forum, expressions of opinions and dialogue, support each other on cases on our list-serv, with increasing day-to-day traffic
• We are now recognized as an important stake-holder group
• We have obtained a seat at the table with organizations including: LAO, CCB and the OCA in terms of attending meetings and being consulted
• We have begun writing letters and expressing our positions on matters of import to us
• We are co-hosting six Justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, together with CLOC
• We are CPD providers extraordinaire
• In this regard, each year we provide our members Free CPD to meet your 12 mandatory hours of 9 substantive and 3 professionalism credits, including EDI
• We put on the annual conference jointly with the CLA that is always popular and increasingly so – some say it’s their favourite conference of the year
• We have a Women’s mentoring program where five pairings have been made between senior women counsel and junior counsel so far this year alone
• We have never once had a moment’s worth of discord, unpleasantness, interpersonal issues or conflict that has been destructive in any way
• We have sustained a cordial, collegial, friendly, supportive, effective and helpful communication with all our members, united in our commitment to our clients
• We have improved our services to our clients by sharing stories, tips and information about the law and practice issues in relation to mental health / disorder

How It Will Go Next – There is Real Strength In Numbers, New Projects on the Horizon, Continued Good Vibes and Camaraderie Will Sustain Us

Looking ahead into 2021, I expect we can only have an even better year ahead.
We will keep the side-benefits the virus brought us, namely Zoom will assist in hosting our meetings – it has been a Boom, so to speak, to remote attendance for those not in Toronto – though the moment we can Toronto members will get into a big boardroom and hug everyone endlessly -guaranteed.
I hope to begin Interventions by LAMDA in important litigation and Inquests.  That’s the next frontier and it is on my horizon. 

I am also going to have at least one big secret project hopefully get off the ground and involve as many of you in it as I can.
I am incredibly proud of this group and all that we have achieved so far and continue to accomplish together.
I wish I had taken a screen-shot of the holiday Zoom party gathering with at least 35 members rotating through.

I am genuinely moved by how far we have come.
Not bad at all for a group that doesn’t have a website and has never charged a dime for anything. 
I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank all the current and former staff of my law firm for running the show here – Joe Berger, Alisa Kahn, Kyle Quinlan, Jeewan Gill, Tanner Blomme, Aakanksha Chauhan and especially Maya Kotob – indispensable and lovely, hilarious to work with, all.
To everyone:
Thank you for joining me on this great ride of LAMDA fun.