As 2021, another difficult COVID-19 year, slowly grinds to a halt, I decided to do a little inventory of what I got up to this year, including what my law firm Anita Szigeti Advocates (ASA) and the volunteer lawyer organization I created five years ago, the Law and Mental Disorder Association (LAMDA) accomplished.

The bottom line on all this is that despite the horrors of the pandemic, we have had an incredibly productive year. We made a lot of friends, entertained a lot of lawyers, and litigated out hearts out.

I’m not gonna lie. I am exhausted. I get tired just reading what I did over the course of the last year. But it has all been worthwhile. While we faced tremendous challenges, we put a great lot of good out there.

The year was marred by some very sad events. We lost three cherished clients, to fentanyl overdose, to complications of psychiatric medications and to suicide, most likely. I personally lost many close friends and colleagues as the generation above me of psychiatric survivors and advocates left us. We will always remember and miss the likes of Bonnie Burstow, Graeme Bacque and the great Don Weitz.

But we also made new connections, through social media, Zoom meetings and events, and at our firm we hired new staff, students and lawyers, as others moved on to their next adventures, and we grew.

We lost a lot of cases, but we won some important ones as well. On balance, we improved our clients’ legal situation and their lives. We appeared in all levels of Court and made several trips to see the Supremes. This was the source of much excitement for our students and junior lawyers. My associate Maya Kotob got to flex her new skills as a young lawyer, teaching and doing more appeals. She had fun.

Here is a rough bottom line on what I was involved in putting together from January – December 2021:

In summary:

• CPD
• CPD Events I helped organize – Total = 25
• CPD Events for LAMDA = 13
• CPD Events for CLA = 12
• These included one major conference for the MD Committee of CLA together with LAMDA – unique feature – all the speakers were women
• The dozen CLA Events included Zoom AMAs and CPDs for CLA’s Women’s Committe & a dinner!
• In addition, I co-hosted a LAMDA CPD Event together with CLOC and the Ontario Court of Appeal
• All LAMDA’s CPDs were opened up to the CLA during COVID, for free, to make them accessible

• TEACHING –
• I taught Trial Ad at the U of T
• Mental Health and Health Law for Osgoode PD
• Various federal and provincial tribunals about mental health law and cultural competence where mental health is in issue
• Duty Counsel at LAO on Trauma-Informed Lawyering

• PUBLICATIONS
• With co-authors, I published one academic article, several articles in legal magazines, papers for speeches, lectures or other speaking engagements I gave, including on developing jurisprudence, Inquests, COVID and our clients, trauma-informed lawyering, and a series of blog posts here on the Status of Women in the Criminal Defence Bar
• With a team, we began work on three other academic articles and made submissions to the Miscarriage of Justice Commission’s Consultation Committee, based on research for a paper to be published
• Began working on the outline for my next text book

• SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
• Gave talks to Judges and Administrative Tribunal Adjudicators
• To Duty Counsel
• To clients with Psychiatric Histories
• To families of People with Serious Mental Health issues
• To Law Students
• To Health Care Providers and Administrators
• To lawyers, including criminal lawyers, defence and Crowns, family lawyers and for LSO broadly

• VOLUNTEER COMMUNITY WORK
• This past year I attended Board meetings and various committee meetings as:
• President of LAMDA
• Board member of NARPA
• Board member of Pilot Place Society
• Women’s Director of the CLA

It’s been quite the year. As we put it behind us, we look forward to building on what we have started, continuing our file work for our clients, and starting new adventures!