Having handed out the three Awards to our amazing WiCCD Woman (Genevieve Eliany), WiCC ALLY (Nader Hasan) and the inaugural WiCCD Administration of Justice Awards (The Honourable Brock Jones), I realized Cassandra DeMelo was still talking. And I was very confused.

She was saying there was still another award. How could that be? I started WiCCD, I really am deep in the weeds with it. I was very involved with the minutiae of planning this conference. Why was I not told about this extra Award? I was almost angry there for a minute, until it started to dawn on me.

This last award was for me.

Although for a second I doubted myself and wondered just how foolish I’ll feel believing this must be the case, just ’cause I was in the dark about the whole thing, but then the award goes to someone else, someone truly deserving. Self-doubt creeps in even subconsciously at the oddest moments.

But then I got a grip and tried to settle in to fully appreciate and live in this moment.

Here is a quick peek at this thing of sheer beauty:

The tears started flowing early as I was overcome with emotion, something I rarely experience to the point that I can barely hear or see, let alone absorb what’s happening around me. So I missed most of the no doubt exceptionally beautiful words Cassandra was saying – I’ll have to watch the video, which I am very much looking forward to. But I did catch her say “without Anita, there would be no WiCCD.”

This last part is true enough, in that the original concept and name were mine.

With that said, as I hope I made clear in my impromptu speech in accepting this honour, my main contribution was just that – founding and creating the organization. Where it’s at NOW, is not me. It’s certainly not only me. It is the work of literally dozens, hundreds of strong, committed, powerful forces of nature – my women colleagues in the criminal defence bar. I tried to name as many as I could, famously forgot some who are wildly important, and ran out of time to get to everyone.

For the keeners, a super blurred version of my acceptance speech – much better one coming soon:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11ERfzf37SvTE-ryDWmkU6mvfccWOiTZ8/view?usp=sharing

But the reality is that WiCCD grew from a single seed – quite amusing now looking back on it. It was the seed of one too many nasty, gender-biased, poison-penned missives out of a bunch of guys who just didn’t get it. I bet they still don’t. I spent many years on the inside of male dominated associations, trying to sort of cajole them into seeing how they were continually excluding strong women’s voices, how they were silencing and othering, belittling and alienating younger women in defence, contributing to the massive losses of women from the practice of criminal defence altogether. This did not work. Not even a little bit.

After the penultimate set of those nasty exchanges, to which others were very unfortunately exposed, many young women colleagues contacted me, some were crying in anger, frustration, and fear. They said: “If you can be treated this way, at your stage of your career, how can we expect anything different?” And that really hit a nerve with me. At the same time there were dynamics on a much larger scale within the profession as well, all bad for women, all contributing to a single idea.

We needed a national organization for Women in Defence – one where men were in charge of absolutely nothing.

For how and when that hit me and more importantly why – see the last in my original three-part series on Women in Criminal Defence that preceded the birth of WiCCD.

https://anitaszigeti.wordpress.com/2021/12/07/women-in-the-criminal-defence-bar-part-iii-solutions/

That Blog Post entry is dated December 7, 2021. WiCCD was formally established on January 4, 2022.

The reaction initially from our male colleagues, and some women who perhaps misunderstood the impetus or the history or purpose, but mostly the men, was unsurprisingly but still sadly almost universally hostile. The men I spoke to who sought me out vigorously urged me to abandon the idea. They felt I was doing the whole bar a disservice: specifically I would be “segregating” my women colleagues from the men, depriving them of the great wisdom the guys had to offer. This of course missed the point completely. Nobody was removing anybody from anywhere.

We were creating an additional but safer place just for women. The men also complained THEY would be deprived of their interactions with the women in the bar. That of course was also not the goal, but if they had alienated their women colleagues, the time to reflect and guard against that was before now.

The concerns raised by some women were of a slightly different nature – they feared we would be competing against existing women’s committees within bigger organizations and candidly saw no need for alternate leadership as they believed all that could be done for women in our bar was already being done by established, bigger voices who already had a seat at all the important tables.

Those concerns have not been borne out over the time WiCCD has been in existence. But to allay those kinds of fears, WiCCD’s mission statement is clear – we have no desire or intention to compete – we are there to support and build on, bring together like-minded groups. Importantly, on a national scale.

You can review WiCCD’s mission Statement here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/157CYJ3hh8EVIVWua3ylZQHoDJS9ROhvw/view

Where is WiCCD now?

Well, attitudes about WiCCD have dramatically and very quickly changed. We always knew they would. We ignored the detractors, because we believed in ourselves and had the strength of our convictions.

Among all Justice System Participants, we are already hugely respected, award-winning, strong, independent, enjoying the support of our members and allies and thriving. Among WiCCD’s many, many accomplishments, let me name just a few:

WiCCD By the Numbers and More as of September 2024

Age: 2.75 years

Members: 550+

Region: National – every province and territory is represented in our membership

Awards Received: One – CLAWBIE 2023 Recipient for Best YouTube Channel

Awards Given Out: NINE – Three WiCCD Women (Roots Ghadia, Erin Dann and Genevieve Eliany); Three WiCCD Allies (John Struthers, Marco Sciarra and Nader Hasan), One Administration of Justice Award (Justice Brock Jones), One WiCCD Wonder (Maya Shukairy) and The WiCCDest Woman (Anita Szigeti)

Videos Available on our YouTube Channel: 108 – all hosted by the stellar Maya Shukairy

Subscribers to our YouTube Channel: 413

Videos with more than 1000 views – (a YouTube Benchmark for success): FIVE

Twitter Followers: 1300

CPD: dozens of programs hosted online and now in hybrid format – ALL FREE

Listserv: collegial, supportive, busy, beloved, legendary

Leadership: Nine exceptional women on our volunteer Executive

Administration: Seven volunteer law students or new lawyers run our list, membership & social media

Keynote Anniversary Addresses by SCC Justices: two

Hybrid Conferences Held: Two

Bail Conference Attendees: 380

Collaboration with other Organizations: Several – WiCCD is a partner of the Ontario Court of Appeal in organizing the prestigious Rosenberg Mentorship Moot, partners with Women’s Legal Mentorship Program to host speed mentoring sessions, is a Member Organization of RODA, the Roundtable of Diversity Associations, and has been regularly invited to make submissions on important issues to the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) and Legal Aid Ontario (LAO), among others.

To All Those Who Are Making This Happen

The stunning success of WiCCD is to the great credit of those who work tirelessly to ensure it thrives. Maya Shukairy never stops. Cassandra works so hard. Amanda, Sarah, Maija, Breana, Hamna – we are a TEAM on the Exec, fearlessly led by Sid Freeman and her unfailing principled moral compass. Our contributions are tremendous – our efforts, time and money go to support the organization we love.

But we are also gaining fans and supporters.

We have been blessed with constant, unrelenting support from organizations like Emond and individuals like Danann Hawes and Justice Jones. We wouldn’t be where we are today.

As for me, to see the success of WiCCD, the camaraderie and collegiality of the women members on our list, every day, supporting and celebrating one another, is the greatest gift of all.

But the Award means the world as well. I am eternally grateful to Cass and Maya for this surprise that they managed to keep from me and to the whole Exec who made this happen. And of course to our wonderful members.

From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!!

But also, like Columbo, if I may just ask one last question though:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q1thT6TEzA7UJQxmaXtRBMGhZQ7PWSVc/view?usp=sharing

For the Entire Awards Ceremony on Sept 14 2024 watch on WiCCD YouTube Channel here: