Thank you to our amazing panelists, wonderful volunteers, my co-Chairs, and the co-hosting organizations, WiCCD and LAMDA, for creating this exceptional opportunity for us all, including for law students, articling students and the newest members of our legal professions, lawyers and paralegals.
I also want to thank our sponsors, Neha Chugh of Chugh Law, Megan Stephens and LexisNexis for their generous sponsorship of the event and donating the mental health law books we gave away as well as Danann Hawes and Emond for donating three criminal law text book door prizes.
LAMDA and WiCCD held our first Mental Disorder and the Criminal Law Conference on Saturday, April 26, 2025, at Toronto Metropolitan University.
All woman chaired, women-led in organizing, volunteer support and all things “managed”. Here are some in the core group – just happy to be together.
The event was free, open to all and more than 500 people registered. For more on the history and substance of the conference, here is my earlier blog entry:
I had been hosting and co-chairing some version of this conference for probably 25 years, first at the Law Society of Ontario — starting in 1999!! and then through the LSO but together with another organization I founded almost 30 years ago now — the MHLC. Then later, when I became a Director in 2013, and Chaired the Mental Disorder Portfolio of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, and we held a couple of these through the CLA alone. Seven more consecutive annual such conferences hosted by the CLA jointly with LAMDA followed starting in 2017, when I founded LAMDA. Throughout those years, my cherished colleague and good friend Cassandra DeMelo most often co-chaired those events with me. With great dedication to the cause, we put on some pretty special CPDs for CLA.
Here is a some truncated history on all that:
Some of the more memorable in this series got their own Blog Write-ups with some history
The last one held in person was Feb 22 2020, my favourite.
The highest attendance achieved for all those events was perhaps 200-250 even when they were held entirely online during COVID.
THE FABULOUS FIRST EVER LAMDA / WICCD MENTAL DISORDER CONFERENCE
Our first LAMDA / WiCCD version drew more than 500+ Registrants, who will all receive the full 5.5 hrs of video of the 8 expert panels we heard from. On Saturday we had 150 in the room with us in person.
Those people got morning muffins courtesy of Neha Chugh and Megan Stephens. Extra large, buttery muffins that were the toast of the town as well as the target of my personal outrage due to #muffingate.
In person we got to hang out together. LAMDA’s President (me) and WiCCD’s President (Maya Shukairy) kicked off the day over coffee together.
The co-Chairs (Dena Bonnet, Justice Jill Presser and me) and sponsors (Megan Stephens) were enjoying each other’s company as well.
We had a wonderful team of WiCCD Volunteers assist with all the logistics, way-finding and registration so that our records in the event of an LSO CPD audit are spotless!
Fearlessly led by Alex Pummer (pictured on the right here), paralegal student par excellence and WiCCD’s Admin Team lead for the day.
And WiCCD Exec Member and Conference Volunteer Sweta Tejpal in the photo below (on the left)
About 200 of the 350 or more registered to attend online participated at different points throughout the day.
We kicked off with my intro – I had to cram a lot into 10 minutes and being 2 x recently post-op, with a subsequent physical injury to boot, sporting a (stylish) cane, with my son for support standing literally by in case I just sort of fell over. I nearly lost my breath a few times. I was often seconds away from fainting – but never did so that’s a win! My motto when feeling like you’ve just been through the washing machine is go get you hair done, polish those nails, throw on the Pat McGrath lippie and GO!!
We had a jam-packed agenda running from 8:30 to 4:30 (EST) with 8 x 45 minute panels of 4 speakers each on average, with each panel aiming to include justice system participants across the aisles – Judges, defence, Crowns, psychiatrists and service users or Persons with Lived Experience.
Eight wonderful panels ran back to back throughout the day starting with Bail, Specialized Courts, then Fitness, then NCR the Law in the morning.
Then there were some very special cookies – #cookiegate is for another day
Afternoon Panels on NCR Process, Review Board Law and Mental Health and Sentencing followed
On Zoom, 80 brave committed souls hung on to the bitter end through about 20 minutes of unexplained silence and an empty room while we cleared out as a result of a fire alarm and an actual fire in the building during our last panel for the day.
Undeterred, Yusuf Faqiri continued his moving presentation about the tragic death of his brother Soleiman, who was killed at the Lindsay superjail –outside, to conference registrants and intrigued passers-by.
PHOTOS
If you’re interested as well, here is a photo gallery of the event:
Photos of LAMDA and WiCCD Mental Disorder Law Conference Apr 26 2025
BOOK DRAW WINNERS ANNOUNCED
CONGRATULATIONS TO WINNERS OF THE FOLLOWING BOOK PRIZES
LEXISNEXIS MENTAL HEALTH LAW TITLES
Jodi Rhiger (LAMDA)
Sarah Dawson (WiCCD)
and Jamie Cameron (Law Professor)
EMOND CRIMINAL LAW SERIES TITLES
Mark Rieger (LAMDA member)
Nicole Wilkinson (WiCCD member) and
Oksana Romanov (Assistant Crown Attorney)
Thanks to LexisNexis Canada for supporting the CAMHL volume and our Conference on the Big Day
BOOK SALE NOW EXTENDED TO MAY 30 – BY POPULAR DEMAND
All LexisNexis Mental Health and Mental Disorder titles are still available for 20% off until MAY 30 using the Discount Code WiCCD20
WiCCD & LAMDA Mental Disorder Conference LN Discount on Mental Disorder Titles
Anita Szigeti’s Mental Health Law Titles LexisNexis
To Learn More about the Books and the Conference, check out this Conversation between Maya Shukairy, Dr. Ruby Dhand and me, recorded approximately two hours before I was hospitalized for emergency surgery about a week before the conference – whoa!!
THANKS FOR BEING WITH US – SEE YOU NEXT TIME!!
HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE DAY – YOU CAN ALWAYS LET US KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS THROUGH WiCCD’s Email here: wiccd.womendefencelawyerscanada@gmail.com
The WiCCD Team
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Video Recording WiCCD & LAMDA Mental Disorder in Criminal Law Conference April 26 2025
VIDEO RECORDING OF CONFERENCE PANELS ON WICCD’S YOUTUBE CHANNEL
WiCCD has begun rolling out our Mental Disorder and the Criminal Law panels – each of the 8 will be uploaded and available, released on Sundays when we are not premiering other new content.
Fist panel on Bail and Mental Health here:
As each panel is rolled out you’ll find them here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1CkdSP8msKB4rV5-cGSYqnVZ_ilyYnhi
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