Our event starts at 11 am on the 2nd floor of the Koffler House (569 Spadina Avenue). Social 10:45am – 11:00am.
Before she became a lawyer our featured speaker, Heather Hui-Litwin, held many assumptions about the justice system. She had a lot of faith in the system. She thought it was mostly common sense. She thought in terms of black and white, right and wrong. She believed that the person in the right will be saved, and justice always prevails. After having gone through a civil trial, becoming a lawyer herself, she realized that her beliefs were overly simplistic. Her idealization of the adversarial process prevented her from exploring and understanding the tremendous value in collaborative conflict resolution processes, such as mediation. If she had known then, what she knows now, she would have done things differently. In this talk Heather will attempt to share with you the realities she learned, in her journey from being a client to becoming a lawyer.
Heather Hui-Litwin is a non-practising lawyer whose passion is in public legal education. She and her husband were once embroiled in a lawsuit which lasted many years. During part of the lawsuit, they represented themselves. Even though being a litigant was stressful, she developed a strong interest in the law. She went to Osgoode Hall Law School, and was called to the Bar in 2012. Her personal experience motivated her to work in the area of access to justice. She co-founded the Self-Rep Navigators (www.limitedscoperetainers.ca) in 2015, with colleague Mick Hassell, in hopes of developing limited scope services to be an acceptable mode of legal practice, and promoting it to the public. She is also starting a public legal education project, Litigation Help, www.litigation-help.com , where she and her colleagues will deliver legal education in plain language through its own YouTube channel, as well as speaking to the public in libraries and community centres.
Our guest musician will be Jessica Stuart (https://jessicastuartmusic.com/). Vancouver born, Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist/songwriter, Jessica Stuart has spent much of the last decade touring the world with her award-winning jazz-pop trio, The Jessica Stuart Few. As an accomplished vocalist, guitarist and koto player (13-stringed traditional Japanese harp), Stuart has been praised for her on-stage charm, musical chops, and signature song writing style. Described by The Globe & Mail as “endlessly charismatic”, Jessica has been likened to a modern-day Joni Mitchell with lyrics that describe the joys and challenges of the human experience, delivered in a catchy, but musically adventurous package.
Some of Stuart’s recent career highlights include a Top 40 single in Japan, a “Best Album” designation in the international Independent Music Awards, festival performances in Australia, Germany, China, Japan and North America, and regular rotation on airwaves around the globe, from the BBC to the CBC.
Coming off of the release of the single “Fukue’s Theme Part I” that accompanied a record-breaking viral CBC documentary about the artist herself (3 million views and counting), Stuart has released an indie-pop single this summer (June 2019) called Simple Little Song, under the new project name JESSA.
Lola Bradford will do the Community Moment. The Community Moment is a chance for one of our own to share their journey, thoughts about life, or something personal about themselves. It could be light and silly or it could be emotionally heavy. Either way, you’ll learn more about a valued person in our community. Interested in presenting your own Community Moment? Contact Tania at 416oasis@gmail.com.
You can RSVP for this on our Meetup page at:
https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/pzdxgryzmbdc/