A Cold Night Filled with Warm Company and Conversation
Bottom Row – Heather Catania; Heather Fisher; Kortney Shapiro; Paige Donnelly; Eden Wine; Jordana Keslassy.
On Thursday, February 25th, I had the pleasure of attending the fourth annual OWN Your Career event, the Osgoode Women’s Network’s culminating event of the school year, held at Toronto’s Rosehill Venue, a warm, comfortable space a few minutes walk from St. Clair subway station. The evening is designed for two main purposes: to provide a chance for Osgoode’s women students to network with professionals in the local legal field and to hear from a keynote speaker. OWN went in a slightly different direction this year, opting to have a relaxed fireside chat where everyone in the room was on the same level as the guest of honour.
This year’s keynote speaker—although I hesitate to use the term speaker when what took place was a conversation and not a speech—was Justice Kelly Wright. Justice Wright spent 6 years as a police officer in Calgary before attending Osgoode. After working as an Assistant Crown Attorney for fourteen years, she was appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice in 2008, then to the Superior Court of Justice in 2013. In addition to her already heavy workload, Justice Wright has been an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall for five years.
While her resume is nothing to scoff at, it is when you hear Justice Wright speak that you gain a real appreciation for her approach to life, work and self. She is truly a phenomenal woman, someone so fun and engaging that it is impossible to do anything but focus on every word she says. I was lucky enough to chat with Justice Wright before she spoke with the full group—and to be perfectly honest I forgot to write anything down because I was enjoying myself so much.
After roughly an hour of delicious hors d’oeuvres (courtesy of the Food Dudes) and mingling (including time for my brief conversation with her), Justice Wright sat down with OWN’s Paige Donnelly and answered five questions. I won’t list the questions because they aren’t nearly as important as her answers. By the time the fireside chat began, I remembered to bring out my notebook and furiously scribbled down as many tidbits as I could.
Among the numerous brilliant pieces of wisdom Justice Wright shared (including “laugh your ass off every day,” and “don’t trust answers that come from a negative place”); the one that stuck with me most was “stop keeping score.” As a woman—but not speaking for all women—I have generally been raised to make sure everyone else in my life is doing well before I check in with myself. My days are filled with remembering everything I’ve forgotten to do and everyone I’ve (presumably) annoyed, ticked off, or let down. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I bothered trying to figure out me—quite frequently friends and relatives would tell me something about myself and I would think, “why don’t I know that?” But it makes sense; you can’t get to know yourself when you are your last priority. Justice Wright’s words shot through my ears, pinged around my brain and dove down into my heart. OF COURSE I should stop keeping score, why hadn’t I thought of that?
OWN’s President, the lovely and gregarious Kortney Shapiro said what she wanted most was to encourage women at Osgoode and in the legal profession to “get out of the boardroom, get out of the library, get out of office and get to know each other!!” Put simply, the event succeeded on every front AND included some of the best food I will eat all year. Bravo to OWN’s Executives and their volunteers!