Anita Szigeti Advocates
Automatically compiled listing. Details may contain errors.1 lawyer · Established 2013 · City of Toronto
One of 2,273 law firms listed in Toronto.
Accepts Legal Aid
Accepts Legal AidAbout Anita Szigeti Advocates
Anita Szigeti Advocates is a Toronto firm focused on mental health and the law. Founder Anita Szigeti acts for people with serious mental health issues at the Consent and Capacity Board and the Ontario Review Board, and carries those cases on appeal to the Superior Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal for Ontario. Those clients are almost all legally aided, and Szigeti brings more than 30 years of experience to the work. It's a three-lawyer firm with seven people in all.
The practice covers mental health law on both the criminal and the civil side. Szigeti is in a courtroom almost every day, is often counsel at high-profile coroner's inquests, and has appeared on hundreds of appeals, more than a dozen of them in the Supreme Court of Canada.
Szigeti earned a law degree at the University of Toronto in 1990 and has been a member of the Nunavut Law Society since 2014, representing clients there as well as in Ontario. Szigeti was born in Budapest and is fluent in Hungarian.
Szigeti also teaches and writes, and co-authors five textbooks on mental health, mental disorder and consent and capacity law, teaches trial advocacy at the University of Toronto law school (a role that began in 2016), and co-directs the mental health law course in Osgoode PD's professional Health Law LLM. Szigeti has mentored two generations of lawyers so far.
History
Anita Szigeti was called to the Ontario bar in 1992 and opened a sole practice in 1994, running it on its own for eight years through 2001. From 2002 to 2013 Szigeti was a partner in Hiltz Szigeti, a small firm, and then founded Anita Szigeti Advocates in 2013. This time the solo practice came with associates, articling students, legal support staff and an office manager.
Szigeti's first argument in the Supreme Court of Canada came in January 2003, as amicus curiae in Starson, and from 2000 to 2014 Szigeti was the founding program coordinator of a Court of Appeal for Ontario program that supplies amicus curiae on mental disorder appeals.
Practice areas
Consent and Capacity Board and Ontario Review Board
Every one of Anita Szigeti's clients has a serious mental health issue and a case that has brought them into the legal system. Szigeti appears for them at the Consent and Capacity Board and the Ontario Review Board, and on appeals to the Superior Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal for Ontario.
Appeals and the Supreme Court of Canada
By May 2026 Anita Szigeti had argued 250 reported appeals in the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada alone. At the Supreme Court, Szigeti has appeared as amicus curiae, for parties and for interveners, and has been counsel to the Empowerment Council on most of its interventions there, including Ontario v. G, where the council won leave to intervene and argued that NCR accused who are discharged absolutely should have a way off the sex offender registry.
Amicus curiae appointments
Courts frequently appoint Anita Szigeti as amicus curiae. In R. v. Kahsai, 2023 SCC 20, the case in which the Supreme Court clarified the role of amicus in criminal matters, Szigeti, Carter Martell, Cassandra DeMelo and Maya Shukairy acted for the intervener, the Empowerment Council.
Coroner's inquests
Anita Szigeti has acted for the Empowerment Council as a public interest intervener at coroner's inquests, including the Andrew Loku inquest and the 2022 inquest into the death of Marc Ekamba, and delivered the council's closing submissions to the jury at the Chapman inquest on December 18, 2018.
Fees & payment
Legal aidReported cases
-
Blake (Re), 2021 ONCA 230
Anita Szigeti acted for the appellant on an appeal from a May 2020 Ontario Review Board disposition. The court didn't give effect to the appellant's submissions, but held that if a future hearing disputes how the Mental Health Act's detention provisions apply and work alongside a conditional discharge, the Board should require a complete record and full argument.
Decisions where the firm's lawyers appeared as counsel, from public court records. Past cases don't predict future results.
Milestones & recognition
- 1997 to 2007: Anita Szigeti was the founding chair of the Mental Health Legal Committee for a decade.
- Anita Szigeti was the founding chair, and later a member, of Legal Aid Ontario's mental health law advisory committee.
- 2013 to 2019: Toronto Director of the Criminal Lawyers' Association and chair of its Mental Disorder Portfolio.
- December 2020 to November 2021: Women's Director of the Criminal Lawyers' Association.
- 2018: Certificate in Adjudication (tribunals, boards and agencies) from Osgoode PD and SOAR.
- 2024: general co-editor and an author of the Canadian Anthology on Mental Health and the Law.
In the community
- Anita Szigeti founded the Law and Mental Disorder Association (LAMDA) in 2017 and is its President; it's a national umbrella group of 200 lawyers who practise mental health law.
- In January 2022 Szigeti and colleagues formed Women in Canadian Criminal Defence (WiCCD), a national criminal defence organization, and Szigeti has served as its Secretary since then.
- With lawyer Naomi Sayers, Szigeti set up an annual $500 scholarship at Algoma University in 2022 for a third or fourth year law and justice student committed to mental health advocacy, with preference for students with lived experience.
- In 2023 Szigeti gave guest lectures at four law schools, among them Osgoode Hall Law School, Western, the University of Toronto and the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Affiliations & connections
- Criminal Lawyers' Association: Anita Szigeti has been a member of the Criminal Lawyers' Association since 2009.
- Osgoode Professional Development: Anita Szigeti has co-directed the mental health law course in Osgoode PD's professional Health Law LLM since 2023.
- University of Toronto Faculty of Law: Anita Szigeti, a 1990 graduate of the school, joined its trial advocacy faculty in 2016.
Lawyers 1
Frequently asked questions
- Can Anita Szigeti Advocates appeal my Ontario Review Board disposition to the Court of Appeal?
- Anita Szigeti Advocates' founder argues appeals from Ontario Review Board dispositions in the Court of Appeal for Ontario; Blake (Re), 2021 ONCA 230, is one of them. By May 2026 Szigeti had argued 250 reported appeals in that court and the Supreme Court of Canada.
- Does Anita Szigeti Advocates mostly act for legally aided clients?
- Anita Szigeti Advocates' founder has spent more than 30 years as counsel to clients who are almost all legally aided.
- Can Anita Szigeti Advocates help with a mental health matter in Nunavut?
- Anita Szigeti Advocates' founder was called to the Nunavut bar in 2014 and has represented clients in Nunavut since then as a member of the Nunavut Law Society.
- Can I talk to Anita Szigeti in Hungarian?
- Anita Szigeti Advocates' founder was born in Budapest and is fluent in Hungarian.
Where to find them
Suite 2001, 400 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1S5 · 416-504-6544
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