For Immediate Release
August 12, 2005
VANCOUVER - The Canadian Bar Association's 2005 Ramon John Hnatyshyn Award for Law will be presented to Prof. J.P.S. McLaren of Victoria at the 2005 CBA Canadian Legal Conference on Aug. 13, 2005.
“Prof. McLaren has made an outstanding and unique contribution to law and legal scholarship in Canada in the area of legal history,” said Susan McGrath of Iroquois Falls, Ont., President of the CBA. "He has truly earned the sobriquet of 'Canada's legal history ambassador to the common-law world.'”
Prof. McLaren is a renowned author, scholar, and teacher. His work on comparative colonial law virtually created the subject as a sub-discipline of legal history. He has written on the legal regulation and suppression of prostitution, the history of law and discrimination against ethnic minorities in Canada (including the Chinese and Doukhobor communities) the law and religious conscience in Canadian history, and the writing of legal history in the common law world.
His published works are considered required reading in a number of fields in law, the humanities, and social sciences. Prof. McLaren is regarded as a pre-eminent legal historian whose work and intellectual leadership are prized both in Canada and abroad.
Prof. McLaren has taught at four Canadian law schools, was Dean of Law at the University of Windsor, and was the founding Dean of Law at the University of Calgary. He is currently Lansdowne Professor of Law at the University of Victoria, where he has also been acting Dean on two occasions. In addition, Prof. McLaren has held adjunct and visiting positions at a number of other schools. He was a member of the Fraser Committee and a co-author of its report, Pornography and Prostitution in Canada.
He received his law degree from Queens College, Dundee, in the University of St. Andrews in 1962, and master's degrees in law from University College in London in 1964 and the University of Michigan in 1970. He was awarded an honourary doctorate of laws from the University of Calgary in 1997.
Prof. McLaren's son, Duncan, will accept the award on behalf of his father, who is traveling extensively in Europe, at the CBA Council Awards luncheon, on Saturday, Aug. 13, at the Vancouver Convention Centre, Ballroom B, during the CBA Canadian Legal Conference from August 14-16. The awards ceremony is open to accredited journalists who have registered with the CBA Media Centre.
Established in 1993 by then-Governor-General Ramon John Hnatyshyn, the Hnatyshyn Award for Law recognizes outstanding contribution to the law or legal scholarship in Canada.
The Canadian Bar Association represents the legal profession on a national and international level. It is dedicated to improvement in the law and the administration of justice. Some 34,000 lawyers, law teachers and law students from across Canada are members.
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CONTACT: Hannah Bernstein, Canadian Bar Association, Tel: (613) 237-2925, ext. 146; E-mail: hannahb@cba.org. Aug. 12-15: (604) 647-7408.
