November 16 deadline approaching for the $25,000 Viscount Bennett Fellowship

Law school graduates pursuing post-graduate studies in law can apply to join a distinguished list of recipients of the Viscount Bennett Fellowship, managed by the Canadian Bar Association.

The deadline to apply for the $25,000 Viscount Bennett Fellowship, to be awarded in the spring of 2022, is November 16, 2021. Applicants must be Canadian citizens who have graduated from, or are pursing final year undergraduate studies at, an approved law school in Canada. All applicants must be CBA members in good standing.

The Right Honourable Viscount Bennett, CBA President in 1929-30, established the trust fund that supports the scholarship in 1943 to be used to encourage a high standard of legal education, training and ethics. More than 70 individuals have been recipients in the ensuing years.

The 2021 recipient, Teagan Markin, an associate with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP in Toronto, is at Harvard this fall to explore progressive constitutional law principles that support substantive equality, freedom of expression and the protection of public health.

“Law is not just a means in and of itself,” Markin told CBA National, “it’s always been a means to an end, and that end is deciding how to justly determine disputes. I’ve always seen law as determining what we have access to, and what rights we have. The law is embedded with values, and the courts would agree.”

The 2020 recipient, Léa Brière‑Godbout, is a member of the Barreau du Québec with a degree in law from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and a master’s in law from Yale University in the United States. She also clerked for Justice François Doyon at the Quebec Court of Appeal and for Chief Justice Richard Wagner at the Supreme Court of Canada. The fellowship helped her pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, focusing on equality and discrimination.

Prominent winners since the Fellowship was launched include:

• John Crosbie, federal Cabinet member under Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney
• Marc Lalonde, federal Cabinet member under Pierre Trudeau and John Turner
• The Honorable Hélène Le Bel - Retired Justice of the Quebec Superior Court
• The Honourable Jean-Louis Baudouin, judge of the Court of Appeal of Quebec 
• The Honorable Frans F. Slatter, Justice of the Court of Appeal of Alberta
• Laura Christine Hoyano, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
• Penney Jaye Lewis, Professor of Law, King’s College UK
• Michael Ian Krauss, Professor of law at George Mason University School of Law
• Talha Syed, Assistant Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley Law School
• The Honorable David Lametti, Canada’s Minister of Justice and Attorney-General under Justin Trudeau
• Jeremy Webber, Professor of Law at the University of Victoria.
• Karen Knop is a Professor of International Law at the University of Toronto
• Wade Wright Assistant Professor of Law, University of Western Ontario – Western Law
• Pascale Fournier, Professor and Research Chair in Legal Pluralism and Comparative Law, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law
• Janet Elizabeth Walker is Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School – York University
• Janine L. Benedet, is Faculty Member, Faculty of Law, The University of British Columbia
• Drew MacIntyre, Vice Chair and Head of Global Energy, Power & Utilities Group, TD Securities, Senior Vice President, TD Bank Group
• Shanti Atkins, former Founder and Executive Chairman NAVEX Global Inc.

Please visit the Viscount Bennett Fellowship webpage to learn more about eligibility criteria and nomination procedure. The next Fellowship will be awarded in the spring of 2022.