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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2002

OTTAWA - Canadian Bar Association President Eric Rice, Q.C. of Vancouver, today announced that Pascale Fournier, has been awarded the CBA Viscount Bennett Fellowship for graduate legal studies for the 2002 - 2003 academic term.

The 27-year-old native of Sainte-Foy, Quebec, was selected from a field of 31 legal scholars across Canada. She plans to continue her graduate studies at Harvard Law School through 2002. Her upcoming thesis will examine law and its differences in Multicultural societies, specifically, Muslim Women's Encounters with the legal systems of Canada and the United States.

"I will test the rhetoric of multiculturalism against the reality of Muslim women," said Ms. Fournier. "My doctorate will stay true to the inductive and concrete approach that multiculturalism only comes into focus as we work out its implications in schools, neighbourhoods and a wide range of societal interactions and institutions, including law."

In addition to her formidable academic success, Pascale Fournier was selected by Canada World Youth as a top participant after the time she spent with the program in Egypt in 1995-1996. This year long community service exchange was spent partly in Acadia and partly in Egypt where she taught English to children and participated in humanitarian work. The experience led her to return to Egypt after she was called to the bar, to work with lawyers in the field of discrimination against women in Egypt and Lebanon.

Ms. Fournier's interest in the legal rights of women led her to author the book, Is This the Way Young Women Live? This publication was made into a CD-ROM version and placed in every secondary school in Quebec by Jeunesse du Monde.

The fellowship was established under the terms of a trust by former Prime Minister and CBA president Viscount Bennett. The first fellowship was awarded in 1946. Since then, some 65 students have received the award. Valued at $20,000, the fellowship is awarded annually to a Canadian student to encourage high standards of legal education, training and ethics.

The Canadian Bar Association is dedicated to improvement in the law and the administration of justice. Some 37,000 lawyers, notaries, law teachers, and law students from across Canada are members.

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CONTACT: Hannah Bernstein, Canadian Bar Association, 500 - 865 Carling Ave. , Ottawa, ON, K1S 5S8 Tel: (613) 237-2925, ext. 146; E-mail: hannahb@cba.org