November 15 deadline approaches for the $25,000 Viscount Bennett Fellowship

  • September 13, 2019

Law school graduates who are pursuing post-grad education in law could support their studies and join a distinguished list of recipients through the Viscount Bennett Fellowship, offered by the CBA.

The $25,000 Viscount Bennett Fellowship, to be awarded in the spring of 2020, has an application deadline of November 15, 2019. 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 R.B. 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.

Previous recipients of the Fellowship have gone on to distinguished careers in government, politics, the judiciary, academia and business. The 1991 Fellowship was awarded to David Lametti, now Canada’s Minister of Justice and Attorney-General. At the CBA annual meeting in February 2019, Lametti expressed his appreciation for the opportunities that the Fellowship provided.

“…I have a personal debt of gratitude to the Canadian Bar Association because in 1991, you named me as your Viscount Bennett Fellow and that is one of the ways in which I could afford to do doctoral studies at Oxford University,” said Lametti. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me, in this great country, to be able to pursue a legal education. That allowed me then, I hope, to make a positive contribution both as a university professor, academic and lawyer, and now as an elected official and Minister of Justice.”

More recent recipients of the scholarship have also lauded its impact on their academic and career paths, among them 2018-19 recipient Anthony Sangiuliano (MA, JD) of Maple, Ontario.

“The financial support of the Viscount Bennett Fellowship has been indispensable for me to advance through my program of study…the fellowship has already affected me on a personal level and has transformed my ability to develop my intellectual skills and experiences through graduate school. I am deeply grateful to the Canadian Bar Association for this unique opportunity,” said Sangiuliano, a PhD candidate at the Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University.

Other prominent recipients since the Fellowship was launched include:

  • Marc Lalonde, federal Cabinet member under Pierre Trudeau and John Turner (1955)
  • John Crosbie, federal Cabinet member under Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney (1956)
  • The Honourable Jean-Louis Baudouin, Justice of the Court of Appeal of Quebec (1959)
  • The Honorable Hélène Le Bel - Retired Justice of the Quebec Superior Court (1967)
  • Michael Ian Krauss, Professor of law at George Mason University School of Law (1977)
  • The Honorable Frans F. Slatter, Justice of the Court of Appeal of Alberta (1979)
  • Jeremy Webber, Professor of Law at the University of Victoria (1986)
  • Karen Knop, Professor of International Law at the University of Toronto (1989)
  • Laura Christine Hoyano, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford (1990)
  • Penney Jaye Lewis, Professor of Law, King’s College UK (1993)
  • Janine L. Benedet, Faculty Member, Allard School of Law, The University of British Columbia, contributor to Canadian Bar Review (1994)
  • Talha Syed, Assistant Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley Law School (2001)