News Item

Auckland women win prestigious Law Foundation Ethel Benjamin Scholarship

The winners of this year’s New Zealand Law Foundation Ethel Benjamin Scholarship were announced at the annual New Zealand Law Foundation Ethel Benjamin Commemorative Address held in Dunedin on 7 May.

The two women lawyers who received the 2010 scholarship are Sarah Nolan and Adrienne Anderson, both from Auckland. They each receive $25,000 to assist their post-graduate study.

Sarah will begin studying towards an LLM at University College London in late September. She plans to further her interest in resource management and environmental law, specialising in Environmental Law and Policy.

Sarah studied at the University of Canterbury and graduated in 2007 with a BA majoring in Geography and an LLB with first class honours. Her honours dissertation was entitled ‘Affected persons under the Resource Management Act 1991’ and was published in ‘Resource Management Theory and Practice’ and ‘Canterbury Law Review’ journals.

In 2005 she was awarded the Simpson Grierson Law Scholarship and she is currently employed as an Associate with the firm’s Local Government and Environment work-group. In this role Sarah advises on a range of environmental and local government issues.

Adrienne plans to study for an LLM in Public International Law at the University of Michigan. Her focus will be on International Human Rights Law and International Refugee Law.

Adrienne graduated from the University of Auckland in 2008 with a BA, majoring in Spanish and an LLB (Hons). She is presently employed as a research assistant for a refugee law project at the University of Melbourne. Until January, Adrienne worked as a legal associate with the New Zealand Refugee Status Appeals Authority. Here she carried out research and analysis, and provided advice for those making final determinations about refugee status at the appellate level.

Law Foundation Executive Director, Lynda Hagen, said when announcing the award “both winners have had an enduring interest in their speciality fields since High School and their passion for their future goals shone through at their interview for the scholarship.”

The Law Foundation established the scholarship in 1997 to commemorate Ethel Benjamin, New Zealand’s first woman lawyer. It is awarded to outstanding women scholars to support post-graduate research in law that encompasses the Foundation’s wider objectives, in particular research to improve law for the benefit of New Zealand and New Zealanders. This is the thirteenth year the scholarship has been awarded.

Click for for further information about the Law Foundation’s Ethel Benjamin Scholarship.