Jandura has practised at Lenczner Slaght in Toronto, Byram at Nerland Lindsey in Calgary
The Law Society of Alberta has announced Allison Jandura and Joe Byram as this year’s recipients of the Viscount Bennett Scholarship, which seeks to support the pursuit of post-graduate legal studies and promote high standards of legal education and training.
According to the law society, the $20,000 annual award goes to individuals with exceptional academic records and a commitment to contributing to their communities through legal practice. Funding comes from a trust established in 1943 by the late Viscount Bennett.
The law society’s update and Jandura’s and Byram’s LinkedIn profiles provide more information about their professional experience, academic background, and research interests.
Allison Jandura
At the University of Toronto, Jandura is entering her second year of the doctor of juridical science (SJD) program.
“The Faculty at the University of Toronto has a lot of strength in private law theory, and specifically in rights-based theories of private law,” she said in the law society’s update. “The community there has been very supportive and approachable, and I am fortunate to have Dean Christopher Essert as my supervisor. He has been a great mentor and is a leading scholar in private law.”
Jandura’s studies have covered the theoretical foundations of accessory liability in private law. Through the scholarship, she plans to focus on her accessory liability research.
“When someone intentionally helps or induces someone to commit a legal wrong, they may be held liable as an accessory,” she said. “I’m especially interested in why we impose liability on a person for their involvement in another person’s private wrong and how our legal system generates and protects private rights.”
In 2025, Jandura obtained an LLM with first-class honours from the University of Cambridge. From 2023–24, she clerked in the chambers of Justice Mary T. Moreau at the Supreme Court of Canada. From 2022–23, she worked as an associate at Lenczner Slaght LLP in Toronto.
In Edmonton, her hometown, she articled at McAllister LLP and at the Court of Appeal of Alberta from 2021–22.
In 2021, Jandura graduated from the University of Alberta Faculty of Law with a JD and the Horace Harvey Gold Medal in Law. There, she was a writing fellow and a Health Law Institute research assistant.
She earned her master’s degree in molecular genetics from the University of Toronto in 2018 and her bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Alberta in 2016.
Joe Byram
Since September 2024, Byram has been pursuing a PhD in constitutional and legal theory at the University of Calgary, where he also received his thesis-based LLM, critiquing the Canadian doctrine of freedom of expression for the digital age.
According to the law society’s update, his research aims to “bridge often polarised views on political issues to understand constitutional law in a way that embraces difference and links deep theoretical insight to the practical needs of substantive equality and social justice.”
Given his intention to become an academic, Byram views the scholarship as a way to help alleviate the financial pressures of his plans.
At the University of Calgary, he was a sessional instructor for a legal theory course on freedom of expression in 2025 and a teaching assistant for an internet law course in 2024.
Byram received an LLM focusing on political and legal thought from Queen’s University in 2023. He served as a legal researcher at Byram Legal Services in Calgary from 2021–22 and as a tax and estates associate at Nerland Lindsey LLP in Calgary in 2021.
At Gowling WLG, he was an articling student from 2019–20 and a summer law student in 2018.
From the University of Alberta, Byram earned his JD in 2019 and his bachelor’s degree in political science with first-class honours in 2016. He also participated in a law exchange program at the University of Copenhagen in 2018.
More legal education news
Last June, Patti McDougall – the University of Saskatchewan’s interim provost and vice president, academic – announced Professor Doug Surtees’s acceptance of an appointment as interim dean of the University of Saskatchewan College of Law as of July 1.
Also in June, Spellbook introduced a $1 million legal fellowship fund seeking to support the next generation of law students and legal innovators focused on the intersection of law, legal technology, and systems thinking.
In April, the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights announced that Cheryl Milne, its executive director, chose Justin Safayeni as this year’s constitutional litigator in residence, with the two of them to co-teach the centre’s constitutional litigation clinic course.
Enjoy this story? Read the latest legal education news on the main page!
