Robert Benson died June 16. He was 69.
Benson was active in the Calabasas Highlands as an open space advocate. A few years ago he founded the Environmental Scorecard, which graded the Calabasas City Council on its environmental votes.
Benson began teaching at Loyola Law School in 1973. He was one of the first professors in America to teach a class about the law of global warming. Benson also taught international environmental law and public interest law. Additionally, he frequently gave pro bono legal advice to numerous environmental and human rights groups.
In 1978, Benson recommended then-unknown architect Frank Gehry to Loyola Law School for a renovation of its campus. When finished, the campus received local and national recognition. The New York Times described it as “a triumph in the art of place making.” Last year, Benson wrote a book and produced a film about the renovations, “Frank Gehry’s Loyola Law School: An Architectural Tour.”
Benson and his wife Lesley asked Gehry to design a home for them in the Calabasas Highlands in 1979. In 2009, the Calabasas City Council designated the home as the city’s second historical landmark.
Benson is well known for organizing a National Lawyers Guild coalition in 1998. The guild’s goal was to revoke the California corporate charter of El Segundo-based Unocal Corporation. The group started a petition that charged Unocal with environmental destruction in California and elsewhere, as well as with human rights violations abroad. Benson used the petition as a guide to citizen action and wrote the book “Challenging Corporate Rule,” arguing that repeated corporate crimes should lead to charter revocations. The Los Angeles Times called the group’s efforts a “groundbreaking but unsuccessful petition.”
Benson died of complications from chronic lung disease.
Benson is survived by his mother Betty, of Woodland Hills, his daughters Clea Benson, of Washington, D.C., and Amy Benson, M.D., of Portland, Ore., and his brother Bruce, of Calabasas.
A memorial service took place June 24 at Loyola Law School.