Janet Benshoof

Benshoof (pronounced "Benshawf") is founder and president of the Global Justice Center, whose mission is to work with women leaders on the strategic and timely legal enforcement of international equality guarantees. She is an internationally recognized human rights lawyer who has established landmark legal precedents on women's reproductive and equality rights, the right to free expression, freedom of religion, and gender crimes in transitional justice law. She has litigated in courts in over 40 states and in the U.S. Supreme Court. As president of the Global Justice Center, she is currently developing new legal tools to implement gender equality, focusing on transitional democracies and enforcing criminal accountability during conflict. She has been selected by the National Law Journal as one of the "100 Most Influential Lawyers in America", and is the recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of her singular contributions to advancing women's legal rights. Benshoof graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota and then paid her way through HLS with money she had earned during summers at an A&W root beer stand. She covered room and board by working as a cook for the dean of the Harvard Divinity School. Benshoof knew she didn't want to be a corporate lawyer, and she was always interested in rights and the idea of justice. As director of the American Civil Liberties Reproductive Freedom Project, for 15 years she spearheaded national litigation focusing on shaping Supreme Court jurisprudence on gender equality and reproductive choice. In 1992, she founded the first international human rights organization specializing in reproductive choice and equality, now the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR). In the organization's first ten years, under her leadership, CRR obtained consultative status to the UN, established legal projects in over 40 countries and won major class action constitutional cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition to her son David, she is survived by her husband, Alfred Meyer; another son, Eli Klein; a stepson, Nick Rose-Meyer; two step-grandchildren; and a sister, Lou Ann Garvey. Her marriage to Mr. Klein ended in divorce.