Jerry Stouck
Jerry Stouck
Jerry is a retired Washington lawyer who specialized in constitutional litigation in trial and appellate courts across the country. During his career he had a particular expertise in complex commercial, environmental and property rights cases against federal and state government agencies. He obtained a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1980, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1977. In 2019, Jerry decided it was time to finish his law career. He spends his time in retirement golfing, skiing, hiking, biking, and now writing.
When I retired after a 40-year career as a Washington lawyer I thought writing a book would be fun, but had no idea where to begin. Then I read Janet Benshoof’s obituary in the New York Times in December 2017, and I knew I had my subject. The scope of her professional accomplishments, and her successes in advancing women’s rights, amazed me. But what amazed me, even more, was that I had never heard of her. I came of age during the social and political ferment of the 1960s, and have always had a keen interest in progressive causes, from equality for African-Americans, to women's rights, to LGBTQ rights. I’d read histories of the 1960s and lots of books on the civil rights and women's rights movement of the late 20th Century.
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I'd been a member of the ACLU and a supporter of Planned Parenthood for as long as I could remember. I knew the names of leading figures in the civil rights and women’s rights movements and had read biographies of some of them. But I’d never heard of Benshoof. That intrigued me, and once I started my research into her life and work the intrigue became a fascination.
She was a tough, smart, and exceedingly interesting woman, a lifelong friend and colleague of Ruth Bader Ginsberg's and unquestionably the leading reproductive rights lawyer and activist of her generation. I can’t wait to tell her life story so that others can come to appreciate the mark she left on the world as much as I do.