Prof. Stone Honored

USC Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award for Prof. Christopher Stone

By Maria Iacobo

Christopher D. Stone, the J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law, Emeritus received the 2014 Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award at USC’s 33rd annual Academic Honors Convocation this week. Awarded to a very select number of retired faculty at the annual Academic Honors Convocation, the award “recognizes eminent careers and notable contributions to the university, the profession and the community.”

Prof. Stone retired last year following a 48 year career at USC Gould. Widely admired for his influential books – including the environmental classic, Do Trees Have Standing?, -- and a co-creator of the law school’s signature first-year course – Law, Language and Values – Stone was a professor adored by generations of students.

“This is a well deserved honor,” Robert K. Rasmussen, Dean of USC Gould said. “Chris’s scholarship has had an enduring influence on environmental law. He is an inspiration and model for all of us.”

Prof. Christopher Stone

Prof. Stone is an authority on environmental and global issues, including environmental ethics and trade and the environment. Two of his books – Earth and Other Ethics and The Gnat is Older Than Man: Global Environment and Human Agenda – received the Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award.

“His ideas not only shaped the thinking of other academics but were taken up both by activists in the emerging environmental movement and then by judges, including on the United States Supreme Court,” Alexander Capron, a University Professor who teaches at USC Gould and Keck School of Medicine noted.

Stone helped create a highly original first-year required class – Law, Language and Ethics – which established USC Gould among the first to introduce students to an interdisciplinary approach to the law. He co-wrote the course textbook which integrates disciplines such as philosophy, history and economics into the rigid framework of a first year law curriculum.

Colleagues at USC Gould marvel at his wide-range of interests which produced books and papers on areas as disparate as ocean policy, legal philosophy, white collar crime and U.S. alternate energy policy.

“I think of Chris Stone as the exemplar of an inquiring mind and of creativity and engagement in scholarship,” Prof. Greg Keating said.

Scott Bice “68, a professor and dean of USC Gould from 1980 - 2000, was a student of Stone’s before joining the faculty in 1973.
“For the 20 years I served as dean, Chris was a leader of the faculty and a key player in the progress of the school. When the laws school established its first trustee chair, he was clearly the most deserving for it.”

Prof. Stone graduated from Harvard magna cum laude and earned his J.D. at Yale Law School. He was a fellow in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago and practiced law at Cravath, Swaine and Moore in New York before joining USC Gould in 1965.

To read the many tributes Stone’s colleagues have offered, please click here for a copy of the tribute book.