Benyomin Forer, an adjunct professor at the Viterbi School of Engineering, has long wanted to be a judge. This year, he is running for a seat on the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
After spending nearly 20 years as a deputy district attorney and over a decade teaching at USC, he was motivated to launch his campaign after receiving encouragement from a friend also running for a judicial seat.
“I’ve been in my career a long time. I’ve done a lot of cool stuff. I’ve done what I need to,” Forer said in an interview with Annenberg Media. “I feel that I’m judicious. I’m ready for this mentally, temperamentally, intellectually.”
Forer’s background in criminal cyber law led him to teach a “Cyber Law and Privacy” class at USC starting in 2014. He served as a Los Angeles County DA since 2006 and is the author of multiple legal textbooks and works on digital evidence and constitutional law.
Forer won the USC Associate Director’s Award for part-time teaching in 2023. He said his experience in teaching reflects his ability to be a fair judge, and even if he were elected, he would continue teaching at USC.
“A judge is the person, the arbiter, the neutral arbiter in anything, so that’s kind of what a professor is,” Forer said. “I try really hard to be unbiased in the way I go about things, [having] the patience necessary to teach younger people and to engage with them and to help them.”
USC alum Hadyn Phillips was a former teaching assistant to Forer for three years. She said Forer’s class was one of the best she took at USC because of how passionate he was about the class and facilitated an environment for students to feel comfortable asking questions.
“Part of why I felt his class was so great was that he let everyone have the space they wanted to talk about what they thought and their interpretations of the law and the space to be wrong, in his opinion or objectively,” Phillips said.
As a member of the Cyber Crime Unit of the L.A. County DA’s office, Forer investigates technology-based offenses and sex crimes stemming from inappropriate images of minors.
“Very few people have the knowledge in cyber, and cyber is the cutting edge, not just in general, but it’s cutting edge of even law,” Forer said. “I would instantaneously be one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject matter that we have in the judiciary. That’s not a knock on the judiciary, it’s just been my area of expertise for so long.”
Kendra Walther, the style director of the technology and applied computing program at Viterbi, said she has known Forer for over a decade.
“I have experienced him as an enthusiastic, highly engaged, and intellectually serious member of the faculty,” Walther said. “He is deeply committed to his students and the broader academic community.”
There are currently 121 endorsements from judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and community leaders for Forer’s campaign, according to his campaign website. Two of his endorsers, Pierson Clair and Sanjay Madhav, are associate professors at Viterbi.
“At the technology and applied computing program, we are fortunate to have amazing industry professionals teaching in our program,” Clair said. “Benny is an incredible professor who cares deeply about his students. I can’t wait to see the great things he does for L.A. County.”
If elected, Forer would hold seat 66 on the L.A. County Superior Court, where he would serve a six-year term for Los Angeles County’s court system, as all elected superior court judges do.
On his campaign website, Forer said he is running based on the rule of law and the human condition. An ordained rabbi, Forer’s religious beliefs are a driving factor in his campaign, and he references the Torah’s teachings as a “lifelong mandate.”
“My religious value system points to pursuing justice,” Forer said. “Justice doesn’t mean harsh punishment. Sometimes it does. It means balance; it means the right thing. The right thing means not just for the victim, for the defendant, for the system, for society.”
Forer said that since he didn’t come from money and did not inherit anything from his family, he hopes to pass on his legacy to his kids.
“I always question myself, what am I leaving my kids?” Forer said. “[Being elected] changes the future for me; it changes the future for my family.”
Forer said judicial campaigns should be nonpartisan and that he doesn’t have a political platform for that reason.
“The judge’s job is to be impartial, balanced, and it’s regardless of your social views, regardless of political views,” Forer said. “I have a reputation of being fair; I have a reputation [of] being honest.”