In the words of Napoleon Dynamite…

...that was flippin’ sweet experience. As I may have previously mentioned here, I have the distinct privilege as serving as Operations Editor for Oregon Law Review. What’s that you ask? “What does an Operations Editor do?”

Well, I’m glad you asked.

Basically I handle the finances of the journal, I act as a disciplinarian when needed, and I organize a few big events (the journal competition, orientation, elections, end-of-the-year banquet, etc…).

But back to the flippin’ sweet experience. I recently took on the responsibility of planning a symposium issue for OLR that will celebrate the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Oregon Constitution (that’s 150 years and still goin’ strong baby!). Anyway, I’m working with a few judges and members of the Oregon State Bar Constitutional Law Section to get this thing off the ground, and as a result, I had to drive up to Salem yesterday for a meeting. We were just making the initial introductions in the lobby of the building when I was interested to “Hans Linde.” As I picked my jaw up off the floor, these thoughts ran through my head: “What?! Is that really THE Hans Linde? The architect of the Linde Revolution? And he’s going to be working on this project with us?!”

Why was I so excited? Well, for the uninitiated, Hans Linde is one of the GIANTS of Oregon jurisprudence. He was a Justice on the Oregon Supreme Court from 1977–1990 and is credited with authoring some monumental decisions and fundamentally reshaping much of Oregon law. An apt analogy might be to call him the “Earl Warren” of the Oregon Supreme Court (or perhaps Warren should be called the “Hans Linde” of Supreme Court!). Anyway, he had been invited to this meeting through a mutual friend and I sat rapt for the next 90 minutes as he discussed his views on the current state of the Oregon Constitution. Although he is advancing in years, he clearly has his full mental capacities, and his reformist philosophy is still very evident. To make things even better, we were joined in the meeting by two current judges on the Oregon Court of Appeals so there was, as my colleague from OLR put it, significant “intellectual firepower” sitting around this table.

It was truly an honor to meet and converse with this “living legend” and I look forward to our next meeting. I’m going to try to resist the temptation to have him sign a copy of the Oregon Constitution.