Being the oldest person around the law school (either William Mitchell College of Law or the nascent Mitchell Hamline School of Law) is an advantage and a disadvantage. It is an advantage because people, though often bored and searching for an escape, feel like the wedding guest held by the piercing gaze of the Ancient Mariner, compelled to listen when you start to ramble about the old days. It is a disadvantage because people expect you to remember and comment upon the old days, like a well-trained dog responding to the command, “Roll over.” I have been in this situation for some years, and thus I have been asked to write something for this final issue of the Law Review under William Mitchell leadership.
When I agreed to provide some thoughts for this final issue, I asked for copies of what I wrote as an introduction to the first issue of the Law Review in 1974. I discovered that my comments on that first-ever issue of the publication constituted a paean to those intrepid students who, doubtlessly not appreciating the difficulty of the task that they were undertaking, had entered choppy, uncharted waters, guided by their captain, the then-young professor Mike Steenson. Against all odds, they produced an excellent product. And they and their successors continued to produce a high-quality journal that was, contrary to the traditional standard, useful to courts and practitioners.