Letters |
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Remember
the Trib Janine
Robben Opting
for Freedom Mr. Kelemen
defines retirement as a leisure activity. My approach is to view retirement
as a departure from one's main career to do other things with the last
third of our lives. This can include different types of legal work, part
time endeavors such as arbitration, along with volunteer activities and
more leisure time activities such as hiking and travel. My time has evolved
into a combination of part time arbitration, writing, hiking and more
travel. The key is that retirement affords you more freedom to do other
things with your life. Mr. Kelemen alludes to the issue of determining
what you want to do with the rest of your life. I am a little more direct
by posing the question: Do you want to spend your entire life or most
of it working as you have for at least 30 years, or do you want to make
some changes and do some other things in the last third of your life?
I enjoyed my basic 31-year career as a lawyer. Nevertheless, there are
many other ways to spend your time during the remainder of life. Since
retiring from my primary career, I have never regretted opting for more
freedom. I commend
your publication for dealing with this important career-life issue, and
I hope my contribution can be used to supplement the sound advice from
Mr. Kelemen. Thank you. Michael
H. Miller Special
Treatment I would
suggest that next time the district attorneys of the State of Oregon want
some special treatment that they be reminded of the Keller policy
and that the Oregon State Bar and specifically the House of Delegates
is not to be used like a yo-yo by hypocritical specialists. William
P. Haberlach Editor's
note: Bar Leader Communicator is a special publication of the Oregon State
Bar. It is circulated to all members of the House of Delegates and the
Board of Governors, and is also available online at www.osbar.org. DAs Respond Oregon state
prosecutors, represented by the Oregon District Attorneys Association,
as well as Attorney General Hardy Myers and many others outside the law
enforcement community, joined in crafting language that would allow many
different kinds of attorneys to oversee covert investigations that were
otherwise lawful. We presume the HOD voted to support these proposed changes
because, first, it is the only mechanism by which DRs can be proposed
to the Oregon Supreme Court, and more importantly because it was in the
best interest of Oregon citizens and all member of the bar. I assume
Mr. Haberlach's comments about prosecutors being 'hypocritical specialists'
demanding 'special treatment' are simply the result of his failure
to understand the two distinct issues and not an attack on the men and
women who serve their state as public prosecutors. Joshua
Marquis Force
Feeding I can accept
the proposition that there are some vestiges of discrimination against
women and minorities in our profession. Yet, for the most part, during
my 17 years in private practice, I have mainly been impressed by the heartfelt
efforts of attorneys in management positions, to help women and minority
attorneys get ahead. Further, with respect to the 'access to justice'
issue, in every office I have worked in, a significant proportion of the
lawyers contributed to legal aid, volunteer legal services or classroom
legal education. More to
the point, we already have a 'mandatory' educational requirement
in our law schools devoted to the evils and illegality of discrimination.
It is called 'Constitutional Law.' (A subject which is also,
quite appropriately, a core subject on the Oregon bar examination). To
ignore the fact that lawyers have already undergone that type of rigorous,
in-depth study of social policy, and require all lawyers to sit through
a 'lecture' on diversity, demeans not only the 'target
audience,' but also women and minority lawyers themselves. I have no
objection to the OSB maintaining an affirmative action committee, which
provides a vehicle for attorneys with special interests in that area,
to brainstorm and promote the advancement of women and minorities in our
profession. The vast majority of Oregon lawyers support these goals anyway,
without any need for 'force-feeding' by the Oregon State Bar. Fred
Ruby Rethinking
Profiling However,
I disagree with the gratuitous phrase, 'the low-water mark of civil
liberties [was] the internment of Japanese Americans [during World War
II].' When this internment was happening, in early 1942, the outcome
of the war was still quite uncertain. England had deported large numbers
of Italian and German citizens (including quite a few German Jews, who
had fled Germany to avoid persecution) to Canada. The United States also
resettled Italians and Germans from the east coast to the west. It's difficult
to say how much effect these resettlements had on the war, or whether
they saved any lives. The German spy system in England, which was pretty
well entrenched in 1939, practically ceased to exist by 1940. The Japanese
spy system in America, if there ever was one, was definitely broken by
early 1942. It isn't enough to say that ninety-nine percent of those Japanese
who were imprisoned in 1942 were good Americans. A traitorous one percent
could have prolonged the war, cost lives, and even effected the outcome. All of this
is very relevant today. The politically incorrect concept of 'profiling'
may acquire a new degree of respectability. Law enforcement may have to
start questioning, and arresting, people solely because they have Arabic
names, or Arabic appearances, or Arabic roots. If this happens, a lot
of innocent, loyal Americans will probably be imprisoned without cause.
I hope we don't have to do anything along these lines for any extended
period, but if we do, so be it. Bruce
L. Melkonian |