By Douglas Pahl, USDCHS board member From their roots in the early 2000s, podcasts (a combination of the words iPod and broadcast) have been multiplying like smartphones. Essentially radio shows you can listen to anytime via your computer or, more commonly, on your mobile phone, lawyers who venture into the world of podcasts have found a surprising amount of practical and engaging legal material. How to find a podcast.  You have two options: You can either listen to/stream a podcast through an internet website or you can save/download a podcast on your computer or smartphone. Downloading a podcast lets you listen to it anytime, even when you are outside internet…

  By Hon. Stacie Beckerman             On October 21, 2016, a crowd gathered at the Wayne L. Morse U.S. Courthouse in Eugene to welcome U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie A. Russo to the District of Oregon federal bench at her formal investiture ceremony. Paul Bruch, Judge Russo’s courtroom deputy, opened court, and Chief Judge Michael W. Mosman welcomed Judge Russo’s many friends, colleagues, and family members in attendance. In honor of her contributions in mentoring law students and young lawyers, a distinguished group of lawyers whom Judge Russo has trained over the years spoke in her honor: David Higgs, Rachel Rose, and David Svelund. Following their kind remarks, Divisi, the University…

By Doug Pahl On a cool summer evening 100 years ago, a confident Republican presidential nominee, Charles Evans Hughes, sat in his ornate suite at Portland’s Benson Hotel and made a decision that likely cost him the election.  In 1916, the Republican Party needed a unifier.  Four years earlier, the party had split in two when the Old Guard clashed with the party’s progressive wing—throwing the 1912 election to the Democrat Woodrow Wilson.  Nowhere were the Republican wounds more raw than in progressive-leaning California, where the feud of 1912 continued. Just back from a drive along the new Columbia River Highway and a stroll at the foot of Multnomah Falls,…