by Stephen Raher The Fall 1999 issue of Oregon Benchmarks featured an informative overview of Oregon’s bankruptcy system through 1978, a year of unprecedented structural change in the bankruptcy world.  With this summer’s USDCHS picnic honoring bankruptcy practitioners, it’s time to catch up on developments since the enactment of the Bankruptcy Code in 1978. Although the first lasting bankruptcy legislation was passed in 1898, specialized bankruptcy judges or adjudicators were not recognized on a national scale until the Chandler Act of 1938.  Under the Chandler Act, district court judges were able to appoint bankruptcy “referees” to oversee both administrative and adjudicative aspects of bankruptcy cases.  In 1973, when the Federal Rules…

By Janice Dilg Our initial email exchange occurred in December 2011. On February 20, 2018, my email inbox contained a missive from Wendy Koble with a subject line of “Judge Lent Finished!!”. Wendy Koble is the Judicial Assistant to Senior Judge Owen M. Panner, a post she’s held for six years. Before that she worked in the James A. Redden Courthouse clerk’s office from 1997-2009 until her retirement. Claiming to have “flunked retirement,” she welcomed the opportunity to return to the courthouse as Judge Panner’s JA in 2011. Judge Panner’s previous JA, Margaret Hunt, had created a digital word document from the paper-only version of Judge John Kilkenny’s oral history…