Professor Ron Lansing (1932-2021)

We note with sadness and respect that Lewis & Clark College Law Emeritus Professor and USDCHS 2016 Lifetime Service Award recipient passed away on May 28, 2021.

Professor Lansing taught at Lewis & Clark Law School 1967-2008, focusing on Torts and Evidence. Former USDCHS board member Stephen Raher notes, “I had many outstanding teachers in law school, but Prof. Lansing was unique in that he lived and breathed a commitment to the entire intellectual and pedagogical experience of law school as an institution.  In some ways he embodied Lewis & Clark Law School more than any other faculty member—it is no coincidence that he carried the ceremonial mace at every commencement I attended.”

Lansing published several books: Juggernaut: The Whitman Massacre Trial, 1850, the account of the Whitman Massacre trial, (1993); Nimrod: Courts, Claims, and Killing on the Oregon Frontier, the saga of Oregon’s first reported murderer in the 1840s and 1850s (2005); and Crystalling the Legacy: Stories and Reflections on the Accreditation Era of a Law School, 1965-74, the true story of the accreditation era of a law school (2011).

Oregon Benchmarks interviewed Lansing in 2013. He spoke of the range of his work and noted, “But head and shoulders above all of that has been my job for 43 years as teacher of thousands of law students. The contribution is vicarious—a dubious post at having known alumni when they were in law diapers—an advantage that now allows me to share shamelessly in all of their contributions, but not without bowing in respect and in pride for them.”

Ron and his wife Jewel Lansing received the USDCHS Lifetime Service Award in 2016.  You will find an article covering their full lives of accomplishment and good fun here on pp. 6-9.  You can find a video commemorating their Lifetime Service award here.

A lover of language, Lansing looked at our unruly acronym—USDCHS—and he christened our organization Us Duck Us. Board members still regularly say the phrase in Professor Lansing’s wink of a lilt. It was impossible not to smile when in his presence.  We are grateful for his many contributions to our state, and extend our sympathies to his family.