Badger beaters?
The Ducks open the season with a test
against Wisconsin in Eugene. Page 11a
Two, one or none?
Debate continues over the possible erection
of cell-phone towers near campus. Page 4a
Wednesday, August 22,2001
Since 1 900 University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon
Volume 103,Issue 17
EPD gathers
data about
traffic stops
■ Police officers are conducting a
racial profiling survey in response to
complaints that race determines
which motorists they stop
By Andrew Adams
Oregon Daily Emerald
The Eugene Police Department has be
gun a racial profiling survey to find out if
complaints that officers have been mak
ing traffic stops based on race are valid.
Since starting the survey Aug. 20,
EPD patrol officers have ended each traf
fic stop by asking whether the motorist
would like to participate in the survey
and tell the officer his or her race. Only
30 of the EPD’s 118 patrol officers are
participating in the program because it
is still in its pilot stage.
The program will remain in the trial pe
riod until January. EPD Patrol Capt. Becky
Henson said.She said the survey will, ide
ally, give the EPD statistical proof that it
does not stop and question motorists sim
ply because they are a certain race, a prac
tice she said the EPD is firmly against.
“We had been getting feedback [from
the community] that they think some
people have been getting stopped be
cause of their race,” she said.
It was hard to convince people other
wise, Henson said, because the EPD
“didn’t really have any other info than
the word of our officers. ”
Now she expects the survey will pro
vide the real numbers to show the com
munity that every traffic stop is con
ducted fairly and without a bias. If there
do appear to be any trends, Henson said
the EPD will change some of its policies
and training methods.
“We’re just trying to find out if there
are any trends or patterns we’re doing
that have a negative impact on the com
munity,” she said. “I think it’s really go
ing to be a neat deal, quite frankly.”
Following the trial period, results from
Turn to Profiling, page 10A
LAW SCHOOL
EDITION
Jessie Swimeley Emerald
After a year of design, Chief Operating Officer Kenji Sugahara (left), systems architect Ben Barrett, intern Dina Fridlyand,
software engineer Sarah Cronholm and Pikachu are almost ready to market software that allows attorneys to file
documents with the courts electronically.
Out of the Ordinary
■The careers of three University law
school graduates prove that law degrees
have a variety of unconventional uses
By Kara Cogswell
Oregon Daily Emerald
Duncan Campbell has made a fortune
in the business world, but he spends
much of his time and money helping
children in need. Holly Smith is an at
torney caught up in one of the nation’s most
pressing public policy issues. Kenji Sugahara
<0
is his own boss at a computer software business
he co-founded while still a college student.
These three individuals may seem to have lit
tle in common, but they do share one important
piece of their history as graduates of the Uni
versity School of Law.
And each is proof that a law degree today
comes with no set definition of how it can be
used.
The oldest of the three, Campbell, graduated
from the law school in 1973, but the experience
Turn to Extraordinary, page 9A
Recruiters vary on importance of class rankings
■ Employers consider not only law
students’ class standing, but also their
work experience and community service
By Clayton Cone
for the Emerald
Being ranked according to GPA is a way of
life for law school students, as legal recruiters
use the standings to help sort through re
sumes of prospective employees quickly.
Starting at the end of their first semester in
law school, students in each class are ranked
by percentile. At the end of each year, each
student is ranked individually against his or
her classmates.
The degree to which rankings are important
depends in part on where a student plans to
work, as different legal professions look at the
rankings in varying ways.
Some private firms, such as the corporate
and tax law firm Stoel Rives, LLP, usually se
lect new hires only from the top 10 percent of
a class. With offices in Portland and Seattle,
and 47 of its attorneys listed as some of the
best lawyers in America, Stoel Rives is an at
tractive local option for law students.
But the firm's recruiting coordinator,
Michelle Baird-Johnson, said Stoel Rives in
terviews below the top 10 percent if the
prospective lawyer has remarkable experi
ence outside the classroom, either work-wise
or in the community.
Other private firms focus on the top third of
a class and look at overall GPA, not where that
GPA ranks among other students.
The Northwest firm Miller Nash asks for a
transcript from every prospective new hire,
even attorneys who have been out in the field
for four or five years, to get a better idea of
their strengths and weaknesses, said the firm's
director of recruiting, JoJo Hall.
Some employers in the public sector have
no cut-off for rankings and look at all appli
cants.
One is the Lane County District Attorney's
office. Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent
Mortimore said that although his office takes
academic performance into account, it also
weighs heavily factors other than grades, such
as participation in a prosecution clinic at law
school, an internship with a district attorney
or a clerkship for a judge. He said grades do
not reflect the degree to which an individual
is able to work with police, judges, witnesses
or crime victims.
Baird-Johnson also said ranking and GPA
are not “the be-all and end-all,” in spite of
their importance. Community service, past
Turn to Rankings, page 10A
University
law school
professor
dies at 58
■ A teacher in the law school since
1979, Wayne Westling lost his battle
with cancer Friday
By Jeremy Lang
Oregon Daily Emerald
Wayne Westling, a law professor
known for his ability to bridge the
gap between the classroom and the
courtroom, died Friday of cancer. He
was 58.
Westling balanced his time be
tween teaching at the law school and
K- m being a member of
the National Insti
tute for Trial Prac
tice. Law School
Dean Rennard
Strickland said the
school will be
hard-pressed to
find another pro
fessor with West
WESTLING how students
transfer their edu
cation into the legal world.
Strickland described Westling as a
gracious, outgoing man who had an
ability to tackle legal problems in a
well-rounded way. Westling was also a
member of the hiring committee when
Strickland was hired as dean, he said.
Strickland said Westling s health de
teriorated faster than he had realized,
although he knew Westling would not
return to teach fall term.
“Wayne was one of those magnifi
cently optimistic and determined peo
ple,” Strickland said. “The speed [of
his deterioration] shocked everyone.”
University President Dave Frohn
mayer, who worked in the law school
with Westling before becoming presi
dent, also said Westling had an ability
to show students how to use practical
ly what they learned in the classroom.
“He was always conscious of the
need to connect legal theory and legal
practice,” Frohnmayer said.
Strickland said the law school will
begin to search for a new professor
during the fall and have candidates
ready for selection by the winter.
Westling authored a number of
books and taught law in Australia,
New Zealand and England. He re
ceived his bachelor’s degree in 1965
from Occidental College in Los Ange
les and his law degree in 1968 from the
New York University School of Law.
He was admitted to the California
bar in 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court
bar in 1972 and the Oregon bar in
1981.
He had worked at the University’s
law school since 1979.
Turn to Westling, page 9A