A-plus

This post has been updated

As you might have noticed, WWP took last Friday off for a trip to Seattle to enjoy an opera, pore over a museum's new exhibit of Spanish art and history, take in some Seattle nightlife, and to generally get away from chores that beckon at home. On the way out the door Thursday afternoon, there was a disquieting note: a respected and well-liked Portland lawyer had gone missing. Returning home late Saturday night, WWP discovered that everyone's worst fear had been confirmed.

To say that Doug Swanson was an accomplished and admired lawyer and citizen is rather like saying that Picasso produced some pretty good paintings. Before his suspicious and untimely death last week, Doug had gained a well-earned a reputation of integrity, diligence and effectiveness. Doug represented mostly workers' compensation clients, those who are injured in their jobs and who believe they are getting the short shrift from a system that notoriously favors speedy resolutions and low payouts. That was Doug, always favoring the low-man on the totem pole, the down and out, the one who pays the bills but gets little or none of the benefit. From environmental activism, to his deeply felt political causes, to the myriad sports that engaged his wide-ranging interests, to a deep curiousity in law and an abiding commitment to family, Doug was an exemplar of the modern lawyer-citizen. At age 51, despite all his accomplishments to date, he was still on the way up. The best things were yet to come. Which makes his death sting even the more.

Doug's loss is keenly felt at WWP's workplace, where we toil with Oregon's lawyers day in and day out. A colleague of WWP remembers Doug as a neighbor and friend who only last August sat with her and her daughter, offering advice about the impending life change the daughter and his own same-aged son would soon be facing:

I can't get over it. He was just sitting on my porch chatting with E**** and me one evening in August about Green Empowerment and also E**** and Derek's impending moves East for college. I think that's the last time I talked to him, but we used to pass each other driving through the neighborhood on a regular basis between then and now, and now he's just gone? If it's this unbelieveable for me, imagine his family. Great sadness here.

As for WWP, just two weeks ago he and Doug exchanged e-mails. As usual, Doug was doing the good deed, writing and submitting for publication an obituary of another colleague (same age as Doug), untimely claimed by a terminal disease. In the exchange of messages between us, Doug remarked of his friend, in an epitaph that presciently could be said of himself:

"He was the best. An A-plus sort of guy." Indeed.

[Doug's memorial is being held tonight, 7:30 p.m., at the Agnes Flanagan Chapel at Lewis & Clark College.]

Update: As expected and as police have been hinting at for a few days, the proverbial "other shoe" dropped today, pulling back a veil on the life of our friend and colleague. Doug's colleagues and partners said it best and put things right at a news conference today. If you want to read more about Doug's life, or send a message to his family, please click here.