This year marked the passing of a legend in law, former West Publishing Co. CEO Dwight Opperman. Opperman started at West fresh out of law school in 1951, cataloguing cases for the National Reporter System by hand. He rose through the ranks of the then-paper publishing business, but with a sense that change was coming. Later as CEO of West, Opperman made a big bet on electronic retrieval – first through searchable abstracts and then full text search – the system that would become Westlaw. And although many doubted the wisdom of West’s investment in technology that could cannibalize its core print publishing business, Opperman appears to have the better of this argument. Upon his passing, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement praising Opperman’s philanthropy and his commitment to the profession, and to judges in particular, noting his establishment of the Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award in 1982 to recognize unsung heroes of the federal bench, as well as his efforts as trustee and board chairman of the Supreme Court Historical Society.
