October 1998 

 

by Mark W. Gehan

As we hurtle into the future (see below), it is also fitting to reflect upon where we have been. The MSBA has committed to the Millennium History Project, which will produce a book of essays on Minnesota legal history. These essays are being written by our members, although they will be professionally edited and compiled. Wood Foster and Marvin Anderson are chairing the project.

I am convinced that the book will be something we will all be proud of and enjoy. Beyond that, it will be a legacy to the lawyers who follow us in the years to come. Consider it a 100-year time capsule.

We will be calling on you to contribute financially to the project. I promise that is a contribution you will be glad you made, and I promise that this is absolutely the last millennium history project the MSBA will ask you to contribute to.

As to the future, I understand intellectually that when all the zeros roll over at midnight on January 1, 2000, this is simply an arbitrary event resulting from the particular calendar we use. It is a milestone, like turning 40, without real significance. What apparently does have real significance is the fact that the world is filled with computers and computer programs that won't know what to do when the zeros are supposed to roll over. There are respectable people who predict that we may have a national power outage, and that the banking system will crash. I heard a scientist on a television program say that he was going to a remote area and lay in a supply of firewood. If there is actually a decent chance that civilization as we know it will be badly disrupted in 19 months, why are we not doing something about it? Where the heck is Al Gore?

 

MARK W. GEHAN of St. Paul is president of the MSBA. A partner in the firm of Collins, Buckley, Sauntry & Haugh, he received his J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School and recently served as special master in the historic Minnesota tobacco litigation.