Berkeley Lent

On September 22, 1921, Lent was born in Los Angeles, CA.[2] Raised in the Lents neighborhood of southeast Portland, Berkeley earned his primary education there, graduating from Franklin High School.[3] After high school he moved to Los Angeles, California where he attended Occidental College from 1944 to 1945.[2] Also in 1944, he married Dorothy Welch.[3] Lent joined the United States Navy that year. Lent then returned to Portland where he attended Reed College, graduating in 1948.[2]

He then went on to law school at Willamette University College of Law where he graduated with his juris doctorate in 1950 and was president of his class his final year.[2] After law school Lent moved to San Francisco, California and worked for Bancroft-Whitney Law Publishing Company as an editor.[2] He then returned to Portland and worked for the Bonneville Power Administration as a staff attorney.[2] After practicing law in Coos Bay, Oregon, Lent returned again to Portland and began working at the law firm of Peterson & Pozzi beginning in 1953.[2]

Berkeley Lent began his political life in the state house as a Democrat from Portland, serving at the 1957 session.[2] He remained in the House through 1965, and that year serving as the Minority Whip.[2][4] He then served in the state senate from 1967 to 1971.[5] During the 1971 legislative session Lent was selected as the Senate Majority Leader[2] after losing the Senate Presidency when a rural conservative Democrat, himself a former Senate President,[6] joined Republicans to deny Lent the Senate Presidency.[7] The defection caused a 15-15 deadlock that lasted for 12 days and through 54 ballots before being broken.[8] Later that year Lent was appointed as a county circuit court judge in Multnomah County remaining at that post until 1977.[2]

Lent was elected to the Oregon Supreme Court in November 1976 to replace the outgoing Kenneth O'Connell.[9] Justice Lent was then re-elected to another six-year term in 1982.[9] On the court his fellow justices elected him as Chief Justice in July 1982, serving until resigning the position in August 1983.[2] Justice Lent then resigned from the bench on September 30, 1988.[9] George Van Hoomissen was elected in May of that year to replace Lent.[9]

After leaving the court and political office, Lent worked in alternative dispute resolution as an arbitrator and mediator, as well as a senior judge for the state of Oregon.[3] He divorced his first wife Dorothy in 1961 and remarried in 1968 to Joan Burnett, with the family moving to Las Vegas, Nevada, after Lent's retirement.[3] He had two sons, Eric and Scott, and four daughters, Terry, Deirdre, Suzanne, and Patricia .[3] Berkeley Lent died of a heart attack in Las Vegas on November 11, 2007.[3]