Page 129 - The First Fifty Years

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THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD 123

organization. He had attended Texas A&M University, where he
joined the Corps of Cadets on an ROTC scholarship. After
graduation, he had served as a Military Intelligence Officer in
the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of First Lieutenant. While
pursuing his law degree at the University of Houston, he
simultaneously earned a Master’s degree in Business
Administration. In short, he knew how to get things done.

Board 32 faced basically three challenges: (1) enhancing the
Review’s reputation without taking measures that would imperil
its finances; (2) fixing up the publication’s modest offices to make
them a more attractive place to work (or, as happens at law
reviews, practically live); and (3) remapping the production
process in order to ensure the timeliness of publication of HLR’s
issues going forward.

For First Lieutenant Sergesketter’s successful strategy to
scale the ramparts of reputation while protecting the flanks of
finances, see “Founding Frankel” above.

As to spiffing up Headquarters, Bob’s Brigade attacked with
gusto. The objective was to make HLR’s offices the “preferred
gathering place,” with a “collegial and positive atmosphere” for
members to “hang out.”43 To that end, the premises were entirely
repainted, desks were commandeered to assure in-house seating
for every third-year editor, and the library was reconfigured to
promote greater utility. No detail was too small, right down to
instituting a policy of cleaning out the HLR refrigerator (by then
a candidate for designation as a Superfund site) once a week.
Sadly, and although no one could have imagined it at the time,
all such improvements would be swept away, within Decade 4, by
an act of vis major.

Of greater lasting value to the Review than the weekly clean-
out of the refrigerator, there was the matter of timely
publication. Here, Robert’s Regiment outdid itself.

Prior to Board 32’s entry into office, apparently the common
practice had been for the outgoing board either to work after
graduation to publish its final issue or for the outgoing board to
publish four issues and leave finalization and publication of the
fifth issue to the incoming board. Board 32’s goal was to publish
all five of its issues, start to finish, and to do so before
graduation.44

In the summer before the academic year during which they
would be Houston Law Review’s stewards, Board 32 set out to
create a formalized, extremely detailed publication schedule that
would result in publishing its first two issues before winter break