Both Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Richard Baldwin and Portland attorney Nena Cook have strong legal minds, and both have demonstrated true commitment to helping those with less access to the legal system. But Baldwin, an 11-year court veteran, has the breadth of experience it takes to make calls on death-penalty cases, land use and constitutional questions that come before the state's highest court. Cook has spent two decades as a business and employment lawyer in private practice and five years as a judge pro tem (a volunteer substitute judge position). She clearly has promise and makes a good case that others—U.S. Supreme Court Judge Elena Kagan, for example—have moved to high courts without previous experience as a judge. But her exaggeration of her own record, including claiming she has heard and decided hundreds of cases as a pro-tem judge, is troubling and not especially judicious.