Taking the measure of an individual as a professional and trying to place that individual within a discipline's changing historical context is never an easy endeavour. This is especially true within the helping professions where there has been so much growth over the past 40 years. In the case of Martin J. Ball, however, the task is a bit easier. This is because Professor Ball has been a presence in clinical linguistics for nearly 25 years and there is an exceptional record of his influence in the form of the journal, "Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics." As Founding Editor of "Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics" in 1987, Dr. Ball has had a major influence on the evolution of clinical linguistics as a discipline. He has guided the progression of the discipline through the manuscripts that he has accepted for publication and through the encouragement that he has given numerous authors and clinicians who benefit from the journal as contributors and/or benefactors of the research, theory and the issues of practice contained within each issue. This article asserts the importance of explication of order and disorder in language as a privileged objective of clinical linguistics and service delivery and reviews the contributions of Martin Ball in advancing this agenda.