Latest President's Message

October 2011

Service First: Making The Missouri Bar Good for Missouri Lawyers

This quote could just have easily come from my parents or grandparents. This is how, by example, they taught me to live. And it is this heritage that led me to where I am today, preparing to serve as your Missouri Bar president, with "service" being the primary focus. This year, bar leaders and staff will unite under the central theme, "Service First," which highlights the main purpose of The Missouri Bar: providing excellent service to you, our members.

A quick note on why doing this job, and doing it well, is important to me. Being involved in bar work helped me find a way to fuse my inherited passion for helping others with my professional skills. Particularly as a new lawyer, there were opportunities to help veterans, flood victims, and young adults to understand their rights and responsibilities. We gave out free legal advice at call centers, read to children at schools, taught civics lessons, and provided foster children and those who had a parent incarcerated with joy during the holidays.

Thankfully, many of these projects continue, and hopefully you will choose to be involved so you, too, will understand why being a "bar junkie" can be a very fulfilling and worthwhile endeavor. The most worthwhile of these is pro bono work, which will be a key initiative of my year.

"Someone who can never repay you." At all times, there are thousands of people in our state in need of legal services. The legal services offices of Missouri do an outstanding job of assisting as many indigent persons as possible, but they can cover only about 20 percent of the need. One of the cornerstones of this bar year will be to put as much focus and attention as possible on a new Missouri Bar-sponsored pro bono website that provides members with the opportunity to search a database of volunteer opportunities posted by organizations from across the state. We know we have generous members out doing some of this work now, and we hope that the database will help match volunteers with the need. As we see who our champions are, we will be putting them on our "Wall of Fame" as a small token of appreciation for such an important gift.

I should read this quote every day, make my "To Do" list and accomplish it. But, because of today's technology, I often try to do "everything," and I suspect I am not alone. With cell phones, e-mails, Facebook, Twitter, and who knows what new communication tool will be next, we sometimes scale our expectations to super-human levels and, if not achieved, we believe we have failed.

I am no different from any of my predecessors in that I have so many ideas. Yet, wisdom handed down from past presidents reinforces the fact that if one starts too many projects, none of them will be fruitful in such a short time. So, in planning for this bar year, I have tried to be mindful that this is a year to do some things well, and leave the bar ready for a transition in leadership and prepared for a future that looks different than when I came to it 25 years ago.

In 2009, I was appointed chair of the Special Committee to Assist Lawyers in a Changing Economy. With a committee of 8-10 attorneys representing all factions of our bar, it was quickly apparent that what we needed for our members struggling in practice – wherever they were and no matter the size of the firm – were resources easily accessible and with great value. The fortunate revelation was that The Missouri Bar has long been providing all of these. To make these resources more readily available to struggling lawyers who need them, we have rebranded and repackaged these valuable tools, which are now in one place on our homepage under "Lawyer Resources."

You can access these resources at www.mobar.org/changingeconomy. The committee is now working to produce 15-minute primer podcasts to help attorneys "bridge the knowledge gap" if they are new to the practice of law or are taking on a pro bono case in an area of law outside of their primary practice area. The Law Practice Management tools also have been consolidated to one URL to make them easier to find: www.mobar.org/lpmcenter. These are just some of the reasons why The Missouri Bar is good for Missouri lawyers.

The rest of my initiatives will primarily focus on transition efforts. The highlight of the year will be traveling around the state to local bar associations to introduce our Deputy Executive Director, Sebrina Barrett, to as many members as possible. In connection with those visits, we have a CLE program full of information to help you practice more efficiently and effectively by utilizing all the bar has to offer.

In addition, we will be introducing a newly-designed website that should be much easier to navigate, and we are using social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, to keep communications current. I invite you to follow me on Facebook and Twitter. You can find links to these and more at the new Missouri Bar President's Page, which can be found at www.mobar.org/presidentspage.

The timing of my term has been providential. I have a small practice that also is in transition. Therefore, I am in a position to dedicate this year to serving you, the members of The Missouri Bar. I pledge that I will not fail to do the "some things" I can do in the short time ahead. We will remain steadfast in our pledge of "Service First" to our members so that, in turn, you can continue to serve your clients and your communities. Thank you for the honor and privilege.

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