Dear Editor:

I’m writing in response to Louis Glaser’s letter to the editor in the November-December issue of the Journal, in which, among other complaints about the bar’s focus, Mr. Glaser takes umbrage with its efforts to address pay and workload issues for public defenders, stating that instead the bar should “let them follow our capitalistic system and find a job that pays more and works him or her less.” What a heartwarming response to the needs of Missouri’s poor this holiday season.

Certainly our public defenders could find employment that pays more and works them less – if they shared Mr. Glaser’s apparent view that the only one that matters is oneself. Fortunately, there are many among the legal profession who believe that justice on a slightly broader scale is a worthy goal and worth their own personal investment of time, money, and effort. As Clarence Darrow put it, “As long as the world shall last, there will be wrongs and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.” Missouri’s public defenders are putting their legal talent to work righting wrongs done to Missouri’s poor within this state’s justice system just as the Mo Bar is putting its considerable talent to work toward righting wrongs done to Missouri’s public defenders by staggering caseloads and inadequate salaries. Even Ebenezer Scrooge eventually figured out the lesson Mr. Glaser apparently still has to learn: One may make a living through what he gets – but he make a life by what he gives. In that equation, I think Missouri’s public defenders are way ahead.

Cathy R. Kelly
Deputy Director
Missouri State Public Defender