The Secret is Out
Charlie J. Harris, Jr.
Berkowitz, Oliver, Williams, Shaw & Eisenbrandt, L.L.P.
Kansas City
While the following confession is not akin to revealing the recipe to Coca-Cola or McDonalds’ secret sauce, it is a fact that all of us who become president of The Missouri Bar have a secret. What is that secret? It is this: We all worry that we won’t be able to fill the shoes of those who have gone before us. In fact, as one works one’s way up through the officer positions, a nagging worry begins to set in: “What will I do when I become president?”
Time after time, I have expressed that concern to those who have trod this path before me, and they all offer the same advice: “Don’t worry about not having any issues. The issues will find you.”
Sage advice, indeed. In fact, as I assume the presidency of The Missouri Bar, I find that there is no shortage of issues to address. Some are issues that I want to bring to the forefront for action during my term. Others, as my predecessors accurately forecast, are not of our making – but address them we will.
The most prominent of the latter are the ongoing attacks on our state’s judiciary. Under the guise of protecting Missourians from “activist judges” – itself a nebulous euphemism for “judges who issue decisions we don’t like” – political interests both within and outside of Missouri have taken aim at Missouri’s pioneering Non-Partisan Court Plan. As you probably know, in 1945 Missouri became the first state to adopt a merit selection plan for choosing some of its judges. This plan, designed to minimize the impact of partisan political considerations in the selection of judges, has since been copied (in one form or another) in more than 30 states.
Perhaps because Missouri was the first state to implement such a farsighted system, or perhaps because Missouri is considered to be a bellwether state on the national political scene, partisan interests have placed their bull’s-eye squarely on the Show-Me State. We saw the trend manifest itself during this year’s legislative session, when various proposals would have restricted state court jurisdiction in the areas of taxation, spending, and budgeting; required impeachment trials to be held before the Senate, rather than the Supreme Court of Missouri; and established a single eight-year term for merit selection judges. Fortunately for the people of Missouri, none of these proposals gained passage.
However, observers expect more of the same during next year’s legislative session, with some form of these proposals – and perhaps even an attempt to abolish the Non-Partisan Court Plan altogether – being considered.
As a prelude to these efforts in the legislative arena, an effort is also underway to discredit the process by which merit system judges are selected. You may have heard the misleading and inaccurate radio advertisements from the Adam Smith Foundation, a partisan political entity founded earlier this year, railing against the selection of judges behind “closed doors” in “smoke filled rooms.”
Nothing could be further from the truth, and The Missouri Bar – fulfilling its obligation to preserve the integrity of the judiciary – is doing, and will continue to do, all it can to shed light on the deceptive tactics, inaccurate information and inflammatory rhetoric espoused by individuals and groups who want nothing more than judges and courts who issue rulings and decisions in lockstep with their particular political beliefs, regardless of the applicable law.
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Another issue upon which I would like to focus during the next year is improving diversity within the Bar. In an article in the Summer 2007 issue of Precedent, The Missouri Bar’s newest publication, I was quoted as follows:
Many bar organizations within the state, including The Missouri Bar, have made strides and efforts [toward improving diversity]. But the proof is in the pudding. If we can look at our bar organization and say that our membership is not representative of our citizens or the people in the profession, and more importantly if the leadership does not reflect the profession, then we have to say to ourselves that we must do more.
I know for a fact that the men and women of The Missouri Bar are good, honorable people who are uniformly welcoming to new colleagues to the profession, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, nationality or disability. But it is clear that the Bar membership is not representative of the population as a whole, and more particularly, Bar leadership is not always reflective of the diversity within the membership.
The Board of Governors of The Missouri Bar is currently considering a proposal that would add three members to the Board. These members would be designed to represent constituencies that are currently under-represented on the Bar’s governing body. There is no doubt that this proposal is controversial, generating welcome and thought-provoking debate among members of the Board on issues related to the proposal.
Whatever the outcome of this particular proposal, I think we all must do more to encourage Missouri Bar members from all walks of life to get involved in leadership activities within the organization – whether that means serving on a committee or running for the Board of Governors. By doing so, we will ensure that our state bar is viewed as an open, inclusive organization that welcomes and values all viewpoints and perspectives. That will not only improve the quality of our overall efforts, but will also establish an enviable standard for those who follow in our footsteps.
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The ongoing crisis within the state’s overworked and under-funded public defender system has shed light on the financial strain facing most lawyers who decide to provide public service legal work. This would include not only public defenders, but also prosecutors, legal aid attorneys, government attorneys, and others.
Public service attorneys play a crucial role in society, but they typically work long hours and under great stress for minimal pay when compared to attorneys in the private sector. Because public service attorneys are typically new or recent law school graduates, they also bring crushing law school debt to these low-paying jobs. Is it any wonder that the turnover within these positions is high, given that many public service attorneys find that they can barely support themselves, much less a family?
To help ensure that young, enthusiastic, community-minded attorneys continue to accept these important positions and stay there as they gain crucial experience, The Missouri Bar and the Missouri Bar Foundation created the Loan Repayment Program (LRAP). Under the terms of this program, eligible public service lawyers may apply for forgivable loans to help defray the high cost of their educational debt.
Since its inception three years ago, the LRAP has awarded $111,467 in forgivable loans to 123 recipients.
All of the funding for this worthwhile project comes via tax deductible donations to the Missouri Bar Foundation. During the next year, you will be hearing more about LRAP and what all of us can do to help ensure that low-paid public service lawyers – who devote backbreaking hours to upholding the finest traditions of the legal profession – find that work to be both professionally and personally rewarding. Can we count on your help?