Hon. Glenn A. Norton
BAMSL President, 2020-21
Of Counsel, Blitz, Bardgett & Deutsch, L.C.
Mediator, Special Master, Alaris
Originally published in the May 2020 issue of the St. Louis Lawyer magazine. View in the archives.
I am honored to be serving as president of BAMSL for the 2020-21 bar year. I thank my predecessor, Sara G. Neill, who has done a phenomenal job of leading BAMSL for the past year, but particularly through the last three challenging months.
I am proud of the long-standing traditions of BAMSL, which has a long and rich history of serving legal professionals and the St. Louis community. My wife, Hon. Colleen Dolan, and I have been very active in BAMSL, attending networking and social events to get to know the members; honored to be asked to serve as panelists; and enhancing our legal practice by attending the high-quality CLEs that BAMSL presents.
All of us are working through challenging times right now due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There is talk about "getting back to normal" or the "new normal" but none of us knows what that really means right now. On May 1, 2020, we transitioned to a new Board of Governors and a new Young Lawyers Division Executive Board. However, as the leadership changes, the 2019-20 leadership has been working closely with the 2020- 21 leadership to provide some continuity.
There are changes ahead, however, as you know that Executive Director Zoe Linza has decided to take advantage of a well-deserved retirement. Although Zoe had planned to go spend more time with her grandchildren and head to the beach by April 30, 2020, she agreed to stay on a little longer. Hopefully we will have her through the fall. She and her staff are working as hard as ever, remotely during the Stay-at-Home orders, to keep BAMSL running. Numerous CLEs have gone online instead of in-person and major events have had to be postponed until later in the bar year.
Some of those rescheduled events include:
- Corporate Counsel Institute (CCI) - TBD
- Law Day - rescheduled to Fri., June 26, with George Will still scheduled to be our guest speaker
- Rendezvous on the Roof - rescheduled to Wed., July 23
- Golf Outing - rescheduled to Mon., Aug. 3
- Bench & Bar - rescheduled to Mon., Aug. 31-Wed., Sept. 2
- 15-Hour CLE - rescheduled to Wed., Sept. 16
We also will have a new Editor-in-Chief of The St. Louis Bar Journal, with an updated design and format.
Some things will remain the same, such as our continued community service via our St. Louis Attorneys Against Hunger program, the annual Motion for Kids holiday party, the high school Mock Trial competition and of course, numerous opportunities to provide Pro Bono legal services for the community.
We may not be celebrating the new bar year in the manner in which we have become accustomed, but there is no doubt that your leadership and staff is committed to continuing to provide our more than 6,000 members with opportunities to grow, learn and make lifelong personal connections with other BAMSL members.
Thank you for putting your faith in me as your president as we navigate this new world.
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