Hon. Glenn A. Norton
BAMSL President, 2020-21
Of Counsel, Blitz, Bardgett & Deutsch, L.C.
Mediator, Special Master, Alaris

Originally published in the August 2021 issue of the St. Louis Lawyer magazine. View in the archives.

Thank you to BAMSL President Bob Tomaso for allowing me to take up this space this month so I may honor the BAMSL members who served during my BAMSL presidency. It is an honor and a privilege to finally be able to recognize and award these individuals for their volunteerism during the 2020-21 bar year.

DISTINGUISHED LAWYER AWARD

Paul N. Venker
Member
Baker Sterchi Cowden & Rice LLC

The Distinguished Lawyer Award is the highest honor given by BAMSL. It is given annually to a lawyer who has made a great and lasting contribution to the St. Louis region in the area of law and community service, has motivated other lawyers to work in the public interest, and who exemplifies lawyers as good citizens contributing significantly to the community.

Venker was chosen for his longstanding work on the Freedom Suits Memorial. The 2020-21 bar year provided an opportunity to really push this project to the next level, with incredible fundraising efforts from the committee, with a goal to make it a reality this year. Venker has been a great leader in promoting this important component to educate the community about the history of the freedom lawsuits that occurred in St. Louis and how it is relevant to the legal community and the region at large.

He also is a past president of the Saint Louis Bar Foundation, BAMSL's charitable entity.

Venker has had a varied and challenging legal career within the trial and appellate arenas, which began as a law clerk during law school. Upon graduation, he was a member of the Research Staff of the Missouri Supreme Court where he was invited to serve as a law clerk to then-Chief Justice Robert T. Donnelly. His experience was broadened during his time as an Assistant Litigation Counsel at Monsanto Company from 1988 to 1990.

RONDA F. WILLIAMS COMMUNITY AWARENESS AWARD

Sarah Bardol
Judicial Law Clerk
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri

Beth C. Boggs 
Managing Partner
Boggs, Avellino, Lach & Boggs, LLC

The Ronda F. Williams Community Awareness Award is given to individuals to recognize their contributions to the community to improve diversity and awareness.

Both received the award for their outstanding commitment from the moment the pandemic started and still continue today to provide food, hand sanitizer, masks and other necessities throughout the community via Boggs' Step It Up charitable organization. Bardol has helped provide volunteers via the BAMSL St. Louis Attorneys Against Hunger Committee. They have continued to make sandwiches every week and still are volunteering at weekly food distributions events around the region for those impacted the most by the pandemic.

Bardol, who clerks for U.S. District Judge Richard Webber, was chair of the YLD Community Service Committee during the 2020-21 bar year. She currently serves as chair of WILP and chair-elect of YLD.

Boggs founded Boggs, Avellino, Lach & Boggs, LLC, in 1999, and it is a certified woman-owned business. It is the largest WBENC certified law firm in the state of Missouri.

PRESIDENT'S AWARDS

Bill Bay
Partner
Thompson Coburn LLP

Bay was selected for spending countless hours, weeks and months volunteering as a leader and guiding force for the Search Committee to hire a new BAMSL Executive Director.

Bay has represented major corporations in high-stakes litigation for more than 30 years. He was the 2018-2020 Chair of the 600-member ABA House of Delegates, the policy-making body of the association. He is a past Chair of the 60,000-member ABA Section of Litigation, the largest section in the ABA, and a past member of the ABA Board of Governors, where he served as chair of the Board's Finance Committee. Bay is also a member of the American Law Institute, the leading independent organization in the United States that works to improve the law. Most recently, the Supreme Court of Missouri appointed him to serve as the chair of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Fairness and the Joint Task Force on the Future of the Profession.

Maurice B. Graham
President
Gray, Ritter & Graham, P.C.

Graham also devoted numerous volunteer hours in helping lead the Search Committee to hire a new BAMSL Executive Director. He also is a past president of the Saint Louis Bar Foundation.

Graham concentrates his practice in the areas of complex business and commercial litigation and catastrophic injury and death cases. He is a frequent speaker and author in the areas of litigation and legal ethics. He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court and the Fifth, Eighth and Ninth Circuits of the U.S. Court of Appeals, in addition to being admitted in the federal courts of Missouri.

Graham was a member of The Missouri Bar Board of Governors from 1980 through 1990 and President of The Missouri Bar in 1988-89. He has served on several Missouri Bar and Missouri Supreme Court task forces and committees, including co-chairing the Supreme Court Cameras in the Courtroom Task Force. He served as a member and chairman of the Supreme Court Advisory Committee, which oversees attorney discipline in Missouri.

Amy Rebecca Johnson
Attorney
Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal, P.C.

Johnson is being honored for rejuvenating BAMSL's lawyer well-being programs as chair of the BAMSL Health and Well-Being Committee. Her commitment to providing a forum for all lawyers to become healthier has led to numerous articles and activities that foster spiritual, mental and physical well-being. She even volunteers her own time presenting yoga classes to BAMSL members throughout the year.

Johnson's practice concentrates solely in the area of family law: divorce, child custody, paternity and adoption. Prior to joining Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal, P.C., Johnson ran a successful solo law practice, where she recognized that assisting clients through the difficult times of family law cases drove her passion for the practice of law.

Cardina Johnson
Associate General Counsel
Illinois Education Association

Johnson served as chair of the BAMSL Minorities in the Legal Profession (MILP) Section, promoting the importance of diversity in the legal profession. She also continues to serve as co-chair of the Motion for Kids Committee, which faced numerous challenges and changes for the 2020 event, but a successful modified version helped provide at least gifts to all the children who had requested them via their wish lists.

Johnson is associate general counsel for the Illinois Education Association. She previously was assistant general counsel for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

Hon. Richard Webber
Senior Judge
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri

Judge Webber was selected to be honored for his continued commitment to BAMSL, most recently as Presidential Liaison during the 2020-21 bar year.

He originally served as a prosecuting attorney for several counties in Missouri. He was also a circuit court judge for the first Judicial Circuit of Missouri from 1979 to 1996. He nominated by then-President Bill Clinton on August 10, 1995, to a seat vacated by Edward Louis Filippine on the U.S. District Court of Eastern Missouri. He assumed senior status on June 30, 2009.