A Great Time To Support Our Members and Our Profession

Robert Tomaso
Office Managing Partner, Husch Blackwell LLP
BAMSL President, 2021-22

As I write this column, we are making final preparations for this year’s annual Bench & Bar conference at Camden on the Lake. Our 2020 conference was entirely virtual, but we are back live (with a virtual option) for 2021. As of this writing, we expected to have a full crowd in attendance, including 46 judges. It seems that people are eager to get back together in a fun, relaxed setting.

We are also getting ready for the 2021 Spirit of Justice Awards, which, to tie the pandemic and our bar association together, will include an award for the head of the St. Louis Area COVID Task Force, Alex Garza, M.D. The Spirit of Justice Awards banquet is scheduled for 6-10 p.m. on Fri., Oct. 15 at the Magnolia Hotel. Guest tables and sponsorship opportunities are still available. The Spirit of Justice Award winners are chosen annually by the Board of the Saint Louis Bar Foundation, the charitable entity of BAMSL.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Freedom Suits Memorial was a highlight of our summer. Special thanks should go to our Bar Foundation, Paul Venker, and Judge David Mason, among many others, for spearheading this overdue memorial.

As I hope you know by now, we have learned in the last few years that the (in)famous lawsuit filed by Dred and Harriett Scott was not an isolated incident. In fact, in cleaning our courthouse a few years ago, we learned that approximately 400 courageous slaves, many of whom were represented by very brave St. Louis lawyers, filed claims for their freedom on the same basis as Dred and Harriett Scott — that if they had been taken to a free state or territory, they were forever free and could not be enslaved again. Mock-ups of the Memorial, being sculpted by Preston Jackson, are both beautiful and inspiring. Learning about the history of these cases made me and many others proud of our chosen profession.

On the other hand, I call the case involving the Scott’s “infamous” in large part due to the absolutely dreadful U.S. Supreme Court opinion authored by Justice Roger Taney. If you have never read the opinion, I hope you will, even though I am sure you will find it to be an embarrassment for our profession.

There is still plenty of time for you and your law firms to get behind this ambitious drive to build and finance this important monument. To do so, you can visit www.stlouisbarfoundation.org.