It has been my honor and pleasure to get to know a great American artist craftsman, Preston Jackson, during the prior six years in my role as chair of the Freedom Suits Memorial Steering Committee. His avocations and career have been steeped in artistic expression in music, painting sculpture, and more.

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.

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.

Who is ready to finally get the chance to head to the Lake of the Ozarks for a fun-filled BAMSL Bench & Bar Conference? Given what we have seen so far as we return to in-person events, I think that BAMSL members are excited and ready to get out and network and socialize with their colleagues.

{Public} As this column is being written, we have been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic for more than 14 months. Its impact on the legal profession has been profound.

First, most lawyers — with extraordinary help from IT professionals — have learned to work remotely (meaning primarily from home). Shockingly, because of technology, many lawyers have found working remotely to be just as productive as working in a law office. Still, stories abound about lawyers “working from home” in vacation properties. One administrative assistant confided in me that her “cube” was now a table outside near her family swimming pool.

{Public} In November 1940, voters amended the Missouri Constitution by adopting the "Non-partisan Selection of Judges Court Plan," which was placed on the ballot by initiative petition. Under the Plan, judges are selected based on merit rather than on political affiliation.

As I write this, we are commemorating the one-year anniversary of the pandemic shutting everything down. We all remember the feelings of uncertainty and anxiety while trying to navigate what to do, wondering how long we would be in lockdown, scavenging store aisles for masks and hand sanitizer and the most powerful household cleaners. Would we ever have believed so much time could be spent talking about toilet paper?

Traditionally, the March issue of the St. Louis Lawyer magazine is devoted to highlighting and honoring the judges from the metropolitan region who retired the previous year. The issue normally provides a look at each judge's career and previews the Judicial Retirement Dinner to be held in their honor each March. Well, we all know that 2020 and now 2021 are not normal years for conducting BAMSL's usual events and programming.

BAMSL's last big formal in-person event was actually last year's Judicial Retirement Dinner, held just days before we went into lockdown mode.

In reflecting on Black History Month, I marvel at the Black woman’s pursuit of voting rights over the past two centuries. About 100 years before women achieved the right to vote with the passage of the 19^th Amendment in 1920, Black women had been fighting for voting rights and equality for all. The pursuit continued after the passage of the 19^thAmendment, as discrimination still prevented women of color from voting by the masses thereafter.

It was the most wonderful time of the year when we were finally able to close the door on 2020 and ring in a new year. As we start fresh in 2021, we say a hearty goodbye to the old and welcome in all the hope that a new year promises.