Over the next year, I plan to focus my columns on the features and benefits of BAMSL membership and involvement. BAMSL has a lot to offer, no matter the size of your firm, your practice area or the number of years you have been practicing. Today, I begin with my own experience.

Where did the past year go? Somehow, I am wrapping up an entire year serving as President of BAMSL. Over the course of this year, I have learned to appreciate, more than ever, how important BAMSL is to the entire St. Louis area. And it appears that my enthusiasm for all of the things BAMSL does has been contagious. Over these 12 months, we have seen BAMSL members grow to more than 6,750 legal professionals looking for ways to better serve their community.

What would it be like to have no meaningful access to the legal system, no remedies for many wrongs and a highly constricted version of justice?

This is a pivotal moment in black history, which in reality is our common history. American history. We are a community, a region, and a nation divided by race. But we also are a community united by a shared belief in "equal justice under law."

The recent acknowledgment of injustice and the growing concern for black lives has gained enough salience to make achievable the reforms necessary in our justice system.

There is a lot of good news here at BAMSL and membership has increased substantially. Even better, those two things are related. Membership is up because there are so many good reasons to join BAMSL. We now have 6,575 members (as of Dec. 1, 2018), including several hundred new attorney members as well as hundreds of new law student members.

There are many wonderful things about living in modern day America, but it is getting difficult to ignore one of our less appealing trends: the breakdown of public discourse. To a degree we have never seen before, we struggle to talk productively with each other about important issues.

One day at a time. It can be frustrating to go slowly. I have always been told that patience is a virtue, that it will be rewarded. Yet, for all the times being patient has seemingly paid off, I am willing to bet that waiting and being contented has resulted in multiple missed opportunities, continued status quo and unequal results.

I am using this month's President's Column to give some much-deserved attention to The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (BAMSL) Executive Director Zoe Linza. Presidents come and go but Linza has served BAMSL admirably for 12 years and offers a much-needed historical perspective. Although she has been the name and face we have most often associated with BAMSL over the years, we have rarely had the opportunity to read her own words in either of BAMSL's publications. For these reasons, we sat down with Linza a few weeks ago and "cross-examined" her.

When I became president of BAMSL, I decided to focus on two things: professionalism and pro bono service. This column is about pro bono work, which all lawyers agree to provide when they take their oaths. Our commitment to provide legal services to those who cannot afford attorneys also appears in BAMSL’s Tenets of Professionalism.

Because our clients find themselves overwhelmed, they look to attorneys to reframe complex situations in ways they can understand. When the answer is not immediately clear, we are trained to look for written guidance in the form of relevant rules, statutes and cases.