{Members Only} Sasha Riedisser, a commercial-disputes associate at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, has been instrumental in a successful partnership between BCLP, Citigroup, and Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (LSEM) to provide assistance to people needing advance healthcare directives and powers of attorney, as well as beneficiary deeds.

{Members Only} Of course, the reality is, as times and attitudes change, language changes, the new replaces the old, and the young replace their parents' and grandparents' generations.

{Public} "How's it going?" That is the top question asked of me in my first 90 days. And the truth is that it is going great.

{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?

Too often we push through deadlines and go through the motions without asking why. Why are we doing this work? Why did we choose to go into the legal profession? What is it that we are hoping to achieve?

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 normal, non pandemic years, there is a point where our stress is so bad that we just hate everyone. Not are "mildly irritated" and "annoyed" with people, but literally loathe every person who crosses our path. So on the "hate" days, I recommend the "Campsite Rule".

The Saint Louis Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (BAMSL), has announced it will provide grant funding to organizations that advance or promote the rule of law. The Foundation will consider grant applications until March 31, 2021, for up to $5,000 for innovative projects that address needs in the metropolitan St. Louis region.

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.