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| Formation | March 16, 1874 |
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| Type | Bar association |
| Headquarters | 555 Washington Ave UNIT 100 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
President | Anne-Marie Brockland |
| Website | https://www.bamsl.org |
The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (BAMSL) was founded in 1874 by some 100 members of the St. Louis bench and bar. BAMSL currently has over 5,000 members and a vast network of committees and sections. [1]
On March 16, 1874, some 100 members of the St. Louis bar and bench convened to organize themselves professionally. Their forum was the Old Courthouse, already known to the law as the place where Dred Scott filed his first state court action seeking his freedom. A month and a half later, they filed Articles of Agreement and a petition for incorporation giving form to the Bar Association of St. Louis.
The Articles were filed in downtown St. Louis in what was then, prior to the separation of St. Louis from St. Louis County, the St. Louis County Circuit Court. The organization they established, known since 1967 as The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, now claims a membership of over 6,000 and a vast network of committees and sections. Yet its key purposes have remained constant: to maintain high standards among practitioners of the law; to be watchful of the fair administration of justice, and to promote social relations among its members.
Two of the Association's early presidents--James O. Broadhead and Henry Hitchcock—met with other lawyers in Saratoga, New York, in 1878 and founded the American Bar Association (ABA). Broadhead became the first president of the ABA; Hitchcock was its 12th in 1889. Five other presidents of The St. Louis Bar Association have headed the ABA: James Hagerman (1903); Fredrick W. Lehman (1908); Guy A. Thompson (1931); Jacob M. Lashly (1940) and John C. Shepherd (1986).
St. Louis Bar Association leaders were also instrumental in formation of The Missouri Bar Association in 1880, the precursor to the present integrated Missouri Bar of which all state lawyers and judges are required to be members. Broadhead and Hitchcock, as well as John Rutledge Shepley and Samuel M. Brechenridge, the first and second presidents respectively of The St. Louis Bar Association, were in the forefront of the 114 lawyers who met in Kansas City to establish The Missouri Bar Association.
Merit selection of judges was formally advocated by the Association as early as 1904. The Association's efforts in this area finally bore fruit in 1940 when the state Constitution was amended to establish the nonpartisan court plan in the Supreme Court, the courts of appeals and the circuit and probate courts of St. Louis and Jackson County. The amendment authorized extension of the plan to other judicial circuits by vote of the residents.
The Bar Association was also responsible for creation of the Legal Aid Society, today known as Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, Inc. The Society was established in a fledgling form in the administration of Daniel G. Taylor, 1909–1910. Its purpose: to provide counsel for indigent persons. [2]
William Hedgcock Webster is an American attorney and jurist who most recently served as chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council from 2005 until 2020. He was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit before becoming director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1978 to 1987 and director of Central Intelligence (CIA) from 1987 to 1991. He is the only person to have held both positions.
Bellefontaine Cemetery is a nonprofit, non-denominational cemetery and arboretum in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1849 as a rural cemetery, Bellefontaine is home to a number of architecturally significant monuments and mausoleums such as the Louis Sullivan-designed Wainwright Tomb, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The cemetery contains 314 acres (1.27 km2) of land and over 87,000 graves, including those of William Clark, Adolphus Busch, Thomas Hart Benton, Rush Limbaugh, and William S. Burroughs. Many Union and Confederate soldiers from the American Civil War are buried at Bellefontaine, as well as numerous local and state politicians.
Loyola University Chicago School of Law is the law school of Loyola University Chicago, in Illinois. Established in 1909, by the Society of Jesus, the Roman Catholic order of the Jesuits, the School of Law is located in downtown Chicago. Loyola University Chicago School of Law offers degrees and combined degree programs, including the Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.).
Shirley Ann Mount Hufstedler was an American attorney and judge who served as the first United States secretary of education from 1979 to 1981. She previously served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1968 to 1979. At the time of her presidential cabinet appointment under President Jimmy Carter, she was the highest ranking-woman in the federal judiciary of the United States.
Dennis David Crouch is an American patent attorney who worked for McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP (MBHB) in Chicago, Illinois, until 2007. In 2007, he accepted a post of associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Law in Columbia, Missouri.
Washington University in St. Louis School of Law (WashULaw) is the law school of Washington University in St. Louis, a private university in St. Louis, Missouri. WashULaw has consistently ranked among the top law schools in the country; it is currently ranked 16th among the 196 American Bar Association-approved law schools by U.S. News & World Report, and 6th in the country by AboveTheLaw.com. Prominent alumni include numerous U.S. senators, congressmen, governors, cabinet members, federal and state judges, businessmen, and scholars. Founded in 1867, WashULaw is the oldest continuously operating law school west of the Mississippi River. The law school was originally located in downtown St. Louis, but relocated in 1904 to the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis.
The United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri is the federal judicial district encompassing 66 counties in the western half of the State of Missouri. The Court is based in the Charles Evans Whittaker Courthouse in Kansas City.
Saint Louis University School of Law, also known as SLU LAW, is a private American law school located in St. Louis, Missouri. It is one of the professional graduate schools of Saint Louis University. The University hosted a law school briefly from 1843 to 1847, making it the first law school to open west of the Mississippi River and first Catholic law school in the United States. The current law school was established in 1908 with its current name. The school has been ABA approved since 1924 and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Housed in Scott Hall, the law school has the highest enrollment of law students in Missouri. SLU Law has the highest bar passage rate in the state of Missouri. It offers both full- and part-time programs. The school is home to the University's Vincent C. Immel Law Library, one of the largest law libraries in the state of Missouri. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas studied for his bar exam at the old Omer Poos Law Library on the main SLU campus.
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