Dodge, Tucker receive 2026 President’s Award for commitment to judicial performance review process
2025-2026 Missouri Bar President Athena Dickson awarded Deborah Dodge and Laurence R. Tucker with the 2026 President’s Award for their dedication and leadership on the Missouri Judicial Performance Review Committee.
The Missouri Judicial Performance Review Committee — comprised of lawyers, retired judges, and Missouri residents — completes an anonymous evaluation of each judge up for retention under Missouri’s Non-Partisan Court Plan, also known as The Missouri Plan, to ensure they are meeting the judicial performance standards. The committee reviews written opinions and surveys completed by lawyers and jurors who, when applicable, have worked with the judge. The committee then recommends whether a judge should or should not be retained, and its findings are publicly available through YourMissouriJudges.org to help educate voters.
Dodge
Dodge has been a trial lawyer with Hall Ansley, P.C. for over 32 years. A former member of The Missouri Bar Board of Governors, Dodge is past president of the Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association and is a founding member of the Southern Missouri Women Lawyers Association. She is the current chair of the Missouri Judicial Performance Review Committee and was on the 31st Judicial Commission, which helps fill judicial vacancies under The Missouri Plan in Greene County.
“I am very honored to receive this award from our president, Athena Dickson,” Dodge said. “She has spent tireless hours traveling around the state sharing the important work of the Judicial Performance Review Committee and its role in the Non-Partisan Court Plan.”
Dodge said she was “especially honored” to receive the President’s Award alongside Tucker.
“He successfully directed the statewide evaluation of the JPR Committee and public dissemination processes for both the 2022 and 2024 terms,” she said. “He continues to educate us on the many positive benefits of The Missouri Plan.”
Tucker
With over 44 years of practice, Tucker is of counsel at Armstrong Teasdale LLP, supporting its general counsel’s office with legal ethics, conflicts of interest, risk management, and continuing legal education. Before stepping into that role, Tucker was a litigation partner at Armstrong Teasdale.
A graduate of the Duke University School of Law, Tucker served on The Missouri Bar Board of Governors and was 1995-1996 Missouri Bar president. Tucker has served on the Missouri Judicial Performance Review Committee and its predecessor, the Judicial Performance Evaluation Committee, since 2008. He was chair of the Judicial Performance Review Committee from 2022-2026.
Tucker said he was “proud of the work” of the Judicial Performance Review Committee.
“Each member has diligently undertaken the serious responsibility to objectively evaluate the performance of the judges up for retention election,” he said. “… The committee has worked collaboratively and efficiently to complete its tasks over each two-year election cycle. The voters of Missouri have benefited [from] the committee’s work.”
Tucker encouraged lawyers to get involved with The Missouri Bar as the work is “important and meaningful.”
“A long-term belief in the need to seek the improvement of the laws and the administration of justice for all persons in Missouri has been my inspiration for the work I have done,” he said. “Those principles have led me to work in a way which I hope has been useful, ethical and effective in both my private practice and in my public service.”
Dodge and Tucker will accept the President’s Award in Kansas City during the Annual Meeting of The Missouri Bar and Judicial Conference, Sept. 16-18.
Click here to learn more about annual awards presented by The Missouri Bar, the Missouri Bar Foundation, and other entities. Read about other 2026 award winners here.