Executive summary: Shared commitment of helping lawyers

Mischa Buford Epps, Missouri Bar executive director

I hope the beginning weeks of the new year have treated you well. As your bar, we are always looking for strategic relationships that will benefit you, our members. One such relationship is with The Bar Plan. 

In December, I had the pleasure of joining the bar’s Board of Governors’ Executive Committee for a meeting with The Bar Plan’s board members and senior leadership at their holiday festivities. This annual event is an opportunity for Missouri Bar and Bar Plan leaders to connect and celebrate the strong partnership between our organizations. 

We appreciate The Bar Plan’s longstanding support of The Missouri Bar and our members in numerous ways, big and small. 

The Bar Plan actually has its origins in The Missouri Bar. In the early 1980s, a nationwide crisis arose in the lawyers’ professional liability insurance market. Many commercial carriers exited the market or enforced significant rate increases (100-plus percent) on their policyholders. 

Understanding the negative impact this would have on its members, The Missouri Bar, along with other state bar associations, researched ways to ensure lawyers could find professional liability insurance coverage and started a program in 1983 facilitating such coverage. The company now known as The Bar Plan Mutual Insurance Company grew out of this program and has existed in its current form since 1986. 

Focused on serving Missouri’s legal community for the long term, The Bar Plan shares the bar’s commitment of helping lawyers. 

We are fortunate that, more than 40 years ago, Missouri Bar leaders and volunteers took bold steps to meet the needs of Missouri lawyers and build a company like The Bar Plan. The challenges they faced were similar to those we encounter today: doubt, resistance to change, and uncertainty in the face of new technologies and an evolving legal marketplace. 

Stories like that of The Bar Plan remind us that progress is rarely achieved in isolation. Instead, it is a collective effort, built on the courage and collaboration of those who dare to envision and take action. 

Current Missouri Bar leaders and staff continue to take action in pursuit of improving the quality of legal services, the administration of justice, and the support and regulation of lawyers in our state. As we move forward in 2025, we remain focused on member value, improving delivery of services and program offerings to meet the current and emerging needs of Missouri lawyers. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to serve as the bar’s executive director and to work alongside so many dedicated professionals committed to building a more promising future for our profession and communities. Please let us know how we can best assist you and your work. 

Best regards,
Mischa