Executive summary: The Missouri Bar Foundation: Celebrating 75 years of service to our profession

Heidi Doerhoff Vollet is president of The Missouri Bar Foundation and partner at Cook Vetter Doerhoff & Landwehr PC in Jefferson City.

A note from Mischa Buford Epps, Missouri Bar executive director: I have the great fortune of witnessing the impact Missouri lawyers make on the world around us. One of the ways you do so is through your contributions to and support of The Missouri Bar Foundation. To help drive home this point, I extended an invitation to Heidi Doerhoff Vollet, current president of The Missouri Bar Foundation, to share about the great work the foundation has done over its 75-year history to assist citizens across our state and recognize the remarkable contributions of Missouri lawyers.

The Missouri Bar Foundation is a statewide, nonpartisan, charitable organization. It was created on May 11, 1950, by pillars of Missouri’s legal community:
– Charles M. Blackmar, a prominent Kansas City lawyer and an initiator of Missouri’s Non-Partisan Court Plan (whose son, Hon. Charles B. Blackmar, served with distinction on the Supreme Court of Missouri from 1982-1992), led the charge as its first president.
– Allen L. Oliver, a Cape Girardeau lawyer and past president of The Missouri Bar, served as its first vice president. 
– Irene L. Dulin, a St. Louis lawyer and graduate of Saint Louis University School of Law, served as its first secretary.
– Paul Van Osdol, a Kansas City lawyer who was a member of the American Law Institute and an original founder of the Legal Aid Society, was its first treasurer.

In its early days, the foundation’s mission included providing direct support to ill and incapacitated lawyers and their survivors, advancing the science of jurisprudence, promoting improvements in the administration of justice, and granting scholarships to law students. 

As the foundation matured, its activities included elevating and celebrating excellence through a handful of annual awards recognizing the best of our legal profession after rigorous vetting. Three distinguished young trial lawyers receive the Lon O. Hocker Award annually. Three young appellate advocates receive the annual David J. Dixon Appellate Advocacy Award. An outstanding Journal of The Missouri Bar author is bestowed the annual W. Oliver Rasch Award. The annual Purcell Professionalism Award honors two lawyers for their professionalism. And one scholar, one lawyer, and one judge are recognized each year for their outstanding lifetime service toward the increase and diffusion of justice through the Spurgeon Smithson Award. 

Seventy-five years after its founding, the foundation’s charitable grant programs are no longer focused on individual needs, but on effective partnerships with The Missouri Bar, law schools, local and specialty bar organizations, legal aid organizations, and other charitable organizations with law-related programming. The foundation annually awards competitive grants, typically ranging from $5,000-$25,000, to projects that best assist the foundation’s mission of advancing the administration of justice, fostering public appreciation of the rule of law, and furthering our constitutional form of government. 

In 2026, the foundation is particularly interested in providing impact funding for innovative projects that:
– address unmet legal needs in rural Missouri;¹ 
– build student and public appreciation and support for the rule of law, due process, judicial review, and other legal guarantees within our constitutional form of government; or 
– enhance lawmakers’ understanding of the role of the judicial branch of government.

The foundation welcomes grant applications in these priority areas and others that can demonstrate a measurable impact furthering the foundation’s mission. Grant application information is available through MoBarFoundation.org. Other inquiries may be made to FoundationAwards@mobar.org. Applications are due not later than March 15 of the grant year cycle in which they are awarded. 

Of course, the foundation’s charitable activities would not be possible without the dedication of its trustees and officers and the generosity of donors. The foundation’s bylaws require many well-regarded judges and lawyers serve as trustees, as well as participation of the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri and the president and executive director of The Missouri Bar. 

Special gifts and bequests have made much of the foundation’s work possible, but foundation fellows form the core of our donors. 
– A fellow of The Missouri Bar Foundation is a member of The Missouri Bar in good standing who has contributed $1,000 in one payment to the foundation or made a pledge to pay a minimum of $200 per year for five consecutive years and contributes as pledged.
– Life fellows have contributed or pledged a lifetime aggregate of $3,400-$4,999.
– Advocate fellows have contributed or pledged a lifetime aggregate of $5,000-$9,999.
– Champion fellows have contributed or pledged an aggregate of $10,000-$24,999.
– Pillar fellows have contributed or pledged $25,000 or more. In 2024, the foundation added similar levels for firm donations: firm advocate, firm champion, and firm pillar. 

Tax deductible donations may be made online at MoBarFoundation.org or by mailing a donation to The Missouri Bar Foundation, P.O. Box 119, Jefferson City, Missouri 65102-0119.

In honor of the foundation’s 75th year, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to be an active part of its important mission of advancing the administration of justice, elevating the legal profession, fostering public appreciation of the rule of law, and furthering our constitutional form of government.

Endnotes

1 Erin Achenbach, “Legal deserts: Rural Missouri counties struggle with attorney shortages,” MISSOURI LAWYERS WEEKLY, Dec. 11, 2024, https://molawyersmedia.com/2024/12/11/legal-deserts-rural-missouri-counties-struggle-with-attorney-shortages.