#MoBarNews April 2025 recap
Don’t miss April’s top stories!
New Missouri lawyers sworn in during 2025 Spring Enrollment Ceremonies
About 50 individuals were sworn into the legal profession before judges of the Supreme Court of Missouri, officers of The Missouri Bar, and members of the Missouri Board of Law Examiners during the April 25 Spring Enrollment Ceremonies. Those lawyers were among the 86 individuals who passed the February 2025 Bar Exam.
View photos from the day’s celebration on The Missouri Bar's Facebook page.
Click here to read the full article including interviews with new lawyers.
Award nominations open
The Missouri Bar, The Missouri Bar Foundation, Young Lawyers’ Section, and Missouri Lawyers’ Assistance Program are accepting nominations for several awards. Click the links below to read about the awards and nominate individuals and organizations today!
- YLS Liberty Bell and Tom Cochran Community Service Award nominations due May 15
- Diversity Champion Award nominations due May 31, and
- Missouri Lawyers’ Assistance Program awards nominations due Sept. 19.
June 30 MCLE compliance deadline is approaching
Missouri lawyers must complete their minimum continuing legal education hours by June 30 for the 2024-2025 compliance year. This article includes some frequently asked questions about how to complete and file your hours, where you can find CLE programs, and more.
Click here to read answers to frequently asked questions.
Closing statements: What strategies have helped you learn and move on from mistakes as a lawyer?
In the March-April 2025 issue of The Journal of The Missouri Bar, lawyers shared strategies that have helped them learn and move on from mistakes.
“The strategy I use to learn and move on from mistakes is to remind myself that we learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. Every mistake I have made has been a learning experience, which makes me a better lawyer.”
– Shelly Dreyer, partner at Dreyer & Tinney in Joplin
Click here for more strategies.
Write a contract your client can understand
In the March-April 2025 issue of The Journal of The Missouri Bar, Alan Freed offered tips for lawyers to write contracts in a way their clients can understand.
“One easy change that will immediately make documents clearer is to give ‘herein’ the heave-ho,” Freed wrote. “Every time a contract refers to a proposition ’stated herein,’ I ask the question, ‘In what?’ Does that mean in this paragraph? In this section? In this document? In the pending action? While in most instances, the answer will be clear from context, lawyers can eliminate all possibility of misinterpretation with a few clarifying words like, ‘as stated in this [paragraph/agreement/section].’
Read the full article to learn other ways to make your contracts easier for your clients to understand.
Most popular stories
This month, the bar’s most popular articles continued to be The Missouri Bar’s weekly case summaries, followed by the March-April “In memoriam.”
View the Supreme Court of Missouri and Missouri Court of Appeals hand-downs each week online, with headings and summaries for each case. These summaries are not part of the opinions of the court and should not be quoted or cited.
Those wanting to pay tribute to a Missouri lawyer can submit an obituary here.
The Missouri Bar makes every effort to provide valuable information and resources through MoBar.org and MissouriLawyersHelp.org. To stay up to date, follow The Missouri Bar on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.