October 2021 #YourMOLaw month in review

The leaves are beginning to fall and the month ends with the spookiest day of the year, but there’s good news! Here is the #YourMOLaw news from The Missouri Bar through October!  

The month kicked off with an introduction to The Missouri Bar’s own legal and community services coordinator, Brett Rolwes. Since 2016, Rolwes has monitored Missouri’s free legal answers virtual clinic, maintained the state bar’s online public resources, and guided the Young Lawyers’ Section Council. 

“I’ve always been drawn to those jobs that the purpose is to help people who are struggling to help themselves,” he said. “When I see someone struggling or a problem that hasn’t been fixed or solved, I start thinking about it and I jump in.” 

Rolwes also helps support The Missouri Bar’s public-facing website: MissouriLawyersHelp.org. The Missouri Bar cannot refer residents to lawyers or offer legal advice, so the bar offers several services to help guide the public – including downloadable forms and handbooks covering various legal topics, lists of agencies who may offer pro bono services, a lawyer search tool, and the official directory of Missouri lawyers. Learn more about Brett Rolwes and the programs he helps oversee here. 

Mid-October saw the first of two new “Is It Legal To…?” podcasts uploaded. The first covered the topic of guardianships and conservatorships, which has been featured in news headlines over the last few years, most recently with popstar Britney Spears’ high-profile court battle to remove her father as her conservator (leading to the #FreeBritney social media movement). Click here for more information on this topic and a link to the podcast! 

The second podcast topic for October covers spooky Halloween! As children are excitedly anticipating putting on their costumes and going trick-or-treating or wandering through a haunted house, many do not realize the holiday can also create stressful legal issues.  

Learn more about legal topics surrounding trick-or-treating, haunted houses, decorations, and liabilities and find a link to the Halloween episode of “Is It Legal To…?” here. 

As always, The Missouri Bar is here to help and we hope you will check back in November for more news you can use.