Willie J. Epps Jr., board treasurer of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (BAMSL), recently accepted the LexisNexis Community & Educational Outreach Award from the National Association of Bar Executives on behalf of BAMSL. The awards honor outstanding bar public service and law-related education programs.
BAMSL received the 2017 “Local Bar with 5,000 or Members or Affiliated Foundation” award for its Hon. Richard B. Teitelman Memorial St. Louis Pro Bono Challenge.
In partnership with Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, BAMSL implemented this program to encourage and support pro bono work, and to publicly recognize those lawyers and law firms who step up to the Pro Bono Challenge.
Participating firms pledge to actively encourage pro bono work and strive to perform a total of 10 hours of pro bono work on average per year per attorney located in St. Louis. The Pro Bono Challenge law firms provided a collective 16,995.4 hours of pro bono work to the St. Louis community during the first half of 2017.
Current participating firms include Bryan Cave LLP, Husch Blackwell LLP, Capes Sokol, Jacob Law Firm, LLC, David B. Lacks, P.C. Law Offices, Lathrop & Gage LLP, Dennis Buchheit, Attorney, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C., Dentons US LLP, Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal, P.C., Dowd Bennett LLP, Polsinelli PC, Fox Galvin, LLC, The Simon Law Firm, P.C., Gray, Ritter & Graham, P.C., Stinson Leonard Street LLP, Herzog Crebs LLP and Thompson Coburn LLP.
“Judge Teitelman’s legacy was that of service to people in need,” Epps said. “I am so proud of the BAMSL lawyers and law firms who met the 2017 pro bono challenge.”
For more information about the LexisNexis Community and Educational Outreach Awards, visit http://www.nabenet.org/?LexisOutreach. For more information about BAMSL, visit www.bamsl.org.
