The Missouri Bar Needs to Get Serious

The Missouri Bar Board of Governors simply does not get it. In a crashing economy, during the coldest time of the year, they have abandoned the state for the sunny beaches of Captiva Island, Florida. Here, from the Missouri Bar's website, is the description of the meeting:

Travel to an unspoiled haven – where the sun, sea and gentle surf lure visitors back time after time. South Seas Island Resort, site of the 2009 Missouri Bar Mid-Year Seminar, offers an infinite number of ways to escape from everyday worries, reconnect with friends and loved ones, and enjoy a wide array of recreation options.

Captiva Island is home to the South Seas Island Resort, a 330-acre, world-class meeting resort that has recently benefited from a $140 million revitalization. It offers comfortable, serene and exceptional accommodations with innovative amenities and breathtaking views of the wonders of nature.

Missouri Bar members and their guests attending the 2009 Mid-Year Seminar will enjoy accommodations at Harbourside Waterview at the Pointe, which boasts amazing panoramic views of the Gulf of Mexico from open balconies. The view includes yachts maneuvering into the harbor and sailboats unfurling their colorful sails with the wind – while dolphins and manatees play in the wakes. These units are a five-minute walk to the white sand beach and steps away from the resort’s nine-hole golf course along the Gulf shoreline.

South Seas Island Resort represents a new concept in relaxing island hideaways, and is the ideal setting for an unforgettable South Florida resort vacation – all while far from the bitter winds and blowing snow of a Missouri winter.

While our Missouri Bar Board of Governors enjoys its time "far from the bitter winds and blowing snow of a Missouri winter", our public defender system remains underfunded, law students are being saddled with too much debt to take public service jobs, judges are underpaid, and our Legal Aid offices are forced to turn away deserving clients.

I haven't seen the agenda for their meeting, and the Board of Governors has not posted any minutes for its meetings since May, so I cannot tell what they are "working on" in their "unspoiled haven". I hope they at least have the good judgment to wait until their suntans fade before they ask anyone for money, though.