ELECTION ★ 2020 B A L L O T S G O P O S T A L / V O T I N G T H R O U G H T H E C E N T U R I E S / A C O N V E R S A T I O N W I T H C O R I B U S H p.15
November 2020
2021 ST. LOUIS BEST LAWYERS® THE METRO AREA’S TOP LEGAL TALENT p.69 LONG LIVE THE KING? OUR CITY GRAPPLES WITH ITS NAME p.82
big ideas 10 BOLD SOLUTIONS FOR ST. LOUIS IN 2021 (REGARDLESS OF THE ELECTION RESULTS) PLANS ON EVERYTHING FROM EDUCATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT, PARKLETS TO PUBLIC TRANSIT p.56
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S PEC I AL PROM OT I ON
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FEATURES
nov20
VOLUME 26 / ISSUE 11
82 Long Live the King?
Our city grapples with its name. By Nicholas Phillips
➝ The King Louis IX statue atop Art Hill has sparked heated debate during the past year.
P.
56
Big Ideas
10 bold solutions to move St. Louis forward For this month’s cover story on big ideas, artist Todd Detwiler created an optical illusion in which various forms of public transit are harmoniously intertwined.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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By Jarrett Medlin, Mike Miller, Nicholas Phillips, Jen Roberts, Samantha Stevenson, and Amanda Woytus
P.
69
2021 St. Louis Best Lawyers®
Featuring the metro area’s top legal talent
November 2020 stlmag.com
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NOV20
D E PA R TM E N T S
VOLUME 26 / ISSUE 11
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From the Editor
G
47
G AT E WAY
TASTE
Heirloom Ambrosia Confit turkey thigh, pumpkin, okra, and hominy at Bulrush
48
New Age Cantina In U. City, Natasha Kwan and Rick Roloff rethink the traditional Mexican restaurant.
15 Going Postal
31 E
Debunking mail-in voting fraud 18
20
Best in Kicks
Opposite Polls An illustrated guide to voting through the centuries
Move over, pumpkin spice. It’s boot weather. 34
R
Glow Up A skincare collaboration by sisters brings fragrances of the Bahamas to St. Louis.
The Personal Is Political How Cori Bush’s life has informed her plan for public office
ELEMENTS
A
50 Mack Attack
ANGLES
Mack Hill opens a neighborhood restaurant in the former Atlas space.
RHYTHM
52
A Slice of the Action O+O Pizza débuts in the former Olive + Oak space.
54
Prime Time Acclaimed chef Ben Grupe on his long-awaited restaurant in The Grove
St. Louis Sage
23 Fan Favorite To find success, country singer Alexandra Kay had to first find her audience. 26
37 Nadia Shakoor
Art and About
Changing the face of farming with drones
10-plus public art hidden gems 28
Life Support
40
Watch This Now King of the Cruise, starring a familiar St. Louis family member, comes to Amazon and iTunes.
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For one resident of the private Windermere Place, inclusion is king.
Inside the sober arts community of Hope Creates 29
Building Blocks
44
Vote of Confidence A look back at elections in 1985, 20 years after passage of the Voting Rights Act
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NOV20
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
VOLUME 26 / ISSUE 11
EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Jarrett Medlin Deputy Editor Amanda Woytus Senior Editor Nicholas Phillips Dining Editor George Mahe Associate Editor Samantha Stevenson Contributing Writers & Editors Mallori Albright, Kerry Bailey, Debra Chandler Landis, Dave Lowry, Melissa Meinzer, Mike Miller, Jen Roberts, Stefene Russell Interns Kenya Rosabal
SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscription rate is $19.95 for 12 issues of St. Louis Magazine, six issues of Design STL, and two issues of St. Louis Family. Call 314-918-3000 to place an order or to inform us of a change of address. For corporate and group subscription rates, contact Teresa Foss at 314-918-3030. ONLINE CALENDAR Email Amanda Woytus at awoytus@stlmag.com. (Please include “Online Calendar” in the subject line.) Or submit events at stlmag.com/events/ submit.html.
ART & PRODUCTION Design Director Tom White Art Director Emily Cramsey Sales & Marketing Designer Monica Lazalier Production Coordinator Kylie Green Staff Photographer Kevin A. Roberts Contributing Artists Todd Detwiler, Wesley Law, Matt Marcinkowski, Chris Philpot, Britt Spencer Stylist Lauren Dell ADVERTISING Account Executives Jill Gubin, Brian Haupt, Carrie Mayer, Kim Moore, Liz Schaefer Sales & Marketing Coordinator Elaine Krull EVENTS Director of Special Events Jawana Reid CIRCULATION Circulation Manager Dede Dierkes Circulation Coordinator Teresa Foss Newsstand Consultant Joe Luca
MINGLE To inquire about event photos, email Emily Cramsey at ecramsey@stlmag.com. (Please include “Mingle” in the subject line.) LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send letters to jmedlin@stlmag.com.
What big (or not-so-big) idea would you like to see in St. Louis? “People using their turn signals properly.” —Kevin A. Roberts, staff photographer “Like Sweden, new parents should get 480 days of paid leave and daycare costs should max out around $130 per month.” —Amanda Woytus, deputy editor “More roundabouts!” —George Mahe, dining editor
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MARKETING AND EVENTS For information about special events, contact Jawana Reid at 314-918-3026 or jreid@stlmag.com. ADVERTISING To place an ad, contact Elaine Krull at ekrull@stlmag.com. DISTRIBUTION Call Dede Dierkes at 314-918-3006. Subscription Rates: $19.95 for one year. Call for foreign subscription rates. Frequency: Monthly. Single Copies in Office: $5.46. Back Issues: $7.50 by mail (prepaid). Copyright 2020 by St. Louis Magazine LLC. All rights are reserved. Reproduction in part or whole is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of the publisher. Unsolicited manuscripts may be submitted but must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. ©2020 by St. Louis Magazine. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. P.O. BOX 191606 St. Louis, MO 63119 314-918-3000 | Fax 314-918-3099 stlmag.com
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NOV20
FROM THE EDITOR
VOLUME 26 / ISSUE 11
Bright Ideas
Artist Todd Detwiler’s work has appeared in Fast Company, Popular Science, and Wired, among other national titles. Detwiler brings to life the innovative ideas in this month’s cover story (p. 56).
Creating Hope
ON THE HEELS of the last election, author Michael Lewis
published a book that provided a rational path forward during a divided time. The Undoing Project details the complex relationship of two Israeli psychologists, the brash Amos Tversky and the more reserved Daniel Kahneman, who both served in the Yom Kippur War and began collaborating at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the fall of 1969. Over time, the pair laid the groundwork for a host of insights into human behavior that have transformed how we think about everything from economics to public policy, medicine to happiness. Lewis discovered the story of Tversky and Kahneman after a review in The New Republic pointed out that the social scientists had already shared the underpinnings for the premise of Lewis’ bestselling book Moneyball, which told how biases of the mind caused baseball scouts, supposed experts, to misevaluate players. A more objective statistical analysis, what came to be known as sabermetrics, could yield better results with undervalued players. The takeaway: Human reasoning is often fallible. Our thinking is not always as rational as we might like to believe. Instead, we should apply more scrutiny to even the most strongly held beliefs in a particular field, rationales that can drive judgments and decision-making. Personally and as a society, we should be open to acknowledging instinctual errors and find a way to step back and look for a better solution. In the same spirit, this issue takes a fresh look at some of the region’s most fundamental concerns. It embraces the words of Steve Jobs, who once said, “Let’s go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what happened yesterday.”
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A longtime educator and former correspondent for The State Journal-Register in Springfield, Illinois, freelance writer Debra Chandler Landis shares how the arts are helping young people remain sober through Hope Creates (p. 28).
A Natural Fit
Freelance writer Mallori Albright covered fashion and culture as an intern for SLM in 2016 before going on to intern at Out Magazine, Marie Claire, and Nylon. This month, she writes about sisters Taylor and Camryn Bain’s new skincare label, Cocosis Naturals (p. 34).
The cover story (p. 56) examines how we might address some of the region’s most pressing issues (education and the environment, policing and public transit, block-building and the brain drain), often drawing on other cities for inspiration. These case studies are just that—a starting place from which to work that might require refinement and rethinking. As we move forward, the region will need to embrace the same type of resilience and innovation that have helped us endure the past year. With any luck, after everything we’ve been through, issues once considered daunting won’t seem so insurmountable. This issue also grapples with our past and present: how elections have changed (p. 18), how farming has evolved (p. 37), how a king who died centuries ago can still stoke heated debate (p. 82). Again, we might draw another important lesson from Tversky and Kahneman. Their many differences sharpened their work but also caused them to grow apart. At one point, Kahneman recalled, “I sort of divorced him.” Days later, Tversky told his longtime friend that he’d been given a diagnosis of malignant melanoma and had just six months to live. The two reunited shortly before Tversky’s death at age 59. Years later, in his bestselling book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman reflected on his collaboration with Tversky, as well as what we might learn from history. He observed, “The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future.”
Follow Along @stlmag @stlmag @stlouismag
stlmag.com November 2020
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OPPOSITE POLLS p.18 THE PERSONAL IS P OLITICAL p.20
GATEWAY
GOING POSTAL TOPIC
A
Debunking mail-in voting fraud BY AMANDA WOYTUS
Photography by BackyardProduction / iStock / Getty Images Plus / via Getty Images
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RECENTLY, PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP tweeted some almost-
good advice: “To make sure your Ballot COUNTS, sign & send it in EARLY. When Polls open, go to your Polling Place to see if it was COUNTED. IF NOT, VOTE! Your signed Ballot will not count because your vote has been posted.” November 2020 stlmag.com
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G AT E WAY
MORE TO KNOW
MAIL-IN VERSUS ABSENTEE BALLOTS TO PR E V E N T T H E S PR E A D O F COV I D-19, G OV E R N O R MI K E PA R S O N S I G N E D A B I L L A L LOW I N G MA I L-I N BA L LOT S I N T H E AUG US T 4 PR I MA RY A N D NOV E MB E R 3 GE N E R A L EL EC T I O N. H E R E A R E THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ABSENTEE AN D MA I L-I N VOT I N G.
Twitter flagged the tweet, statThe researchers found that, ing that it violated the platform’s in some ways, the voter fraud rules on civic and election integwitch hunt began in Missouri, Plan rity. Journalists dissected the during the 2000 election. Three Ahead advice therein and declared that weeks before the election, SenElection Day is Trump was encouraging people ate candidate Governor Mel CarNovember 3. For more to vote twice, which is illegal. But nahan died in a plane crash, but information on voting in person or by mail, visit a minor revision to Trump’s tweet because of a state law that proeither stlouis-mo.gov or would have made it accurate and hibited changes to a ballot within stlouiscountymo.gov. (dare we say) useful in this pana month of an election, his name demic election year, when so many remained. Voters elected him, are afraid to vote in person and when Trump delivering defeat to then-Senator John Ashand others are in full freakout about the spec- croft. “Dead candidates, dead voters, swirled ter of mail-in voting fraud. The president again in the imagination,” the Brennan Center said in attacked the practice in the first debate against a separate piece that examined the history of his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. voter fraud allegations. Missouri’s other senaFirst, the TL;DR on voter fraud: It’s rare. In tor, Kit Bond, stated that the election was sto2007, the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Jus- len by “a major criminal enterprise designed to tice published research on voter fraud, finding defraud voters” when a court ordered that some that widespread allegations are often exagger- polls stay open for an additional two hours. ated. Most cases were traced to incidents of Yet the Brennan Center found only six subclerical errors or inaccurate “matching,” the stantiated cases of voter fraud in Missouri, a practice of comparing voter rolls and finding rate of 0.0003 percent. All told, the Brennan alleged double voters or dead voters. The report Center noted, it’s more likely that an American looked at places where “various election irreg- will be struck by lightning than impersonate ularities led to inflated claims of widespread someone at the polls. fraud.” Missouri was a hot spot. What about mail-in voting? For years, multiple states, including Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, ONLINE For more election coverage, visit stlmag.com. Utah, and Washington, have used the mail as
16
M A I L- I N
Ballot requests sent by mail must be received by the election authority no later than 5 P.M. on OCTOBER 21.
Mail-in ballots must be notarized, returned in the correct, provided envelope, and received by the election authority—not just postmarked—by 7 P.M. on NOVEMBER 3. In the case of the August primary, in the St. Louis area, nearly 1,000 ballots arrived too late to be counted. Thomas Marshall, general counsel and executive vice president of the Postal Service, urges Missourians who want to vote by mail to do so by OCTOBER 27 to give the service enough time to deliver the marked-up ballots to election officials by NOVEMBER 3.
stlmag.com November 2020
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TOPIC A
ABSENTEE
Missourians who wish to vote absentee must meet one of these seven criteria:
1.
They’ll be out of town on Election Day.
2.
They’re unable to vote in person on Election Day due to illness or physical disability (no notary required).
3.
They cannot vote in person because of religious belief or practice.
4.
They’re working the polls at a location other than their polling place.
5.
They’re incarcerated (provided all qualifications for voting are retained).
6.
They’re participants in the address confidentiality program.
7.
They’re sick with COVID-19 or in a COVID-19 risk category (no notary required). Voters may request absentee ballots from their local election authority in person, by mail, or by e-mail. Ballot requests must be made by 5 P.M. on OCTOBER 21.
Voters can cast their absentee ballots at their local election authority until 5 P.M. on NOVEMBER 2.
their primary voting mechanism, and there, too, the Brennan Center found low levels of fraud. Since 2000, Oregon has issued about 100 million mail-in ballots. It has only documented a dozen cases of proven fraud. “It is still more likely for an American to be struck by lightning than to commit mail voting fraud,” the Brennan Center concluded. That’s not to say that fraud isn’t serious and never happens. Eric Fey is the Democratic director at the St. Louis County Board of Elections. He says that he personally has never encountered or heard of voter impersonation in St. Louis County. “If there’s going to be fraud at a polling place, it would almost have to be in cahoots with the poll workers,” he says. “There would have to be some kind of conspiracy of sorts, which is very unlikely, though there have been instances of that across the country.” Fey, however, points out a recent case of alleged absentee voting fraud in the county. In the leadup to the April 2018 municipal election, Berkeley Mayor Theodore Hoskins was accused of submitting false absentee voter applications. “We started seeing applications for absentee ballots come in, in bunches, from the same source,” Fey remembers. “That’s always a red flag.” His office contacted local law enforcement, who placed the mayor under surveillance. In November 2019, Hoskins was charged with four counts of committing an election offense and one forgery count. But Fey stresses that this example shows that there are adequate checks built into the system. Mail-in ballots must be notarized, and personal identification information is included. The ballot envelopes feature barcodes for tracking purposes, which also means that duplicates can be discarded. Signatures are verified. Fey also points out that state law requires a bipartisan team to open mail-in ballots. “Democrats and Republicans sit across the table from each other, they call the name off the list, they open the envelope, they take the ballot out, they make sure that everything is copacetic with the ballot,” he says. “I would say it’s a very safe and secure process.” So back to Trump’s tweet. The inclusion of one additional step would clear up the president’s instructions: spoiling the mail-in ballot. Let’s say a voter gets nervous that she mailed her ballot too late. In the absence of an online tracking system, she goes to a polling place
Photography by Bill Oxford, CHUYN / iStock / Getty Images Plus / via Getty Images
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on Election Day. She doesn’t mention that she requested a mail-in ballot to the poll worker. Her plan, despite the good intentions, would still be foiled. Gary Stoff, the city’s Republican director of elections, explains: “If we look up the voter in the Poll Pad, it will show the poll worker that an absentee or mail-in ballot was requested and was mailed, but it will also reflect that the ballot has not yet been returned.” The voter could then surrender her absentee or mail-in ballot, a process called spoiling the ballot, Stoff explains. Election officials would then reissue to her a new ballot. “The only vote that would count would be the ballot that they voted at their polling place on Election Day,” Stoff says. Fey confirms a similar process in the county, which will have a ballot-tracking system for voters to use to ensure that their ballots arrive on time: “Just mechanically speaking, it will not let the poll workers give that person another ballot.” So what are officials worried about come November 3? “If there’s, God forbid, a spike with COVID in October, we worry about a lot of poll workers’ canceling, buildings’ not being available for us to use as polling places, and our staff contracting COVID,” Fey says. “Then we’re not able to process everything in a timely manner.” Missouri law requires bipartisan polling places—they have to include an equal number of Republican and Democratic workers. Recruiting, even in non-pandemic times, is a challenge. Especially difficult, because of the numbers and the political makeup of the city and parts of the county, is getting an adequate number of Republican poll workers. Because of COVID-19, both Fey and Stoff would like to have a healthy reserve of alternatives from both political parties in case of illness. Stoff says he’d take volunteers right up until the end of October. “We probably wouldn’t have time to train them to be an election judge, but we can still utilize them in some other capacity, such as assisting with maintaining social distancing,” he says. Fey’s ask is a little more direct: “If you have any Republican friends who want to work the polls, please tell them that St. Louis County could use them.”
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G AT E WAY
WARNING: GRAPHIC BY AMANDA WOYTUS
Opposite Polls An illustrated guide to voting through the centuries
VOTERS HAVE A TOUGH DECISION to make this year: Request a mail-in ballot,
return it ASAP, and track it obsessively to make sure it’s received, or mask up and vote in person in the middle of a pandemic. It’s times like these that we remember our 2020 mantra: It could always be worse. And indeed, throughout much of history, voting has been an imperfect science. The pros at the Missouri History Museum have helped us identify three other points in history that looked very different from the normally orderly voting process we typically enjoy.
1800 s
1900 s FEATURES
In the early days of Missouri’s statehood, white property owners voted viva voce, or verbally. There was no secrecy or Australian ballot.
Free cider, typically poured by the candidates. There were no rules against electioneering. / A Bible on which to swear an oath that you hadn’t already voted / Violence—the 1854 election led to one of the worst riots in our city’s history.
FEATURES
By the turn of the century, St. Louis was adopting voting machines, mainly the old-school lever kind.
Privacy / Extreme satisfaction in flipping all of the little levers / Extreme dissatisfaction should the machine break. There was no paper ballot and therefore no opportunity for an audit.
2020
2000 s FEATURES
Punch card voting predates the early aughts, but you likely remember the trouble the Votomatic machines caused in the 2000 presidential election.
A book-like ballot, punch card, and stylus / Hanging chad / Utter confusion
FEATURES
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many voters will turn to absentee and mailin voting. Those who vote in person will have to follow social distancing guidelines.
Your most patriotic face mask / Hand sanitizer / Bewilderment as to how we got here
FYI To see some of the voting-related relics the Missouri History Museum keeps in its collections, visit stlmag.com.
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Illustrations by Chris Philpot
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November 2020 stlmag.com
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G AT E WAY Q & A BY AMANDA WOYTUS
ON HOW TO PERSUADE LAWMAKERS TO BACK PROGRESSIVE REFORMS: I think it starts
with us being very clear about the message and then using every platform we have to talk to regular people... The more regular on-the-ground people, as well as [those in] our activist community, who are pushing for changes, the more pressure [we can put] on lawmakers. ON HOW SHE’LL TALK TO PEOPLE WHO MAY NOT AGREE WITH HER: We need to go to
the corner coffee house and the grocery store and make sure we connect with the community. Some of it is what we’ve already been able to do. Medicare for All made it to presidential debate stages. A few years ago, these things were like “Oh, it’s something that could never happen. People don’t want that.” ON HER EXPERIENCE WITH HOMELESSNESS:
The Personal Is Political
How Cori Bush’s life has informed her plan for public office When Cori Bush defeated longtime U.S. Representative Lacy Clay in the August Democratic primary, she toppled a political dynasty. Clay was elected to represent Missouri’s First congressional district in 2000, the same year his father, Bill Clay, stepped down after serving 32 years. The primary win all but guarantees Bush—a nurse, pastor, activist, and mother—a seat in Congress. Her priority list is long, but the first item is additional COVID-19 relief. She envisions a $2,000 monthly stimulus check for individuals, a moratorium on evictions, more resources allocated to public schools, and national broadband to assist with virtual learning. “Medicare for All” is also on the docket: “COVID-19 hit us the way it did because we don’t have health care for every person,” she says. She continues down her list: a federal $15 minimum hourly wage, affordable quality housing for all, criminal justice reform. It’s ambitious. Bush has stated that she plans to pay for these costly progressive reforms by closing tax loopholes and diverting money away from defense. But she recognizes that persuading people to do just that might be a long game. However, she says, “the thing that we cannot do is to feel like we’re not winning and pull back. We have to continue. It may not happen overnight.”
ONLINE
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I had just had a baby, and I had a 1-yearold who was born prematurely, so he still had a lot of needs. We had to move into our vehicle. I thought, This is very temporary, maybe a couple of days, and then somebody will hear about this and someone will give us [a lead] on a place or a basement to stay in. Something will work out. It just didn’t happen for a while. I remember we had all of our clothing in trash bags, and we had a playpen—the kind you can break down—and that’s what my children slept in, in the back of our Jeep. ... It was just a really difficult time, and I was still working full time. I actually went back to work four weeks after I had my daughter. I couldn’t make it six weeks, because we needed the money. Nobody knew that I didn’t have a home and I was sleeping in my car. AND HOW THAT EXPERIENCE INFLUENCED HER IDEAS ON POLICY: I was making maybe
$7–$8 an hour [working in childcare] at the time, trying to raise children. Absolutely [a federal $15 minimum wage] would have helped me. That’s also why I fight for a universal basic income. That’s why I fight for some of the things that I fight for—mostly everything is because of something that I’ve experienced.
For more with Bush, visit stlmag.com.
stlmag.com November January 2020 2020
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Photography by AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
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November 2020 stlmag.com
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9/29/20 3:05 PM
ART & ABOUT p.26 LIFE SUPPORT p.28 WA T C H THIS NOW p.29
RHYTHM
PRELUDE
FAN FAVORITE
To find success, country singer Alexandra Kay first had to find her audience. BY AMANDA WOYTUS
Photography by Matt Marcinkowski
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November 2020 stlmag.com
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RHYTHM PRELUDE
A
STEEL GUITAR wails to life in the first
few seconds of Alexandra Kay’s new single, “I Kinda Don’t.” This country song is a pure expression of the genre: a melancholy ballad about a man, a woman, and another woman. But where Dolly Parton has admitted that she fought Jolene off like a wildcat, Kay calls her ex’s new girlfriend—the subject of “I Kinda Don’t”—“the sweetest person in the world.” So maybe Dolly’s not the closest comparison in this case. But then there’s a video Kay uploaded to Facebook in 2016. The Waterloo native sits in a blue office chair in a barn, iPhone propped on a music stand, guitarist picking in the background. Kay covers “Jolene.” Her voice is light but powerful. She stresses the second syllable in “Jolene,” just like Parton. The video went viral, garnering millions of views in a couple of weeks. The next
FYI
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For more on Kay’s EP, visit alexandrakayofficial.com.
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year, Kay competed on The Voice. The year after that, she joined the cast of Netflix’s Westside, about musicians pursuing creative careers in Los Angeles. This year brings another milestone for Kay, who now lives in Millstadt: the release of her début EP, Dive Bar Dreamer. Kay started writing as a teenager. First it was diary entries and then poems in a journal she bought at a Walmart. She wanted to make sense of who she was, where she fit in, her first love, and her first heartbreak. The poems became songs. Kay grew up listening to country but pursued musical theater instead. Then she pushed herself into the St. Louis music scene and worked with rappers, even spending time with Nelly in studio. She got her first record deal in 2013, but it was an R&B label. “I put a single out, and it did really well, but I ended up leaving,” she says. “I just felt like it wasn’t my home. I was writing country music, but it was being produced like pop and R&B music. I wanted to dial back, go back to my roots, and work really hard on building a fan base.” The night “I Kinda Don’t,” the EP’s single, dropped, Kay went live on TikTok. She brought a piece of plywood and wrote the song’s title and release date at the top. “I started writing people’s names down as they told me that they downloaded it,” she says. “I’m building a writer’s room in my house, and I wanted to make a table out of the wood, to be able to remember everybody who purchased this single. [But] I had no idea how many people had actually downloaded it.” Her fiancé called her the next day with the news: It débuted at No. 1 on the iTunes country chart. For Kay, it’s validation that she is—and has always been—a country artist. “Regardless of what labels in the past thought about my musical choices,” she says, “the fact that [fans] could get that song to go No. 1 really kind of proved that this is about what they want to hear.”
DREAM TICKET
Kay counts Ashley McBryde, Cody Johnson, Dan + Shay, and Maddie & Tae as her current obsessions. But she grew up in the ’90s, when women like Martina McBride and LeAnn Rimes were some of the biggest voices on country radio. We asked her which chart-toppers from her childhood she’d want to share the stage with, plus the songs she’d sing with them.
Jo Dee Messina “Stand Beside Me” The “Heads Carolina, Tails California” singer is Kay’s all-time favorite. She opened for Messina last year, but alas, they didn’t get to share the stage. “Stand Beside Me” is one of three songs off Messina’s 1998 album, I’m Alright, that hit No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart when it débuted.
Faith Hill “It Matters to Me” Hill hasn’t been out on tour since 2018, when she globetrotted with her fellow country superstar and husband, Tim McGraw, on their Soul2Soul world tour. Maybe she’d consider dusting off the mic in 2021?
Trisha Yearwood “In Another’s Eyes” Kay is a huge fan of Yearwood and her husband, Garth Brooks. (Both passed through St. Louis, on separate tours, in 2019. Brooks broke an attendance record when he played the Dome.) “In Another’s Eyes” is a duet by the couple. Does that mean Kay’s singing Brooks’ parts? “Yeah, if Trisha Yearwood needed me to,” she says. “I’d do whatever she asked.”
Photography by Matt Marcinkowski
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AGENDA B YB M Y EJ LE ISSSSEA BM A EAILNMZ AE N R
Art & About OBSCURE PUBLIC ART GEMS
You don’t have to work hard to see fantastic art in St. Louis; it’s rich with world-class institutions that rub elbows with scrappy indie galleries. But there’s a whole other layer of visual delectables to be found, and we’ve asked some in-the-know tastemakers to share their hidden gems with us.
1.
The Grand Avenue Water Tower, in College Hill, bowled over Wassan Al-Khudhairi, chief curator of the Contemporary Art Museum, the first time she saw it: “It seemed to appear out of nowhere, almost like it fell out of the sky. The scale of the tower, especially with the surrounding architecture, feels magnificent and otherworldly.” Bonus: It recently underwent a makeover.
2.
Jeske Park sits on 7 acres in the heart of Ferguson, on the site of one of its first formally designated public parks. Intended as an amenity of and for the city, the park is a place where you can find sculptures and installations by local and national artists.
3.
“I love the portraits by Chris Green along Page Boulevard for Better Family Life,”
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says Tom Ridgely, producing artistic director for the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival. “[As you’re] driving east from Skinker and adding a stop at the Ville Monument, at Sarah and MLK, the cumulative impact is mind-boggling.”
4.
Kristin Cassidy’s “Mudlark: Photographic Typologies of Found Objects Collected on the St. Louis Riverfront, MO,” is on display at St. Louis Lambert International Airport through next fall. She lets the river reveal itself to her on collecting trips, and time and weather’s toll on the objects—some from as long ago as 1880—lends them a beautiful historicity.
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9.
Randy Vines, co-owner of STL Style House, recommends a trip to The Mural Mile. Located along the riverfront between Victor and Chouteau, it’s ever-changing. “You will find some just really unexpected artists’ creations there,” says Vines.
6.
“One of my favorite pieces of visual art would have to be the Kinloch basketball court. Project Backboard and William LaChance transformed the entire three-full-court surface into a canvas,” says artist and documentary filmmaker Cami Thomas. “It’s an art piece that requires you to engage with the community in order to engage with the art.”
7.
Vines has made a living out of loving the city through STL Style House, on Cherokee Street. “I love the mural on the side of our shop, which is by Liza and Robert Fishbone. It’s called Nothing Impossible,” he says. The mural mixes bright colors and iconic architecture.
Vines and Ridgely share a love for other murals, too: Ridgely says to check out Cbabi Bayoc’s Life’s a Chess Move, in Hyde Park, and Vines loves Faring Purth’s Prime, on the Nebula co-working building on Cherokee. In Wellston, keep an eye peeled in the 6300 block of St. Charles Rock Road for an excellent nighttime St. Louis skyline mural.
8.
“The Granite City Art and Design District is a hidden gem,” says Cassidy. The artist-run space, which turns 5 this year, takes up an entire city block in Granite City and hosts a wide array of exhibitions, from punk noise shows to immersive art installations.
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Check out “Twice as hard, half as much,” an exhibition of Marina Peng’s precise, beautiful, and discomfiting work, at The Gallery at The Kranzberg, through November 13. Peng explores the Cultural Revolution and the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Cassidy appreciates the giant storefront window because you can always peer inside.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts, Benjamin Scherliss, courtesy of Marina Peng, Self-awareness, 2019. Wood, mirror acrylic.
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LIFE SUPPORT
Inside the sober arts community of Hope Creates BY DEBRA CHANDLER LANDIS
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HE SELF-PORTRAIT SHOWS a
downcast young man surrounded by a multihued haze of dangling cobwebs. “That was me in active addiction,” says St. Louis artist David, 26, now beginning his second year of sobriety. (David’s last name has been withheld to protect his privacy.) “I’ve been sober for a year. Alcohol was my drug of choice. I fell for the romantic ste-
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reotype of the tortured, addicted artist, and that drugs, alcohol, and self-destructive tendencies make you more creative and your work better. They do not.” Today, David’s new self-portrait has no cobwebs. It depicts him looking straight forward, paintbrush in hand, ready to start a new piece of art. Hope Creates in St. Louis offers people between the ages of 15 and 30, like David,
a sober arts community. Its members participate in Expressive Arts Exhibitions, have studio time and portfolio development; hold apprenticeships and internships; and gain entrepreneurial and business training. Hope Creates was founded in 2017 by Kathie Thomas when she sought assistance for her family and one of her daughters, who was suffering from addiction. Thomas, an artist, found that through poetry, collage, and photography, she felt a sense of hope. She founded Hope Creates to support young sober artists. “Getting sober is difficult, and staying sober is equally challenging,” she tells the young artists. “We focus on helping you stay sober by providing a vibrant creative community that comes together to have screaming fun creating and exhibiting our work.” In just three years, Hope Creates membership has grown to include 150 young artists, writers, dancers, and musicians and about 100 of their family members. Since 2017, Thomas says, 85 percent of the artists have remained sober. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed some of the ways in which Hope Creates works with its members, but the mission is the same. In past years, its Expressive Arts Exhibitions were open to the public and featured a variety of artworks, from paintings and photographs to metal, glass, and ceramic pieces. Members are on hand to meet the public, including potential buyers. Exhibitions also include dance, music, and spoken word performances. Now, a Facebook Live Exhibition is set for 6 p.m.–8 p.m. Sunday, November 8. It’ll include members displaying their work in a gallery and reading artist statements they penned for the event. Dance and music will be part of the performing arts segments. Be they online or in person, Expressive Arts Exhibitions help “bridge the gap in understanding addiction and recovery, and transform the cultural dialogue,” Thomas says. The exhibits, she continues, celebrate and support the resilience of a community and their families.
Visit hopecreates.org for more information about Hope Creates.
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Portrait courtesy of the artist
9/29/20 3:05 PM
Watch This Now KING OF THE CRUISE
If you’re looking for something to stream that’s a little off kilter, you’d be hard pressed to do better than a fever-dream of a documentary that follows around a Scottish baron with sterling St. Louis bona fides on an eight-day cruise. Catch King of the Cruise, by Dutch director Sophie Dros, on Amazon or iTunes, and set sail with Baron Ronald Busch Reisinger. (Yes, one of those Busches.) The doc, just over an hour long, paints a woozy picture of the carefully curated version of luxury aboard a commercial cruise line. Watch as the baron gets an uncomfortable pedicure, discusses his weight and disappointing relationship with his mother, and fends off saucy innuendo from an aging Russian sexpot over birthday cake. “I didn’t like the way it portrayed me,” Reisinger says. (We learned of the film in an email from him.) He wants the movie to succeed and wants you to watch it. Still, he says, “[The director’s] point of view was that cruise ships are boring and lonely, and that I am boring and I am lonely, and the reason I take cruises is that I am boring and lonely.” Despite not having his family with him, the baron says, he enjoyed the voyage. After all, he’s the kind of gregarious fella who’s never really met a stranger. He loves cruising because there are thousands of people on board with whom to share his wealth of stories on his truly singular life. “I’m an interesting human being,” he says. “I am an entertainment.” Stories about elephant polo, anyone? No? How about crocodile wrestling? Ceremonial kingship? Yes, fine, we see at least half of one couple slink away during a baronial monologue at the bar. Mostly, though, his fellow cruisers are happy to listen. —MELISSA MEINZER
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ELEMENTS
TRENDING
Best in Kicks Move over, pumpkin spice. It’s boot season. BY L AUREN DELL
BOOTIES
North bootie, $85. Cha Boutique.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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ELEMENTS
Dolce Vita Bel booties in Ivory Croco, $148. Klutch.
Jace booties in tan, $49.99. Mod on Trend.
Rydell booties in black, $49.99. Mod on Trend.
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
9/30/20 10:19 AM
TRENDING
Spade snake-print booties, $95. Paperdolls.
Tanner booties, $85. Cha Boutique.
Pronto cut-out booties in black suede, $90. Paperdolls.
November 2020 stlmag.com
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ELEMENTS Q&A BY MALLORI ALBRIGHT
From left: Camryn and Taylor Bain
Visit cocosisnaturals .com for the brand’s bestseller, the passionfruit-scented Bahama Bae Body Butter.
Glow Up
A skincare collaboration by sisters brings fragrances of the Bahamas to St. Louis.
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AUNCHED EARLIER THIS year,
Camryn and Taylor Bain’s skincare label, Cocosis Naturals, is an homage to the sisters’ Bahamian heritage. Their father moved to the United States before they were born, but memories of visits—for instance, accompanying their parents on walks down dirt roads scattered with fallen coconuts—informed the brand’s ethos and natural ingredients. “Our products are all inspired by the sensory experience that the Bahamas created for me,” says Taylor, the elder of the two. With their products—honeydew, pineapple, and coconut milk body lotions mixed with almond oil and shea butter— the duo hope to enhance clients’ natural glow and leave even the most sensitive skin smooth and silky. As Taylor explains here, in a time when we could all use a little pampering, the Bain sisters are giving us a new way to practice self-care. What prompted you to create your own line of products? My sister and I have extremely sensitive skin. [Taylor also struggles with eczema.] After years of having adverse reactions to many ingredients and fragrances used in popular skincare products, we felt a responsibility to create products that could help alleviate the discomforts that come with these types of skin conditions. What was the process of getting Cocosis Naturals off the ground? We were seeking a product that could serve as the perfect moisturizer with a fragrance that wouldn’t cause any reactions. We couldn’t find it, so we decided to make it. All of our products are made in small batches, by hand, so we can give extra love and attention. What’s next for Cocosis Naturals? We are in the process of developing more products. We hope to have our products sold in local shops within the next six months and eventually have our own storefronts, starting in the U.S. and the Bahamas.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
9/30/20 10:19 AM
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BUILDING BLOCKS p.40 VO T E O F CONFIDENCE p.44
ANGLES
Q&A
NADIA SHAKOOR Changing the face of farming with drones BY NICHOLAS PHILLIPS
Photography by Wesley Law
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ANGLES Q&A
S
EVERAL YEARS AGO, Nadia Shakoor went looking for something
that didn’t exist. As a breeding and genetics researcher at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Shakoor was measuring how crops grew under specific conditions. She sent students with clipboards into muddy fields to record, for example, plant height and soil moisture. She wondered: Is there a single tool that could automate these tasks? Turns out there wasn’t, so she and her team invented one, the PheNode. Then, in July, she won a $1.4 million federal grant to enhance that platform by adding an autonomous drone. The new tool, dubbed the FieldDock, is 100 percent solar powered—and has some farmers salivating. You and your team first created the PheNode, which automatically captures crop data and sends it to the cloud. Whom did you create it for? It was tailored to other researchers, but at Danforth we get farming groups coming through to visit, and they always showed a ton of interest. They’d say, “Hey, could we use this to monitor our water?” or “Can we link this up to our irrigation platforms?” If it makes sense for farmers, we certainly want it to work for them. We’ve also heard from indoor agriculture companies and crop insurance companies. We launched a startup, Agrela, to bring it to market. We’re in the design and manufacture phase right now; we plan to start taking orders by early next year. How did that initial project lead to the new one, the FieldDock? The limitation of the PheNode was that it’s one device, so how is it really going to capture all the variation in the field? It’ll be connected to a network of wireless sensors that are elsewhere in the field and talking back to the PheNode, but I wanted to build an all-in-one platform that’s gathering data for the crop at all different levels—above the canopy and across the whole field. So from that came the idea of integrating an autonomous drone into the system. The drone will have special cameras to measure things like soil moisture and drought stress. How long will the drones be airborne each day? We’re still working through that, but I imagine at least a half hour. There’s a bunch of tradeoffs that depend on the camera you want to use, the height and
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“IT’S ALWAYS FUNNY WHEN PEOPLE SAY FARMERS ARE CONSERVATIVE AND NOT OPEN TO TECHNOLOGY. THEY’RE THE MOST OPEN TO IT!”
speed the camera requires, and the data you want to collect. Also, it’s going to be solar powered. We thought, Sensors are extremely low-power, and solar panels are so efficient now compared to what they were. So why not try? How close are we to fully automated farming? I think all the pieces are there. It’s just a matter of getting it all integrated and getting it to work outside—never underestimate the elements! It has to be cost-effective, too. And uptake by the end user is also crucial. To what extent are farmers open to new technology, in your experience? It’s always funny when people say farmers are conservative and not open to technology. They’re the most open to it! They were among the first folks to adopt GPS. They have autonomous tractors; they got that technology before everyone else has with cars. One of our farmer partners is passing on his farm to his nephew, and he’s very excited to be able to control the farm from his smartphone. It would let him get away for the weekend. Are farmers already flying drones manually? They are, with varied degrees of success. We have a farmer partner who’s interested in the FieldDock not only for his crops but also to be able to monitor his livestock next door, to make sure they’re healthy and safe. I mean, we’ve got the crop side covered, but that blew my mind. I was, like, “Sure, we’ll see what we can do.” Are you good at flying drones? [Laughs.] Not particularly. I just purchased one because I want to build an indoor phenotyping drone. I’ll be trying to develop that at home, so I want to test it out in my backyard. We’ll see. I might end up crashing a few…hopefully not the expensive ones. At stlmag.com: how the FieldDock could prevent over-watering and boost farm efficiency
Photography by Wesley Law
10/1/20 5:36 PM
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ANGLES NOTEBOOK BY CHRIS NAFFZIGER
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BUILDING BLOCKS
For one resident of the private Windermere Place, inclusion is king. 40
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HERE ARE PRIVATE streets in
North St. Louis. That might surprise St. Louis residents. Another possible shock: Windermere Place, one of those private streets, garnered national attention as a model of how white and Black people could live together in harmony during the civil rights era and beyond. The street, north of Delmar, just off Union, is lined with some of the most beautiful religious and civic buildings in St. Louis, including Soldan High School and the Cabanne branch of the St. Louis Public Library. It sits within the West End, a neighborhood of stately mansions and grand homes where the wealthy and well-connected once lived. The West End stretches from Lewis Place westward to the city limits. But a large portion of the neighborhood lies north of Delmar, and redlining has caused many to forget its existence. South of Delmar, the CWE became majority white; to the north, what are now a half-dozen neighborhoods of the former West End became the center of a proud middle-class Black community. I was recently contacted by Dr. Robert Salter, a resident of Windermere Place. He and I spoke about Windermere’s history and how its white residents had embraced integration in the 1950s, welcoming new Black neighbors in defiance of white flight. He told me I had to meet Mrs. Anne Voss, a longtime resident of the street. This summer, following social distancing guidelines, I met Voss in her home on Windermere, where she and her family have lived since 1958. “I came to DeBaliviere and Delmar in 1930, and I’ve lived within two blocks my entire life,” says Voss, who turned 94 on September 20. Whereas some residences on Windermere date to the late 19th century, the Voss residence and many others were built in the first decade of the 20th. Records show an Otto Schloeman as one of the first occupants of the house, and he may have been its builder. Windermere was far from the Photography by Matt Marcinkowski
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ANGLES NOTEBOOK BY CHRIS NAFFZIGER
central city when it was built, but the Hodiamont streetcar line, which turned around in Wellston, passed by just a short walk away. The stone-fronted house— three stories, with an interior still graced with the original woodwork—is representative of the area’s rich architecture. Many houses on the street have similar floor plans, none of which originally included indoor plumbing or central heating. In those early days, fireplaces heated most of the rooms. They were gone by the time the Vosses purchased the house. In the 1940s, when Voss’ name was Anne Reis, she attended the former Blewett High School, just behind her current home. She was on the debate team and played several sports. On Fridays, she headed to the Winter Garden, on DeBaliviere, for speed skating, and she excelled at tennis, ranking third in Missouri. She met and married Robert Voss, in 1949, and they moved into the house on Windermere in 1958. Robert, who played the drums, became friends with many members of the African-American community through music. “He was an outstanding drummer,” Voss reminisces. (He died in 1987.) The couple welcomed six sons and a daughter—having St. Luke’s Hospital nearby, on Delmar, was convenient—and three of her sons still live with her in the house. Voss keeps up to date with current affairs, and we discussed the recently unveiled plans for redevelopment of the vacant St. Luke’s. She also gave me a detailed description of who lives on Windermere now—and who lived there back in 1958. Two directors of the Saint Louis Art Museum once lived on the street, Voss says. She also remembers when Chuck Berry bought 13 Windermere Place—and paid in cash. She recalls his wife, Themetta Suggs, as “a lovely person.” As the 1960s continued and white flight accelerated, more and more African-Americans moved into the West End, where addresses like Windermere Place previously had few Black residents. Delmar became the border between North St. Louis and the Central West End. Windermere Place bucked that trend. Voss got involved in community organizing and even staged a school busing protest that received coverage in The New York Times. “I very much believe in integration,” Voss explains, adding that her husband was similarly enthusiastic about staying in the multicultural Windermere environment. Voss is devoutly Roman Catholic, but two of her childhood friends were Jewish (the West End was the center of Jewish life in St. Louis in the early 20th century), and she witnessed
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“THE PRIVATE STREET GARNERED NATIONAL ATTENTION AS A MODEL OF HOW WHITE AND BLACK PEOPLE COULD LIVE TOGETHER IN HARMONY.” the anti-Semitism they faced. Her son Jimmy Voss—who served as head chef at Duff ’s and cooked for the Grateful Dead—was childhood friends with Lacy Clay, who lived a short distance away, and he remembers playing the board game Mouse Trap with the future congressman. After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Anne Voss painted a portrait of the civil rights leader that she still keeps in the house. Over the past 60 years, Voss and her neighbors have worked to pursue social justice in the West End. As she says, “We have fought to keep up our block.”
Photography by Matt Marcinkowski
10/1/20 5:36 PM
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ANGLES SNAPSHOT 3111 CORA
Vote of Confidence When Sara Cardy sat down with voter registrar Delma Ross at Hickey Middle School in 1985, the Voting Rights Act was only 20 years old. The year before, when key parts were set to expire, politicians fought to rewrite it to put the burden on the voter to prove discrimination. That didn’t happen—at least not for another 29 years. But suppression began long before someone faced an election judge demanding a driver’s license and a passport. Roll purges, non–ADA-compliant polling places, and fines were among other hurdles. In the days when we shouted “Aye!” it was hard to detach the vote from the voter. Then we pulled levers and later filled in bubbles with a pen. “Today, most of our voting is done on computerized machines,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote in a 1984 kids’ column. “The computers will not only tell us how the voting went in this area, but how it is going in the rest of the states. What kinds of problems do we have now with our voting machines that might be eliminated by then?” Today, talk about voting concerns continues, but another machine helps spread the word on Election Day: your phone, held at a just-so angle to capture your “I Voted” sticker. —STEFENE RUSSELL 44
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Photography courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society
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DIEGO’S p.48 MACK’S BAR & GRILL p.50 O+O PIZZA P. 5 2
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TEMPUS’ BEN GRUPE p.54
THE DISH
Heirloom Ambrosia
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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When Rob Connoley opened Bulrush, last year, he did something that no other finedining chef had ever done: The James Beard Award nominee offered Ozarkian cuisine of the 1800s, presenting it as a highly personal coursed experience to 24 patrons at a seating. If ever there were a concept ill prepared to handle a pandemic, Bulrush was it. Rather than change the concept or mission statement, however, Connoley has created a not-so-logical alternative, a park-and-dine experience (five courses that can also be picked up or delivered). A turkey thigh from Buttonwood Farms, for instance, is simply seasoned, seared, and confited. The novel sides include heirloom Sibley pumpkin, castiron fried cowhorn okra (grown in a backyard in Kirkwood), and house-made hominy of Floriani Red Flint corn. Mind you, this is but one of the constantly changing courses. As Connoley says, “I never felt comfortable trying to come up with plan B to respond to the pandemic, so we came up with a new plan A.” —GEORGE MAHE November 2020 stlmag.com
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TASTE
FIRST BITE
New Age Cantina
In U. City, Natasha Kwan and Rick Roloff rethink the traditional Mexican restaurant.
IT’S BECOME A common refrain: A new restaurant gets planned
and then delayed because of myriad concerns and delayed again during the pandemic; the owners wonder how (or whether) to proceed; and then, for reasons known and unknown, they take an “If not now, when?” attitude and finish the project. And so it was at Diego’s with Natasha Kwan and Rick Roloff. The couple are proprietors of a handful of businesses in a pocket of U. City that includes Frida’s, a vegetarian café named after Kwan’s cat and as an homage to painter Mexican Frida Kahlo, who married fellow painter Diego Rivera in 1927. Located next door to Frida’s, Diego’s was slated to open in May 2019, but after a series of setbacks and a pandemic, the couple finally unveiled the corner restaurant last month. Outside, heaters big and small extend the traditional patio season for up to 60 diners. Indoors, a bright blue, orange, and green color palette matches the one at Museo Frida Kahlo (a.k.a. La Casa Azul), the artist’s childhood home. Homages to Frida and Diego are both obvious (prints on the wall) and subtle (mosaics in the window seats). The bar is festooned with Mexican masks. Liquor cub-
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Diego’s carnitas: seasoned chicken, onion, cilantro, and lime
bies are splashed with colorful ceramic tile, a theme judiciously repeated throughout the three-room cantina. The most dramatic (the green room) includes yellow stone tabletops, a garden of greenery hanging from the ceiling, and a bold 6-by-8-foot print of Espolòn, makers of the house tequila. In response to the pandemic, Kwan opted for street food–themed small plates, featuring seafood and poultry. Highlights include tlayudas (similar to thin masa pizza); sheet pan nachos, thoughtfully constructed in a single layer (not a heap); and queso flameado (think Mexican saganaki). There’s a dessert showstopper, too: grilled bananas with strawberries and caramel, dusted with cinnamon and a smidge of cayenne. Kwan’s margaritas contain orange juice, not triple sec. With an array of safety protocols in place (partitions, air scrubbers, single-use cups, etc.), Diego’s resonates like the new-normal neighborhood joint that its owners envisioned. —G.M.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
10/1/20 4:04 PM
Looking for design inspiration? INTERIORS | ARCHITECTURE REAL E STATE | SHOPPING ART | DE SIGN
Virtual Events
Visit stlmag.com/design for Design STL’s latest.
From live food demos with top restaurateurs to informational webinars with experts in health and wellness, SLM Media Group is offering creative ways to keep us all connected and informed. For more information on virtual events, visit stlmag.com/virtual-events.
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T A S T E
Mack Attack
Mack Hill opens a neighborhood restaurant in the former Atlas space. BY DAVE LOWRY
M
ACK’S BAR & GRILL is the type
of place that springs to mind when you’re looking for a welcoming, slightly under-the-radar everyday restaurant. It’s a go-to when you don’t feel like cooking and just want to get together with family or friends, have a burger or a pizza, and sit around talking over a beer or Moscow Mule. It’s a place with enough TVs that no matter where you’re sitting, the game will always be on. When the conversation turns to the selection of crown molding that you need to decide on for the new kitchen or tales of the new person in accounting who’s amazing and you’ve already heard about six times, well, the game, as we said, will always be on. There’s a fireplace with a comfy glow; tables are spaced to hit the sweet spot of conviviality and privacy. Outside, tables under the big sycamores are splendidly nice for dining; this block, just north of Forest Park, has the gracious atmosphere of big-city living and the vibrancy of what urban life can be, with pedestrians, dog-walkers, cyclists— it’s entirely lovely. (You might remember the space as the former location of the late, beloved Atlas.) The menu’s short and simple. The burgers will catch your eye—really. “This looks like a TV commercial burger,” we heard one nearby patron exclaim. And it did. They’re are towering construction projects, beautifully arranged. A cheeseburger can be blanketed with pepper Jack, Swiss, or
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is a platter of chopped Romaine tossed with dressing and Parmesan, nothing out of the ordinary but quite edible. Among the Mack’s Favorites section of the menu, a simple preparation of shrimp- and white cheddar–flecked grits with a hint of clam juice provides an enjoyable seaside touch. Wings are settled into a big pile, available with or without bones. Ask for extra Buffalo sauce; Mack’s goes pretty light on it. There are also quesadillas, loaded nachos, chicken strips—the items you’d expect from a bar and grill. It’s all designed for the kind of casual anynight-of-the-week hangout dining that makes Mack’s so pleasant. Of the homemade desserts, go with a slice of the massive frosting-bedecked carrot cake. The beer selection is wide; the cocktails are worth investigating. Only the injudicious would pass up the gingery-bright semisweet Henry
The classic neighborhood hangout offers bar-and-grill favorites and the inviting atmosphere of DeBaliviere Place.
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American cheese. Jalapeño and a fiery sauce flavor the hot and spicy burger. Your best bet is the house’s A-1 Steakburger, a beef behemoth: double patties, cheddar, and fried onions, along with a generous splash of the iconic steak sauce. Grilled chicken, topped with a slice of Swiss cheese, bacon, and ranch dressing, goes happily on a bun, and the place has its version of a Philly cheesesteak with all the expected ingredients: a thin cut of sirloin, Provolone, peppers, and onions. The onion rings’ cornmeal crust adds delightful texture. It’s the same breading used on calamari, and it works the same magic. Most chips and salsa are bland and insipid, but the salsa here is outstanding, smoky with chipotle and sweetened by tomatoes, thick but not chunky. The portion is enough for four. Speaking of portions, consider splitting a salad. They’re enormous. A Caesar salad
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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MAIN COURSE
Left: Turkey club on Texas toast. Below: Mack’s A-1 Steakburger, with cheddar, bacon, and fried onions on a toasted bun
Mack’s Bar & Grill 5513 Pershing 314-354-8436 Lunch and dinner Thu–Mon
Hotspur’s Hard Pressed for Cider ginger beer, which isn’t available locally often. Hill was a Navy veteran who spent a fortune purchasing and renovating a massive nightclub in South Carolina (the second largest in the state, he says). But just four days after it opened, he was sent to serve in Guam. The apparent realization of a life’s dream became a nightmare. Without him at the helm, the establishment shuttered shortly thereafter. Twenty-five years after his tour of duty, his aunt and uncle opened West End Bistro on Pershing Avenue in the DeBaliviere Place neighborhood. Hill had been working in pharmaceutical sales; but he received a company buyout and was able to bartend for the pure joy of it, running the bistro’s bar like it was his own. When the restaurant moved up the street, Hill took over the lease, and the dream of owning his own place was realized once again. Not wanting to compete with his relatives, he left the higher-end food to them while Mack’s Bar & Grill takes a more casual approach. Hill is happy to be the proprietor of a laidback neighborhood getaway, even if it took more than two decades and a heavy dose of heartbreak. You have to admire a guy who opens a restaurant in the midst of a worldwide pestilence. He’s created the sort of eatery where family and friends can come together after work or on a weekend evening for a simple no-stress meal.
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A Slice of the Action
O+O Pizza opens in the former Olive + Oak space. BY GEORGE MAHE
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L
OCKWOOD AVENUE IN Webster
Groves is among the busiest streets in town for restaurants, even during the pandemic. Among the latest additions: O+O Pizza, which opened in the former Olive+ Oak space in mid-September. Mike Risk, executive chef at The Clover and The Bee and a veteran of Trattoria Marcella, spearheaded the menu, which incorporates both pizza and some of Clover’s Italian-leaning menu items. Until recently, the dinner menu at Clover was one of the best-kept secrets in town. “I never understood that,” says coowner Mark Hinkle, “because everything Mike did there was so well executed.” Hoping to offer something a little different, Hinkle and Risk began tinkering with a cross between Roman pizza (known for its thin, crispy crust and minimal toppings) and New Haven–style pizza, a coal oven–fired pie that originated in Connecticut. The classic New Haven “tomato pie” consists of a Neapolitan crust, tomato sauce, and grated pecorino cheese. O+O’s pizza dough contains flour from both pizza styles—a regional wheat flour from Janie’s Mill and a finer, lowergluten 00 flour used for Neapolitan pies—which is fed through a dough sheeter twice rather than being tossed before shaping. Sheeting and docking (perforating) a pizza dough reduce the occurrence of large gas bubbles, which can distort a pie. “We wanted to see blisters, not huge bubbles,” explains Hinkle. To ensure that the crust has a consistent crunch throughout, the cheese is added first. Another distinguishing characteristic is the quality of the ingredients; the cheeses—Parmesan, pecorino, mozzarella di bufala, and burrata—are imported from Italy. The pizza sauce is made with DiNapoli San Marzano–style plum Tomatoes, a premium supplier. The cased pepperoni (from Ezzo Sausage Company) is the kind that cups up when cooked. And the star of the show is another Italian import, fior di latte, for “flower of the milk,” a semisoft cheese made in the mozzarella style from cow’s milk. “It’s what we use instead of standard mozzarella,” Hinkle says, “excluPhotography by Kevin A. Roberts
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SECOND HELPING
Far left: The Margherita pizza Left: Corzetti with rock shrimp, beech mushrooms, tarragon, spinach, and rose butter broth
O+O Pizza 102 W. Lockwood 314-942-1216 Dinner daily
sively.” The pizzas are fired at 520 degrees in a gas-burning oven with perforated nickel decking that produces a uniform crispness and char. The result is a pizza with some unusual qualities that still seems familiar. “We put in a lot of thought, research, and experimentation,” says Hinkle. “We sourced the absolute best ingredients, and we bought the best oven for this style of pie.” The menu, offered only for takeout or patio dining at press time, includes five pizzas and two daily specials. The base pizzas are the tomato pie, the white pie (olive oil, fior di latte, pecorino), and the O+O Original (sauce, fior di latte, pecorino). The base pizzas can be embellished with a large array of toppings—fresh basil, mushrooms, spinach, meatball, burrata, hot honey, Taggiasca olives, prosciutto di Parma, pancetta tesa, mortadella, and 10 more.
Though it’s tempting to say that pizza is the main attraction, considering the name, Risk has assembled a solid roster of supporting dishes. The most unusual might be the corzetti, with rock shrimp, beech mushrooms, tarragon, spinach, and rose butter broth. The name is derived from the corzetto, a 14thcentury Genoan coin. Risk stamps the thin pasta rounds with an embossing tool. A six-pack of beef-stuffed T-ravs gets a flavor boost from pancetta tesa and fontina cheese. The Caesar salad arrives with a steak knife, which might be a surprise—until you see the size of the buttered, baked, and cheesed croutons. It’s whimsical and as fine as any Caesar in town. Two other musts: Risk’s fried calamari (with pickled vegetables, garlic, lemon, and Parmesan) and agnolotti (with burrata, dried tomato, garlic, pink peppercorns, and butter). The roster of cocktails (all $12) features such creations as a frozen Cal-
abrian paloma and a blood orange mai tai made with Bruto Americano. A hibiscus spritz is made with gin, hibiscus syrup, lemon, and prosecco; a Black Manhattan is composed of rye whisky, Averna, Amaro Nonino, and bitters. The space now feels more like a casual Italian bistro than the slightly more upscale restaurant that it replaced. The dining room’s footprint has remained the same; the color palette has not. Midnight blue on the wood trim has been supplanted with a less formal, Tyrrhenian Sea aqua with pops of warm yellow. Illumination comes from dropdown pendants, not bare bulbs in tracks. Stained wood planks have replaced the dusky blue tufted banquette backs. The soffit above the bar has gotten a similar treatment, and the bar front has been veneered with tongue-and-groove pine. Two windows were installed in the kitchen wall so kids of all ages can watch fresh pasta being extruded and cut. The inviting atmosphere extends to the outdoor dining areas, 25 scattered seats in front and an additional 30 on a back patio anchored by a wood banquette— one of the region’s newest hidden patios. Shortly after opening, the building’s storefront remained unchanged, without any O+O Pizza signage. “We didn’t get the Olive+Oak signage up for months,” admits Hinkle. Consider the restaurant another bestkept secret—for now.
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Talk about The Greenbrier’s apprenticeship program. It’s four years of intense, extensive grinding—stocks, sauces, butchery, charcuterie, baking, pastry… It’s not for everyone. Competition is part of the curriculum. You have to work a season at the hotel ahead of time to see if you can even handle the stress and the pressure. Sounds like boot camp. Funny you should [say that]. There was an episode on a Food Network show called Culinary Bootcamp, and it was about The Greenbrier’s apprenticeship program. The failure rate there was close to 70 percent. My class started with 16 chefs, and we ended up merging with another class.
Prime Time
Acclaimed chef Ben Grupe opens his long-awaited restaurant in The Grove.
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OME OF THE metro area’s most
talented chefs work in private clubs and are relatively unknown to the dining public. One of them, Ben Grupe, earned a spot on the ACF Culinary Team and eventually became its captain. Now, the 38-year-old is setting his sights on his début restaurant, Tempus, which he decided to open in October despite the pandemic, beginning with to-go service. —G.M.
ONLINE
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Visit stlmag.com to learn when and why Grupe uses MSG.
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When did you catch the culinary competition bug? As soon as I started my first apprenticeship, at Racquet Club Ladue. [Chef] Chris Desens would go to The Greenbrier [resort] for Club Chef ’s Institute and share his knowledge with us when he returned. At the time, he was also trying out for the U.S. Culinary Olympic team. He made the team, by the way, and I quit culinary school to do an apprenticeship at the Greenbrier.
After your country club stints, what did you do? I started doing pop-up dinners in 2014—10 of them in a year and a half—to introduce myself to the general public, since nobody really knew me. I wanted to see how people reacted to what I do, which was taking classically rooted fundamentals and flipping them on their head to see if I could generate a spark. I did a potato skin dish in which I took some fingerling potatoes, cooked them sous vide, added rendered chicken fat, seared to get a crispy texture, then finished with sea salt. I then added bonito mayonnaise, capers, and preserved lemon. They’re lighter and there’s more technique, but it’s still a potato skin. It’s a familiar point of reference rooted in foundation with an unexpected result. When you tried out for the “Olympic” team, what did it entail? It was a two-part tryout. The first was presenting a platter for eight people, then a five-course meal, including hot food presented cold, four finger foods, and something else. It was 12 hours and five the next day. If you passed that, you were invited back for part two. I got the highest score out of 26 at the first tryout, and I was going up against well-established chefs and other master chefs. I was pumped—but terrified. I still had the second tryout ahead of me. Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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HOT SEAT
“WE WANT TO CREATE SOMETHING MEANINGFUL AND PURPOSEFUL THAT YOU CAN ENJOY IN YOUR HOME.” You eventually became captain of the team. I was named captain in 2014, assembled my team, and competed in 2016. Each team competed two days. Cold food was on display one day, which they called “edible art.” The next day was the hot kitchen, where we had six hours to produce three courses for 110 people. We were the world champions in cold food, third in the hot kitchen, and scored fourth overall, out of 30-ish teams. In 2017, you competed in the American Ment’or BKB selection for the Bocuse d’Or. The Bocuse d’Or is the most prestigious culinary competition in the world, and a lot of people don’t even know about it. [It was] founded by [the late French chef] Paul Bocuse. The best of the best chefs are selected to compete and represent their countries. As far as my culinary career goes, that tryout was the most significant competition that I ever did. It is the pinnacle of competitions. Only 15 Americans have ever competed in this. How did it go? There were three candidates: two chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants and me. I put everything I had into it—physically, emotionally, and mentally. I was given an entire kitchen at Hickey College to use. We’d work there all day, go to Elaia to do dinner service, and many times go back and train during the night. I was working 20-hour days for months just to prepare. There was nothing that was going to prevent me from winning the competition. I came in second, but I did well. That was some of the best food I’ve ever cooked.
When did you decide it was time to do your own thing? I told myself if I didn’t win, I’d embark on another journey, which eventually became Tempus. You’re opening Tempus during the pandemic without a dining room, which means there’s no physical vibe. Everything has to be conveyed through the food. The challenge is to convey thoughtful, genuine hospitality without much physical contact. We must somehow make what seems foreign feel comforting. Our goal is to establish and nurture that familiarity, because we’re all basically eating food out of a box. We don’t have the restaurant experience to fall back on. We want to create something meaningful and purposeful that you can enjoy in your home. Discuss the black-and-white mural on the side of your building. The lack of color takes the intimidation away from what people may think is too fancy of a restaurant. Yes, the presentations are precise, but you’re still ordering potato skins, a steamed bun, and chicken and dumplings. The formality is absent. There are no white tablecloths. You might be hearing rock and roll or hip-hop. The ambience is relaxed and urban. It’s familiar, fun, and exciting—not your average finedining restaurant. How much did the menu items need to change for a to-go environment? We’ve engineered the menu specifically for to-go food. If you put a microgreen—or even lettuce—into a box, then it’s going
to die. Our goal is to provide the guest a best experience, considering the parameters and our abilities to make to-go food delicious. To us, fine dining is not fancy; it’s a philosophy that we embrace. Will any of the dishes you used in competitions make it onto that menu? Not specifically, but you will see iterations throughout the menu. A lot of similar techniques will be used. The idea is to offer what is familiar—basic proteins, seasonal vegetables, popular dishes— and apply classical cooking techniques to modify the presentation to make Tempus a different experience. How will the ordering process work, and will you deliver? It will be similar to ordering takeout food from anywhere, using online ordering and curbside pickup for dinner only, Wednesday–Saturday to start. We’re not delivering initially, but we are looking for creative ways to engage more guests since a lot of our clientele will be from out west. Talk about the interior. Although the bar and dining room are separated by a glass door, we’re treating the entire floor plan as the dining room from a menu and service standpoint. We worked hard on getting the lighting right, because there are hard materials—a lot of steel and a lot of wood. But more exciting right now are the two windows we installed that look right in the kitchen. One is strictly for pickup service; the other we can experiment with. Maybe we’ll put a guest table there that looks directly into the kitchen that can be serviced directly from the window. That could easily be incorporated into the outdoor seating plan. Is there a dish that stands out as an example of what Tempus represents? All the dishes are standouts, in my opinion. My recommendations are printed on the menu. I don’t have a signature dish or a favorite item. They’re all my children. I love them all equally.
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ENVIRONMENT
U RBAN D ES IG N
REVITALIZATION
URBAN PLANNING
COMMUNITY POLICING
Last year, St. Louis received an F for highozone days.
How we can transform slabs of concrete into walls of vegetation
What the pandemic’s taught us about parklets and pedestrians
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How to address gentrification while reinvigorating neighborhoods
How a new approach to law enforcement might help curb crime and strengthen community relations
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10 BOLD SOLUTIONS TO MOVE ST. LOUIS FORWARD
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EDUCATION
TALENT ATTRACTION
P U B L I C TR A N SI T
D E V E LO P E ME N T
G OV ER NM ENT
What we can learn from our neighbors about universal pre-K
How to keep skilled rising stars right here in St. Louis after graduation
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Rideshare and bus rapid transit services offer less costly alternatives to mass transit.
How a wonky tweak to zoning can make a big difference for small businesses
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A merger might not happen anytime soon, but trans-governmental contracts and mutual aid networks could provide a solution. P.67
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ENVIRONMENT
BY M I K E M I L L E R
days and ranked the area 25th on its list of the most polluted cities by year-round particle pollution. So how do we fix it? The short answer: It’s complicated. It’s easy to look at air quality and the effects of pollution through a narrow lens. In reality, bad air quality is the product of many things: traffic, industry, poverty, segregation. The air that we breathe is inextricably entwined with every other thing we do, and solving air quality issues will require fixing a list of other things first. “It took decades for this to happen, and it’s going to take a while to get out of it,” says Christine Ekenga, an assistant professor of public health at Washington University. Ekenga was the lead author of a study published last year showing that St. Louis residents living in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty, unemployment, and segregation have higher cancer risks because of their proximity to bad air. Addressing this issue will require a region-wide effort to reduce segregation by looking at housing laws and affordable housing options and by promoting civic engagement so residents can use their voices to fight for zoning regulations. And it won’t stop there. “The main source of our poor air quality in the region is mostly transportation-related air quality and pollution,” Ekenga says, “so we really need to think about transportation policies when we think about reducing pollution in the air. We need to think about multi-mobile streets, so restricted travel, more pedestrian lanes, more bicycling lanes, boosting public transit, thinking about open spaces for people instead of cars and vehicles.”
A BREATH OF FRESH AIR The American Lung Association’s 2020 State of the Air report gave St. Louis an F for high-ozone days. It will take an elevated effort to fix it.
There was a cruel irony at play as the coronavirus pandemic swept into St. Louis in March: In a way, the wideranging effects of a respiratory illness made it easier for St. Louisians to breathe. With fewer drivers commuting to work and industry brought to a halt this spring, air quality in the region improved. According to data collected by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, concentrations of nitrogen dioxide—a pollutant from motor vehicles and industrial plants—measured March 23 to May 4 were significantly lower in 2020 than during the same span in 2019. Poor air quality is an issue that cities across the country, including St. Louis, have grappled with for decades. In the 2020 State of the Air report, released the same year as the Clean Air Act’s 50th anniversary, the American Lung Association found that nearly half of the nation’s population, or about 150 million people, lived with polluted air. Examining the two most widespread outdoor air pollutants, the report gave the St. Louis region a grade of F for its high-ozone
FUN FACTOR Rooftop River Dining While we’re on the topic of taking St. Louis to new heights, let’s take another look at rooftop dining options, especially with the increased desire for alfresco spots. Yes, there’s Cinder House and Three Sixty, but we might also look farther north and south, at underutilized plots just beyond the typical flood zone. In recent years, for instance, restaurateur Munsok So renovated a collapsed historic building into a fivestory restaurant and event space. “I still don’t understand why we don’t do more to build up what’s happening on the river,” he told SLM at the time. “Why does St. Louis not want to do that?”
AVERAGE HIGH-OZONE DAYS FOR ST. LOUIS, PLUS 7 NEARBY CITIES
FAYETTEVILLE
MINNEAPOLIS
NASHVILLE
KANSAS CITY
INDIANAPOLIS
DETROIT
ST. LOUIS
CHICAGO
0.0
1.3
3.2
5.7
6.0
7.3
9.3
19.2
GRADE
GRADE
GRADE
GRADE
GRADE
GRADE
GRADE
GRADE
A
C
D
F
F
F
F
F
HIGH-OZONE DAY DEFINED Emissions from cars, power plants, industrial boilers, chemical plants, and other sources are already not ideal. Add a dry, sunny day and the chemical reaction is extremely harmful ground-level ozone. Breathing ground-level ozone can cause or worsen a variety of health problems and take a toll on ecosystems. These days, often called Ozone Action Days, are usually declared by a county or state and occur most often in urban Midwestern cities. SOURCE: UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY PROTECTION AGENCY, AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION
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Photography by phatthanit_r / iStock / Getty Images Plus / via Getty Images
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U R BAN DES IG N
BY NICHOLAS PHILLIPS
How we can transform slabs of concrete into walls of vegetation
GOING GREEN
A vertical garden in Madrid
Photography by ferrantraite / E+ / via Getty Images
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rior of a downtown building. One example is Carex, a genus of sedges, native to the state, that grow in a range of conditions and feed butterflies. Heuchera, coral bells, is another; it offers multiple colors and has thrived on MoBot’s vertical garden. Then there’s Sedum, commonly known as stonecrop. Mark Woolbright, founder and CEO of St. Louis–based vertical garden company Varden, says a good example of that plant’s potential is the MADE STL building on Delmar. It has a 50-foot living wall of Sedum that was planted last summer and is now “totally green.” Establishing vertical gardens downtown may be trickier, he notes, because the high-rises will block some natural light. “You’d have to work with a really skilled horticulturist to come up with species to work in sun and shade,” he says. Funding all of this would likewise require some creativity. Each year, the downtown garages pay real estate taxes— some of them hundreds of thousands of dollars. A portion could be abated if the owners greenlighted vertical gardens. As for the city-owned garages, look at Mexico City. There, private enterprise has sponsored living walls around the columns that support raised highways; in exchange, the companies use some columns for advertising. Another solution: Ask voters to raise parking rates. A longer-term strategy, Woolbright suggests, is to amend the building code to require living walls. “[Owners would] complain,” he says, “but they’d go for it—they’d have to. And it would give them a branding punch and generate some goodwill.”
When you squire out-of-towners around the historic heart of our city, do you gesture to the parking garages and beam with pride? Nope, because they’re lifeless behemoths of concrete and sadness—and they’re everywhere. Mercifully, there’s a way to spruce them up and accomplish a lot more in the meantime: vertical gardens. Vertical gardens (a.k.a. “living walls”) are just what they sound like: structures affixed to the exteriors of buildings that fill up the surface with plants. Cities around the world are experimenting with them. Miami boasts several parking garages with such gardens. The benefits abound. They reduce the urban heat island effect, that broiling concrete jungle feeling you get while walking to Busch Stadium in the summer. Living walls cut down on car exhaust pollution by sequestering carbon dioxide. They capture dust particulates—good news for people with asthma. They WHERE THE PLANTS MEET muffle unpleasant city sounds, like jackhammers or, say, a free Sammy Hagar concert. There’s also a psychological benefit well attested to in scientific literature: Green plants reduce stress and enhance feelings of well-being. So how would this work downtown? Jennifer Smock, manager of the Kemper Center for Home Gardening at the MisHEUCHERA CAREX souri Botanical Garden, points Coral bells, which range This genus of sedges is to several species with a strong in color, have thrived on native to the state and MoBot’s vertical garden. feed butterflies. chance of survival on the exte-
PA R K I N G
SEDUM
Commonly known as stonecrop, sedum is on the MADE STL building.
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R EVITALIZATION
BY A M A N DA WOY T US
BLOCK BY BLOCK How to address gentrification while reinvigorating neighborhoods
The key to solving gentrification might be rethinking how we define it. An influx of new businesses, new people, and new money—or gentrification—can be a driver of economic growth. But if it’s coupled with cultural displacement—increasing housing costs to the point where lower-income folks can’t afford to live there anymore—it comes at a steep price. A recent report in The New York Times detailed the difficulty of adding parks to areas in Denver, in part because residents of lower-income areas worried about “green gentrification.” So how do you improve neighborhoods without driving out the people whom investments most benefit? In 2019, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition released a study. It looked at census data from 2000–2013 to try and suss out demographic changes indicative of gentrification and displacement. The good news: Though gentrification was common in the country’s most populated cities, it was actually pretty rare in smaller and midsize ones. St. Louis, researchers found, had nine gentrified census tracts, or neighborhoods. Seven of the top 10 cities with the most gentrified neighborhoods were on the coasts. The bad news: We can also
CITIES WITH GENTRIFIED NEIGHBORHOODS AND HIGH LEVELS OF BLACK AND HISPANIC DISPLACEMENT, 2000–2013 NEIGHBORHOODS GENTRIFIED 1 2-10 11-20 21-50
51-144
NEIGHBORHOODS WITH DISPLACEMENT 1 2-3 4-5 6-8
ST. LOUIS
SOURCE: NATIONAL COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT COALITION
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probably conclude that wealthbuilding investment is concentrated in those cities as well. Ah, a problem for another day. The gentrification-versusdisplacement question might be especially timely, given the Next NGA West’s impending arrival in 2023 in North St. Louis. Housing will be key. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that gentrifying Philly neighborhoods saw a decrease in affordable rental units at nearly five times the rate of non-gentrifying neighborhoods. The NCRC researchers cited the Petworth neighborhood in Washington state as an example of the opposite. In 2000, 85 percent of the area’s 3,500 residents were African-American, and homeownership was high—80 percent. In 2019, though, the African-American population only made up 63 percent of the population, but home values climbed from $167,000 to $367,000. So though African-American residents might have moved away, they were, with any luck, able to sell their homes at much higher prices than the ones they originally paid, building generational wealth. Although 250 homes were planned for the neighborhood around Next NGA West, according to the St. Louis Business Journal, after building three, the developer said it was uncertain if the project will be finished. So what do we do? The Missouri Property Tax Credit Claim, a $1,000 credit for homeowners, may help keep elderly residents in their homes, should property values and taxes increase as a result of gentrification. Other options: expanding public housing, offering assistance to residents who fall behind on property taxes, and providing renters with the option to purchase their apartments. For a local example, consider the $100 million mixed-use Delmar Divine project, slated to open in fall 2021. Build-A-Bear Workshop founder Maxine Clark, who’s spearheading the project, is including 150 apartments in the development, with studios starting at $700–$800 per month, aimed at people who earn $35,000– $55,000 annually. The idea: Affordable housing and economic diversity are at the heart of reinvigorating a neighborhood. Illustration by Todd Detwiler
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U R BAN P LANNING
ROOM TO ROAM What the pandemic’s taught us about parklets and pedestrians
When the pandemic hit here, in mid-March, St. Louisans turned to the outdoors for respite from their homes. People walked and jogged on the sidewalks. Restaurants found creative ways to expand their outdoor dining spaces. Streateries and parklets popped up as real estate typically reserved for cars was temporarily closed to vehicular traffic. Roads in Forest Park and Tower Grove Park were closed to provide more space for pedestrians, and Tower Grove Park’s extra space was used to spread out its Saturday market stands. The National Association of Realtors has found that 62 percent of millennials favor walkable cities, and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods are often synonymous with higher property values and more active restaurants and retail. People flock to La Rambla in Barcelona and the Third Street Promenade in Los Angeles. Walkable cities are more equitable, sustainable, and healthier. Yet streets account for 80 percent of public space in cities. In the past, the nation’s city planning standard didn’t prioritize walking in design plans, yielding safety concerns. In St. Louis, local historian (and SLM contributor) Chris Naffziger believes that dual onePhotography by NataliaDeriabina / iStock / Getty Images Plus / via Getty Images
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BY J E N R O B E RTS
way traffic routes, such as Broadway and Fourth, jeopardize pedestrian safety. As he put it in a March story about how the city has become less pedestrian-friendly over time, “The needs of automobile and pedestrian are diametrically opposed.” The National Association of City Transportation Officials has created guides to help cities become more pedestrian-friendly. They recommend that sidewalks be wide enough to accommodate pedestrians and commerce. In St. Louis, Great Rivers Greenway executive director Susan Trautman describes downtown streets as “super-wide,” an area where walkways and landscaping could be added to make downtown more pedestrian-friendly. Expanding the existing network of greenways, Trautman adds, can connect people in ways that don’t require cars: “St. Louis can continue to invest in infrastructure and decisionmaking that supports giving people options for how they want to travel.” St. Louis might be taking note: Design Downtown STL recently unveiled plans to make the heart of the city more pedestrian-friendly, with more trees and events to attract people, as well as plans to narrow unusually wide thoroughfares, such as Market Street and Tucker Boulevard.
FUN FACTOR Weekday–Morning Dance Parties How to brighten the ho-hum weekday morning routine? Dance parties. Yes, we’re serious. Already, such cities as Nashville, Denver, and Austin are hosting high-energy events during the morning, with the help of New York– based company Daybreaker. Like a night at the club, the parties involve DJs and dancing, but the booze is replaced with energy drinks and, oftentimes, yoga and uplifting mantras. It’s a fresh way to jumpstart the morning—and beats a hangover.
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YOU WILL AS A SPECIAL FORCES OPERATOR.”
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GUARDIANS OF PEACE How a new approach to law enforcement might help curb crime and strengthen community relations
A decade ago, Camden, New Jersey, was a city in crisis. Open-air drug markets dotted street corners, and violent crime put the city in the news for all the wrong reasons. Its institutions were broken, too, with corruption, lethargy, and apathy crippling the system from the inside out. Police Chief J. Scott Thomson realized that many things, including his own department, needed to change. The opportunity to enact meaningful change came in 2013, after the state disbanded the city’s police department. Camden’s policing model was then rebuilt to better reflect the needs of the people. Camden didn’t need a band of law enforcement warriors patrolling its streets, officials decided; it needed guardians. “My message to police officers as we onboarded everyone into this new organization was ‘When you come into this department, you will identify more with being a member of the Peace Corps than you will as a Special Forces operator,’” Thomson recalls.
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BY M I K E M I L L E R
As calls for police reforms hit full volume in the wake of George Floyd’s death in May, community policing has been pitched as one of several answers. But what is it, and how should it work? Laurie Robinson, a professor of criminology at George Mason University who served as a co-chair for the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, formed in the wake of the events in Ferguson in 2014, says there are several ways to view and define community policing. At its core, though, it’s about co-producing public safety through coordination between community members and law enforcement officials. The first step: building trust and fortifying relationships on both sides of the divide. “That is the central principle,” Robinson says. Activists insist they need to have input in the way communities are policed, that traditional methods do not work. For his part, Thomson, who retired from the Camden department last year, refuses to wave a victory flag over his own efforts to change the policing model, but he is eager to point to examples of progress in the city of more than 70,000, located across the river from Philadelphia. The murder rate has dropped by nearly 70 percent over the past seven years, and violent crime has decreased by 42 percent. Thomson says there’s no unilateral approach to community policing, and the methods used in Camden may not necessarily be the best methods to use in a larger city, such as St. Louis, but the underlying ethos of involvement, engagement, and trust still applies. To establish rapport, Robinson says, departments should be involved in dialogue with community organizations, religious groups, and youth groups. Training and recruitment could also be reimagined; police academies could do more than teach police tactics and instead instill in new officers a broader worldview to help them understand social issues in the communities where they’ll be working. In other words, Robinson says, police forces can be more empathetic, so more effective partnerships can be established. “The community has to have a sharing hand on the wheel of how a police force is being guided,” Thomson says. “You’ve got to engage with people. You’ve got to empower them. That is the start.”
FUN FACTOR Light Installations To lift spirits and light up the night, we might look to Quebec City. There, light installations transform industrial structures into colorful masterpieces. The historic Jacques Cartier Bridge changes shades with the season and hosts hourly short animations influenced by the traffic, weather, and social media data. Across the St. Lawrence River from the walled city, Bunge’s grain silos served as a 600-by-30-meter canvas for a light show inspired by the Aurora Borealis. In recent years, St. Louis’ skyline has already been illuminated by the St. Louis Wheel and Stan Span; imagine the Eads Bridge and Cargill grain elevator in a new light as well.
Illustration by Todd Detwiler
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EDUC ATION
BY A M A N DA WOY T US
VARIATION IN STATE SPENDING PER CHILD, ADJUSTED FOR STATE COST OF LIVING DC
$15,970
NJ
$11,667
OR
$9,870
MT
$8,977
WA
$8,430
WV
$8,409
CT
$8,135
DE
$7,270
CA
$7,189
MI
$7,082
RI
$6,770
MN
$6,738
PA
$6,704
VT
$6,641
NM
$6,496
AR
$6,487
HA
$6,083
NC
$5,969
AL
$5,901
NY
$5,759
KT
$5,604
AVG
$5,374
TN
$5,355
AK
$5,289
LA
$5,218
GA
$4,907
IL
$4,818
OK
What we can learn from our neighbors about universal pre-K
$4,791
OH
$4,499
AZ
NEW SCHOOL
$4,163 $3,886
VA MD
$3,825
NV
$3,760 $3,758
IA MO
$3,721
ME
$3,693
TX
$3,689 $3,682
WI
$3,194
SC CO
$2,701
MS
$2,682
NA
$2,517
KS
$2,404 $2,255
FL
$2,040
NE $589
ND ID
$0
IN
$0
NH
$0
SD
$0
UT
$0
WY $0
In 2018–2019, total spending for early childhood education increased, but spending per child remained stagnant. The gap between the states that spend the most on early childhood education and the states that spend the least continues to grow. SOURCE: NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR EARLY EDUCATION RESEARCH
In Missouri, early childhood education is a seesaw of give and take. Last year, the state rolled out a new pre-K program, the Missouri Pre-K Foundation Formula, but reduced funding for the existing Missouri Preschool Program, a competitive grant offered in just 9 percent of school districts statewide. Enrollment increased to 5,788 children in 2018–2019, up 3,410 children from the previous year. State funding for the two programs also increased by $8 million, to more than $19 million total, yet the National Institute for Early Education Research ranked the state 39th in access for 4-year-olds and 37th for resources. So how might we expand access to pre-K? We could start by looking to our neighbors to the southwest as a model. Oklahoma is one of a handful of states with free voluntary pre-K. The state spent a whopping $182 million on early childhood education and $4,264 per child in 2018–2019. (By contrast, in Missouri, spending per child dropped to $3,330, down $1,388 from the previous year. These figures weren’t adjusted for cost of living, like the bar graph to the left.) The quality of education that 4-year-olds receive in Oklahoma is gold star–worthy. Pre-K teachers there must hold a bachelor’s
Photography by NataliaDeriabina / iStock / Getty Images Plus / via Getty Images
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degree in education with a specialization in pre-kindergarten, and the student/ teacher ratio is 10:1. The approach seems to be working: A report in 2016 found that Oklahoma was one of 13 states to see “significant growth on fourth-grade reading scores as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.” But Oklahomans lucked out in getting the funding for the program in the first place. Before launching free pre-K in 1998, lawmakers discovered that schools with half-day kindergarten were receiving money to cover full-day costs and misusing the overage. Legislators expanded the aid formula to include preschool. In the absence of budget indiscretions and a tax increase, we could look to Chicago for a possible solution. There, a partnership has formed between the Chicago Public Schools, the city, and private investors. The Child-Parent Center Pay for Success Initiative is a social impact bond aimed to enroll more than 2,620 low-income children in pre-K classes. The idea: Private lenders provide the capital ($17 million upfront, in Chicago’s case) to increase access to education, and the government repays them if educational outcomes improve. Because children are less likely to need special education services if they receive quality early childhood education, the state will save and use that money to repay investors. Funding partners also receive repayments for increases in kindergarten readiness and increases in third-grade literacy—a win across the board.
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TALENT TAP How to keep skilled rising stars right here in St. Louis after graduation
FUN FACTOR Wilderness Expeditions Out-of-towners might be drawn to Six Flags, then zip down I-44 to Busch Stadium. They’d be remiss, however, in overlooking our natural offerings. The scenic stretch of wilderness at the region’s edges— hills, rivers, trails, wildlife—is like a slice of Colorado in our own backyard. Perhaps all that’s needed is a little nudge, guided trips to experience these wonders with a pro—a seasoned photographer, a knowledgeable naturalist, an experienced adventurer—to help both tourists and lifelong St. Louisans see the metro region through a new lens.
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BY S A M A N T H A ST E V E N S O N
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Missouri holds its own at attracting college students. In 2019, 8,320 Missouri high school seniors left the state for tertiary education, but we also had an influx of 9,875 out-of-staters attending our universities. So in some cases, why can’t we keep them after graduation? One key is bustling metropolitan areas, with which such states as Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia have won over millennials in recent years. In 2007, Maine became the first state to give a large tax credit to help college graduates pay off student loans, on the condition that they stay and work in the state. But, so far, the initiative hasn’t created dramatic change. As Ohio is discovering with the slow progression of its 2017 House Bill 396 (which would help pay off student loans for STEM graduates working in the state), policy change takes time. In the short term, Missouri could take a lesson from Purdue University, which in 2019 launched the Purdue Brain Gain Initiative, inviting alumni to move back to Indiana. The pilot program found 220 alumni interested in discussing new jobs in the state, leading to conversations between them and the program’s partner companies. As many companies shift to remote working, perhaps now is the time to begin those conversations—and for policymakers to brainstorm how to sweeten the deal.
The exit of young educated workers from the state is not a problem unique to Missouri. More states—most notably in northern New England, the Plains, the Southeast, and the Rust Belt—are losing more trained and skilled laborers than they are keeping or gaining them. Although Missouri has low out-migration because many people who are born here stay, those who do leave are more educated than those left behind. There’s a 16 percent gap between the percentages of leavers who are highly educated and the percentage of stayers who are highly educated. There’s also an 8.8 percent gap when comparing leavers to entrants, according to a 2019 report by the United States Congress Joint GROSS BRAIN DRAIN, 2017 GAP IN PERCENTAGES OF HIGHLY EDUCATED BETWEEN LEAVERS AND STAYERS Economic Committee. For context, in SOURCE: U.S. JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE regard to the gap between those who leave and enter, North Dakota and Delaware top the list with nearly a 20 percent difference, whereas for states with low brain drain, such as California and New York, the difference is closer to minus-20 percent. There are small strides: The Missouri Chamber Foundation, for example, is analyzing the state’s workforce through a 15-year plan aimed at improving its economy. In September, it helped launch a service that matches companies with apprentice programs 0-10% 10-15% 15-20% 20+% to potential apprentices.
Photography by phatthanit_r / iStock / Getty Images Plus / via Getty Images
10/2/20 12:48 PM
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BY M I K E M I L L E R
CHICAGO
MINNEAPOLIS
MILWAUKEE
CLEVELAND
ST. LOUIS
COLUMBUS
CINCINNATI
NASHVILLE
KANSAS CITY
DETROIT
INDIANAPOLIS
MEMPHIS
67.0
35.5
23.7
20.2
18.6
14.1
11.3
10.9
10.6
9.8
6.4
6.3
Illustration by Todd Detwiler
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Rideshare and bus rapid transit services offer less costly alternatives to mass transit.
MAKING MOVES
ANNUAL TRANSIT BOARDINGS PER CAPITA AS OF 2018
The call to action came four years ago. That’s when, in a report on the ongoing evolution of the public transit industry, the American Public Transportation Association challenged public transit agencies to get away from the traditional idea of transit service as a system in which buses and trains move around the city and think of themselves more in terms of where people go. In other words, the charge for these organizations is to stop thinking of themselves as public transit agencies and start reimagining themselves as mobility agencies. “It’s much better if the transit agency can be seen as a partner in all of these ways of moving people and not as something separate,” says Victoria Perk, a senior research associate at the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida. “Think more along the lines of combining all the ways that people move in a community. That would include walking and biking and perhaps even scooters and partnering with rideshare companies so that these modes aren’t competing with each other—they’re complementing each other.”
SOURCE: FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION, NATIONAL TRANSIT DATABASE
Our region is already getting a taste of what the future may hold. In June, St. Louis Metro Transit launched a new ondemand rideshare transit service, Via Metro STL, that allows riders in North and Southwest St. Louis County to hail a vehicle from a smartphone app. (Think Uber but under the Metro umbrella.) Metro reports that 1,300 trips were completed in the first month of the program. There’s also the possibility that an action plan for the long-discussed northsouth MetroLink expansion is put into place in the next decade, says Jim Wild, executive director of East-West Gateway, but such a project is estimated to carry a price tag of at least $940 million. Nationally, ridership was already on the decline entering the year, and the pandemic only exacerbated budget problems for agencies across the country. In May, APTA projected that transit agencies will face a shortfall of $23.8 billion through the end of 2021, so it may take time before cities are able to fully implement bold ideas. Several Midwestern cities, such as Kansas City, Columbus, and Indianapolis, have explored cost-effective alternatives to light rail, including bus rapid transit services. These BRT lines often use dedicated roadways and take priority at intersections to deliver a faster transit experience than standard bus service. In August, the city issued a request for qualifications for north-south transit options, including the possibility of BRT service. BRT is worth looking into, but Wild says it’s important to consider that operating costs mean that these hybrid bus systems aren’t always the long-term money-savers they’re touted to be. Whichever direction the region goes, the best way for St. Louis to better embrace transit is to show riders what the system can do for them. “We need to understand that transit is for everyone,” Wild says. “It’s a way for people to get to their jobs, to do their shopping, to do everyday errands. We need to educate the community about the benefits of transit.” N OV E M B E R 2 0 2 0
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D E VELOP MENT
CRACKING THE CODE How a wonky tweak to zoning can make a big difference for small businesses
FUN FACTOR Party Barges For a city of river people, we don’t spend nearly enough time cruising on the Mississippi. The Gateway Arch offers relaxing daytime and dinner cruise options, but we want—no, demand—a party barge. In the summer, fill it with sand for a blowout volleyball tournament or an A+ adult sandbox, or install a tiki bar and treat it like a beach. In the winter, artificial snow could be a cool setting for an epic snowball fight, as long as the water’s not too icy to sail.
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From barbershops and microbreweries to florists and taquerías, lots of small businesses thrive on foot traffic. Just as much as they want their neighborhood regulars to drop by, they want wandering pedestrians to spy something through the front window and venture inside. Foot traffic is a feature of urban density. And density, it turns out, can be fostered and guided with a wonky policy tool called “form-based codes.” The city’s current zoning code is decades old and not form-based. It’s use-based: It separates the land into spheres of activity (so heavy industry goes here, houses go over there). A form-based code, however, is more explicit about what form the built environment should assume and what strolling through it should feel like. A form-based code may mandate that new buildings be made of brick, be a minimum height, be snug up to the sidewalk, and have mostly glass fronts on the ground level. “Form-based codes are intended to create walkable, mixed-use urban space,” says Marta Goldsmith, executive director of the Form-Based Codes Institute at Smart Growth America, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit. “Walkability is really key.”
BY N I C H O L AS P H I L L I P S
Two city neighborhoods, Forest Park Southeast/The Grove and the Central West End, have already nailed down their own form-based-code districts. They “overlay” onto the city’s code. Brooks Goedeker, now the executive director of the St. Louis Midtown Redevelopment Corporation, helped bring these codes to fruition and has witnessed their potency. “I’ve seen it work,” he says. Developers there, he observed, realized that the code made everyone play by specific rules, so they could invest with more certainty, knowing their projects would be protected. Thanks to the expansion of BarnesJewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, those neighborhoods saw a multi-year burst of construction, so they had momentum to channel. But Goldsmith says some towns and main streets around the country have used form-based codes to stimulate investment: “They have a clear vision and write a code to achieve it. In these cases, the code comes before property values rise to help expedite redevelopment.” Building these codes takes patience. It starts with soliciting input from stakeholders on what they already like and what they’re aspiring to, which is timeconsuming. It’s not a cheap process, either, costing in some cases more than $100,000. Don Roe, executive director of the city’s Planning and Urban Design Agency, says he’s been getting more funding to hire staffers who can work on neighborhood planning, which could lead to more form-based codes. But there’s still plenty of opportunity, he says, for nonprofits and private foundations to step in and get started in select areas. “We can’t be everywhere at once,” says Roe. At least one nonprofit is already doing this. Abdul-Kaba Abdullah, executive director of Park Central Development, says his group is working on a form-based code in DeBaliviere and the West End, and laying the early groundwork in the neighborhoods of Academy, Sherman Park, and Fountain Park, north of Delmar. “I’d like to see more private funding for place-based community-development corporations to do this type of planning,” he says. “We’re happy to teach the neighborhoods how to do it. It just takes more money.” Photography by Geber86r / E+ / via Getty Images
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GOVERNMENT
BY M I K E M I L L E R
S T. L O U I S ’ G R E AT D I VO R C E . . . A N D AT T E M P T S TO REUNITE 1875
By popular election in November, a board of freeholders is to be appointed to write a new charter separating city from county. 1876
On August 22, the new Scheme and Charter are voted down. After a November recount, the measures pass. 1877
In March, the city officially declares itself independent. 1924
A new board of freeholders is formed. 1926
The county rejects its plan to consolidate city and county. 1930
A bid for a Greater St. Louis metropolitan government is defeated. 1959
Another board of freeholders offers a plan to create a Metropolitan District with city-county cooperation, but it falls flat. 1962
Both city and county refuse a reorganization into boroughs, à la New York. 1982
An initiative led by John Hanley, Monsanto CEO, considers reunification but winds up urging only increased city-county cooperation. 1987
Another board of freeholders is established, but opponents sue and block the plan. 1996
Talk of city-county merger heats up again. 2004
The Advance St. Louis charter reform task force strikes out; voters reject all four of its suggested amendments to the city charter. 2019
Better Together pushes for a statewide vote on reunification—then withdraws the proposal.
Illustration by Todd Detwiler
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BUILDING A BRIDGE A merger might not happen anytime soon, but trans-governmental contracts and mutual aid networks could provide a solution.
Yes, the consolidation conversation is nothing new. Since the Great Divorce of 1876, numerous proposals for regional governmental unity have been presented—only to fizzle. Better Together, which spent six years examining regional governance before dissolving last year, was only the latest entrant in the stop-and-start debate. Talk of regional unity is often focused on the examples of other city-county agreements and the lessons they could provide St. Louis. Better Together, for example, examined consolidation efforts in Indianapolis, Louisville, and Nashville to inform a path forward. But instead of scrutinizing other cities’ reform plans in search of inspiration, perhaps St. Louis should look to—and try to learn from—a new kind of model. “Historically, one of the issues with a merger has been that all mergers are really focused on merging territories and they have not examined other efficiencies that can exist,” says local historian Michael Allen, a lecturer in American cultural studies at Washington University. Proposals to merge have met all kinds of roadblocks in the past century, but that doesn’t mean cooperation can’t happen. It might just have to look different.
Mutual aid networks could serve as inspiration for how the region might think differently about the way government could work better together. In the age of COVID-19, mutual aid networks have sprouted at the grassroots level to pool resources and ensure that people’s needs are met. On a governmental scale, this model would mean coordinating police departments, fire departments, parks departments, and similar civic services so they could be reallocated from a central source to help cut down on wastefulness and duplication. “It’s not something that even has to entail dissolving your favorite municipality,” Allen says. “Ladue can still exist at the end of the day. St. Louis city can still be independent, but resources could just be shared and pooled and redistributed to new trans-governmental contracts. And maybe that is how St. Louis will get there. For some reason, the territorial boundaries and names are all sacred to people, but I don’t think people care as much which parks district is improving and maintaining their park. If you live in Ladue, that’s the Ladue city government. But what if that was a regional parks district and the parks still had the same quality? I don’t think anyone’s going to be offended by that, as long as Ladue is still on the map.” Absent a merger or any other profound structural changes, Todd Swanstrom, a public policy professor at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, believes there’s also room for more cooperation with economic development in mind. “What we have done pretty well as a region, I think, is to have special districts that cleave off certain functions and fund them with the city-county tax base,” Swanstrom says. “The Zoo-Museum District uses property taxes from the city and the county, and I think that’s been a huge success. The question is ‘Could we do that in other areas? Could there be some way in which the city and county can collaborate and coordinate more intimately on economic development in the future?’” N OV E M B E R 2 0 2 0
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2021 ST. LOUIS ® BEST LAWYERS FEATURING THE CITY’S TOP LEGAL TALENT CREDIT
The Best Lawyers in America© is published by BL Rankings, LLC, Augusta, GA, and can be ordered directly from the publisher. For information call 803-648-0300; write 801 Broad Street Suite 950, Augusta GA 30901; email info@bestlawyers.com; or visit bestlawyers.com. An online subscription to Best Lawyers® is available at bestlawyers.com. DISCLAIMER AND C OPYRIGHT
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This list is excerpted from the 2021 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America©, the pre-eminent referral guide to the legal profession in the United States. Published since 1983, Best Lawyers lists attorneys in 148 specialties, representing all 50 states, who have been chosen through an exhaustive survey in which thousands of the nation’s top lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The 2021 Edition of Best Lawyers is based on over 13 million evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers. The method used to compile Best Lawyers remains unchanged since the first edition was compiled almost 40 years ago. Lawyers are chosen for inclusion based solely on the vote of their peers. Listings cannot be bought, and no purchase is required to be included. In this regard, Best Lawyers remains the gold standard of reliability and integrity in lawyer ratings. The nomination pool for the 2021 Edition consisted of all lawyers whose names appeared in the previous edition of Best Lawyers, lawyers who were nominated since the previous survey, and new nominees solicited from listed attorneys. In general, lawyers were asked to vote only on nominees in their own specialty in their own jurisdiction. Lawyers in closely related specialties were asked to vote across specialties, as were lawyers in smaller jurisdictions. Where specialties are national or international in nature, lawyers were asked to vote nationally as well as locally. Voting lawyers were also given an opportunity to offer more detailed comments on nominees. Each year, half of the voting pool receives fax or email ballots; the other half is polled by phone. Voting lawyers were provided this general guideline for determining if a nominee should be listed among “the best”: “If you had a close friend or relative who needed a real estate lawyer (for example), and you could not handle the case yourself, to whom would you refer them?” All votes and comments were solicited with a guarantee of confidentiality ― a critical factor in the viability and validity of Best Lawyers’ surveys. To ensure the rigor of the selection process, lawyers were urged to use only their highest standards when voting, and to evaluate each nominee based only on his or her individual merits. The additional comments were used to make more accurate comparisons between voting patterns and weight votes accordingly. Best Lawyers uses various methodological tools to identify and correct for anomalies in both the nomination and voting process. Ultimately, of course, a lawyer’s inclusion is based on the subjective judgments of his or her fellow attorneys. While it is true that the lists may at times disproportionately reward visibility or popularity, the breadth of the survey, the candor of the respondents, and the sophistication of the polling methodology largely correct for any biases. For all these reasons, Best Lawyers lists continue to represent the most reliable, accurate and useful guide to the best lawyers in the United States available anywhere.
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ADMINISTRATIVE / REGULATORY LAW
GRAY, RITTER
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
BRADSHAW, STEELE ,
GRAY, RITTER
& GRAHAM
PAISNER
C O CHRANE , BERENS
& GRAHAM
Gretchen Garrison
Harold R. Burroughs, Karen W. Fries, Paula Dinger Pace, Bart D. Wall
& BILLMEYER
Don M. Downing, Maurice B. Graham, Robert F. Ritter
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
William Ray Price Jr.
GREENSFELDER , HEMKER & GALE
G OLDSTEIN & PRE S S man
Norman W. Pressman
ADMIRALTY AND MARITIME LAW
Erwin O. Switzer
Robert T. Haar
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
John S. Meyer CARMODY MACD ONALD
CARMODY MACD ONALD
Spencer P. Desai, Mark B. Hillis, Josh J. Reinert
Becky R. Eggmann, Robert E. Eggmann, Thomas H. Riske
DENTONS U.S.
C OUSINS ALLIED
Karen M. Jordan
STRATEGIC ADVISORS
HUSCH BLACKWELL
Mark G. Arnold Jordan B. Cherrick
G OLDSTEIN AND PRICE
KIONKA LAW
Alan K. Goldstein, Robert D. Nienhuis, Daryl F. Sohn
Edward J. Kionka MICHAEL GROS S
Steven N. Cousins
D OSTER , ULLOM & B OYLE
G OLDSTEIN
John G. Boyle
& PRE S SMAN
LAW OFFICE
Michael A. Gross PITZER SNOD GRAS S
Robyn Greifzu Fox
HUSCH BLACKWELL
Jonathan Giokas, Edward J. Lieberman
Mark Sableman
SPENCER FANE
LEWIS RICE
LATHROP GPM
Gerald P. Greiman
Steven C. Drapekin, Thomas C. Erb, Rosemarie M. Karcher, Joseph H. Weyhrich, Mark C. Winings, Tom W. Zook
Wendi AlperPressman
ANTITRUST LAW
Joseph Yeckel THOMP SON C OBURN
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Bruce D. Ryder
John Michael Clear, Arindam Kar, Rebecca A.D. Nelson HEPLERBRO OM
Glenn E. Davis
APPELLATE PRACTICE
T UETH KEENEY C O OPER MOHAN & JACKSTADT
James R. Layton
ARBITRATION ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
William Ray Price Jr. JEROME A . DIEKEMPER
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Jeffery T. McPherson, William Ray Price Jr., Thomas B. Weaver
Jerome A. Diekemper PAULE , CAMAZINE & BLUMENTHAL
BRINKER & D OYEN
Gary P. Paul Brown & Brown Daniel Brown
Thomas M. Blumenthal
AVIATION LAW
BROWN & JAME S
GRAY, RITTER
T. Michael Ward
& GRAHAM
Morry S. Cole
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON PAISNER
Thomas C. Walsh
BANKING AND FINANCE LAW
BUCKLEY & BUCKLEY
Ann E. Buckley D OWD BENNETT
Elizabeth C. Carver
Bob C. Graham III, Larry K. Harris, Matthew S. Layfield, Kenneth H. Suelthaus
Matthew S. Layfield STONE , LEYTON & GERSHMAN
E. Rebecca Case
WELL S
Scot J. Seabaugh
David A. Sosne
Peter J. Dunne
CLOSELY HELD COMPANIES AND FAMILY BUSINESSES LAW AFFINITY LAW GROUP
Kathleen W. Bilderback, Tal Sant Jennifer R. Byrne, William M. Corrigan Jr., Daniel J. Godar BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Andrew T. Hoyne
Paisner Lawrence Brody, Stephen B. Daiker CAPE S, SOKOL , G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
Jeffrey A. Cohen
SANDBERG PHOENIX & VON G ONTARD
LATHROP GPM
G. Harley Blosser
Bennett S. Keller, Scott H. Malin
STINSON
Janet S. Hendrickson, Ph.D., David B. Jennings
BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS (INCLUDING LLCS AND PARTNERSHIPS) AFFINITY LAW GROUP
SUMMERS C OMP TON
Kathleen W. Bilderback
SANDBERG PHOENIX & VON G ONTARD
Bhavik R. Patel THOMP SON C OBURN
Thomas R. Corbett, Stephen E. Cupples, Steven B. Gorin
COLLABORATIVE LAW: FAMILY LAW AMATO FAMILY LAW
Susan L. Amato
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
William M. Corrigan Jr., Daniel J. Godar, Joseph F. Hipskind Jr.
GREG ORY BROUGH,
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
PAULE , CAMAZINE
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
& BLUMENTHAL
Jeffrey A. Cohen
Alan E. Freed
WASINGER DAMING
CARMODY MACD ONALD
RAZA & JONE S
David G. Wasinger
Brian C. Behrens, Leo H. MacDonald Jr.
Sophya Q. Raza
TH OMP SON C OBURN
THOMP SON C OBURN
Cherie Stephens Bock, Ruthanne Hammett, Mark L. Kaltenrieder, Steven Mitchell, David H. Rubin
Mark V. Bossi, David D. Farrell, Cheryl A. Kelly, David A. Warfield
BANKRUPTCY AND CREDITOR DEBTOR RIGHTS / INSOLVENCY AND REORGANIZATION LAW
WALTRIP & SCHMIDT
Michael A. Becker
BET-THE-COMPANY LITIGATION
Tal Sant
Gregory B. Brough
THE CENTER FOR FAMILY LAW
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
HEMKER & GALE
Thomas B. Weaver
Vincent J. Garozzo
Ann E. Bauer, Penny Robinson
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
RIEZMAN BERGER
PAISNER
Richard N. Tishler
Thomas C. Walsh
SMITHAMUNDSEN CARMODY MACD ONALD
Gerard T. Carmody
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Susan K. Ehlers, Richard W. Engel Jr., David L. Going
ATTORNEY AT LAW
GREENSFELDER ,
AFFINITY LAW GROUP
Highlighted Name
BestLawyers_1120.indd 70
Larry E. Parres, Joseph J. Trad
SPENCER FANE
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Paul Cambridge, Thomas E. Lowther, John J. O’Brien III, Joseph T. Porter Jr., John L. Sullivan
LEWIS RICE
P OL SINELLI P OL SINELLI
PAISNER
BIOTECHNOLOGY AND LIFE SCIENCES PRACTICE
Kathryn J. Doty, Andrew C. Speciale
Peter D. Kerth
PITZER SNOD GRAS S
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
P OL SINELLI
Susan M. Dimond
JOSEPH F. YECKEL
Andrew Rothschild, Barry A. Short
Marshall C. Turner JENKINS & KLING
THE LAW OFFICE OF
LEWIS RICE
HUSCH BLACKWELL
Wendi AlperPressman
THOMP SON C OBURN
Theodore J. MacDonald Jr.
HOYNE LAW FIRM
HEMKER & GALE
Mary Ann L. Wymore
HEPLERBRO OM
Steven Goldstein, Norman W. Pressman
LATHROP GPM ROBERTS PERRYMAN
GREENSFELDER ,
HAAR & WO ODS
Robert T. Haar, Lisa A. Pake
Theodore Lucas
ADVERTISING LAW
PAISNER
HAAR & WO ODS
JORDAN B. CHERRICK
Michael D. O’Keefe
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Cullen K. Kuhn, David M. Unseth, Brian C. Walsh
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
FOX SMITH
THOMP SON C OBURN
Paul H. Berens
CIVIL RIGHTS LAW
John W. Finger THOMP SON C OBURN
D OWD BENNETT
James F. Bennett
Steven B. Gorin
DENOTE S “LAWYER OF THE YEAR”
10/5/20 9:16 AM
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Tal Sant ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
William M. Corrigan Jr., Scott Galt, Patrick J. Kenny, William Ray Price Jr., Jeffrey Schultz, Eric M. Trelz
CARMODY MACD ONALD
HAMILTON WEBER
STONE , LEYTON
GREENSFELDER ,
HARNE S S, DICKEY
Tina N. Babel, Gerard T. Carmody, Patrick G. Carmody, Kevin M. Cushing, S. Todd Hamby, Sarah Klebolt, Meghan M. Lamping, Christopher J. Lawhorn, Tyler C. Schaeffer, David P. Stoeberl
V. Scott Williams
& GERSHMAN
HEMKER & GALE
& PIERCE
Paul J. Puricelli Anthony Friedman, Anthony G. Simon, John G. Simon
Jackson D. Glisson, Richard R. Hardcastle III, Andrew W. Manuel, Jennifer L. Therrien, Michael E. Wilson
Michael J. Thomas, Joseph E. Walsh Jr., Bryan K. Wheelock
THOMP SON C OBURN
HUSCH BLACKWELL
Gordon L. Ankney, William R. Bay, Lawrence C. Friedman, Edwin G. Harvey, Stephen B. Higgins, Brian Lamping, Matthew Landwehr, Jan Paul Miller, John R. Musgrave, Michael D. O’Keefe, Dudley W. Von Holt, Kathy A. Wisniewski, Roman P. Wuller
Caroline L. Hermeling
LEWIS RICE
JENKINS & KLING
PATENT LAW OFFICE
Dale E. Hermeling
Paul M. Denk
LEWIS RICE
PI ERSON WELL S
Jeremy P. Brummond
Gary A. Pierson
MC CARTHY, LEONARD
P OL SINELLI
& KAEMMERER
Jeffrey E. Fine
T UETH KEENEY
MIDWE ST LAW
C O OPER MOHAN
James Keller
C OPELAND THOMP SON BAKER STERCHI
JEEP
C OWDEN & RICE
Michael D. Hart
Michael B. Hunter, Steven P. Sanders
HE PLERBRO OM
Glenn E. Davis, Theodore J. MacDonald Jr.
THE SIMON LAW FIRM
HUSCH BLACKWELL
Michael R. Annis, Mark G. Arnold, Joseph P. Conran, James F. Monafo, JoAnn T. Sandifer, David W. Sobelman KIRKLAND WO ODS
C ORWIN LAW GROUP
& MARTINSEN
David S. Corwin
John M. Challis
& P OTTER
DENTONS U.S.
LEWIS RICE
Anthony R. Behr, W. Dudley McCarter
Stephen H. Rovak
John B. Greenberg, John M. Hessel, Michael J. Hickey, Bridget G. Hoy, Neal F. Perryman, Winthrop B. Reed III, Andrew Rothschild, Richard B. Walsh Jr.
BEHR , MC CARTER
D OWD BENNETT BERGER , C OHEN & BRANDT
Steven M. Cohen BLANTON, NICKELL , C OLLINS, D OUGLAS & HANSCHEN
Joseph C. Blanton Jr. BLITZ, BARD GETT
James F. Bennett, John D. Comerford, Edward L. Dowd Jr., Robert F. Epperson, Gabriel E. Gore, James G. Martin, Kelly J. H. Murrie, Michelle Nasser, Hannah F. Preston, John J. Rehmann
Christopher O. Bauman, Robert D. Blitz BROWN & BROWN
Daniel Brown
WASINGER DAMING
S. Jay Dobbs
Michael Daming, David G. Wasinger
NEUNER MEDIATION &
WINTERS LAW GROUP
FOLEY & MANSFIELD
DISPU TE RE SOLU TION
Timothy D. Krieger
Francis X. Neuner Jr.
Bradley A. Winters
FOX SMITH
P OL SINELLI
Ronald Fox, Richard Korn, Theodore Lucas
Leo C. Chmielewski, Keith J. Grady, James P. Martin, Ryan J. McCarty, Robert J. Selsor, Michael H. Wetmore
FRANKEL , RUBIN, KLEIN, SIEGEL ,
Michael J. Payne GRAY, RITTER
Ketrina G. Bakewell, Louis F. Bonacorsi, John Michael Clear, Robert T. Ebert Jr., Jeffrey J. Kalinowski, Mark B. Leadlove, Michael B. McKinnis, Brian C. Walsh, Thomas C. Walsh, Charles A. Weiss
& GRAHAM
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
Drey A. Cooley, Amy L. Fehr, Mark E. Goodman, Gary R. Sarachan, Aaron E. Schwartz
Don M. Downing, Gretchen Garrison, Maurice B. Graham, Robert F. Ritter, Jason D. Sapp, Cort A. VanOstran
Tim Walsh
GARRETT & O ’KEEFE
Leland B. Curtis, Carl J. Lumley
REINKER , HAMILTON
G. Harley Blosser, Jonathan P. Soifer Glenn K. Robbins
David B. Jinkins, Thomas A. Polcyn, Mark Sableman, Jennifer Visintine
THOMP SON C OBURN
Paul M. Macon
CONSUMER PROTECTION LAW
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
David G. Loseman
COPYRIGHT LAW
BEHR , MC CARTER
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
& P OTTER
W. Dudley McCarter
Paisner Thomas C. Walsh
CARMODY MACD ONALD
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
Donald R. Carmody
G O ODMAN &
LAW FIRM
James Schleiffarth
C O CKRIEL &
CORPORATE COMPLIANCE LAW D OWD BENNETT
Edward L. Dowd Jr., James G. Martin
GRAY, RITTER
& VON G ONTARD
SCHLEIFFARTH
William D. O’Neill THOMP SON C OBURN
SANDBERG PHOENIX
Andrew Kasnetz, Timothy O’Leary, G. Keith Phoenix, Jonathan Ries, John S. Sandberg
STINSON
Quinn Murphy, Andrew Ruben, Richard A. Stockenberg
Randall J. Reinker
Beth M. Conran, James H. Ferrick, Daniel R. Garner, Clark Hedger, Kevin F. Hormuth, Gregory Mollett, David Niemeier, Andrew Voss, Dale M. Weppner
Gary A. Growe
& VON G ONTARD
& VON G ONTARD
CONSTRUCTION LAW
HEMKER & GALE
EILERTS
SANDBERG PHOENIX
SANDBERG PHOENIX
CURTIS, HEINZ,
GREENSFELDER ,
GROWE EISEN KARLEN
& GRAHAM
SPENCER FANE
Jason D. Sapp
James R. Dankenbring THOMP SON C OBURN
Thomas A. Litz, Thomas J. Minogue
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE LAW
SARACHAN
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Michael A. Kahn
David W. Braswell
CRAWFORD IP LAW
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
David E. Crawford
PAISNER
CHRISTOFFERSON
Philip J. Christofferson, Steven M. Cockriel
SMITHAMUNDSEN
Gene J. Brockland, Brian M. Wacker
Joseph M. Rolnicki
Don G. Lents, James L. Nouss, William F. Seabaugh
GRACE J. FISHEL
D OWD BENNETT
Grace J. Fishel
James G. Martin
& THOMAS
GREENSFELDER ,
EVANS & DIXON
William S. Thomas
HEMKER & GALE
Joseph S. von Kaenel
EVANS & DIXON SPENCER FANE
DENTONS U.S.
Timothy Ahrenhoersterbaeumer, Gerald P. Greiman, David M. Harris, Eric C. Peterson
John R. Haug, Charles Vantine
HAAR & WO ODS
STINSON
Susan E. Bindler, Robert T. Haar, Lisa A. Pake, Pete Woods
John R. Munich
STLMAG.C OM
BestLawyers_1120.indd 71
COMMUNICATIONS LAW
& FENLEY
PAISNER
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
NORTON ROSE
PAYNE & PUDLOWSKI
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Frank B. Janoski
FULBRIGHT & KAEMMERER
BROWN & JAME S
Matthew Koehler, Todd A. Lubben, Steven H. Schwartz
Ian P. Cooper
Michelle W. Alvey, Alan S. Nemes
SPENCER FANE
& JACKSTADT
MC CARTHY, LEONARD
& DEU TSCH
Joseph C. Blanner, Matthew D. Menghini
HUSCH BLACKWELL
GAUSNELL , O ’KEEFE
Mark E. Stallion
SPENCER FANE
James R. Dankenbring, Ravi Sundara
71
NOVEMBER 2020
10/5/20 9:16 AM
THOMP SON C OBURN
LEWIS RICE
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
T UETH KEENEY
BUCKLEY & BUCKLEY
SI LVERSTEIN WOLF
Thomas A. Litz, Thomas J. Minogue
John C. Bodnar, Thomas C. Erb, Leonard J. Essig, Timothy E. Kastner, John J. Riffle, Albert S. Rose, Joseph H. Weyhrich, Mark C. Winings, Tom W. Zook
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
C O OPER MOHAN
Sanford J. Boxerman, David V. Capes, Sara G. Neill, Michelle F. Schwerin
Ann E. Buckley
Ferne P. Wolf
& JACKSTADT EVANS & DIXON
WORKERS RIGHTS
Larry M. Sewell
LAW FIRM
CORPORATE LAW ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
David W. Braswell, Michael A. Chivell, Daniel J. Godar, Joseph F. Hipskind Jr., Michael S. Jefferies, Thomas E. Lowther, Joseph T. Porter Jr., Mark L. Stoneman BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON PAISNER
Frederick W. Bartelsmeyer, Steven M. Baumer, J. Powell Carman, Ryan S. Davis, Robert J. Endicott, Joel N. Lander, Don G. Lents, Walter L. Metcalfe, Robert L. Newmark, James L. Nouss, Paula Dinger Pace, William F. Seabaugh, Peter D. Van Cleve, R. Randall Wang CAPE S, SOKOL , G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
John S. Meyer
PAULE , CAMAZINE & BLUMENTHAL
Donald W. Paule
D OWD BENNETT
Edward L. Dowd Jr., Gabriel E. Gore, James G. Martin, Kelly J. H. Murrie, Michelle Nasser
& AS SO CIATE S
Richard E. Greenberg
Martha C. Brown RIEZMAN BERGER
Robert G. Oesch
Susan E. Bindler, Robert T. Haar, Lisa A. Pake
ELECTRONIC DISCOVERY AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT LAW
HE PLERBRO OM
Frederick Berger
Theodore J. MacDonald
SANDBERG PHOENIX
LEWIS RICE
& VON G ONTARD
Barry A. Short
Scott Greenberg
John F. Cowling
LUC C O, BROWN, SMITHAMUNDSEN
THRELKELD & DAWSON
John W. Finger
J. William Lucco
SPENCER FANE
NEWTON BARTH
James R. Dankenbring, K. Edward Holderle III, Aaron Pawlitz
Talmage Newton ROSENBLUM
N. Scott Rosenblum
STINSON
Tessa Rolufs Trelz
HAMILTON WEBER
Wm. Randolph Weber
Donald B. Dorwart, Benjamin Hulsey, Michael F. Lause, Thomas A. Litz, Thomas J. Minogue, Christopher B. Reid
CRIMINAL DEFENSE: GENERAL PRACTICE
DUI / DWI DEFENSE
Craig A. Adoor, James W. Mathis, Mary Anne O’Connell LASHLY & BAER
John Fox Arnold LATHROP GPM
Bennett S. Keller, Eric R. Riess
HUSCH BLACKWELL
Ruth Hays, Alan H. Kandel
Pamela D. Perdue
DENLOW & HENRY
Robert Denlow, Paul G. Henry
Jamie Zveitel Kwiatek
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
THE WAGNER
Thomas E. Clark Jr.
Katherine Utz Hunter
ERNST LAW FIRM
Gary H. Feder, Gregory R. Smith
Edwin C. Ernst
REYE S-JONE S
Carl M. Ward
& GERSHMAN
Jeffrey E. Hartnett HUSCH BLACKWELL
OF JOHN M. LYNCH
THE WALLACH
John M. Lynch
LAW FIRM
Jerome Wallach
Randall S. Thompson SCHUCHAT, C O OK & WERNER
Travis L. Noble Jr.
FOX SMITH
Richard Korn GREENSFELDER , HEMKER & GALE
T. Christopher Bailey, Amy L. Blaisdell, Dennis G. Collins, Jill K. Luft, Kevin T. McLaughlin, Mary Beth Ortbals HARRIS D OWELL FISHER & YOUNG
Ronald K. Fisher, Fred Ricks, J. Bradley Young HE S SE MARTONE
STONE , LEYTON
THE LAW OFFICE S
Kelley F. Farrell, David H. Luce
LAW GROUP
HARTNETT
Andrew J. Martone HUSCH BLACKWELL
Christine F. Miller, Sonni Nolan, Terry L. Potter, Randall S. Thompson, Robert J. Tomaso
Evan Z. Reid
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS (ERISA) LAW
Sally E. Barker, Loretta K. Haggard, Christopher T. Hexter, George O. Suggs, Marilyn S. Teitelbaum
MICKE S O ’ TO OLE
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
SEDEY HARPER
LASHLY & BAER
Thomas A. Mickes
Scott E. Hunt, Sarah Roe Sise
WE STHOFF
James C. Hetlage
Matthew Fry, N. Scott Rosenblum
EDUCATION LAW
SINDEL NOBLE
LEWIS RICE
Richard H. Sindel
CRIMINAL DEFENSE: WHITECOLLAR
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
James I. Singer
HUSCH BLACKWELL
TR AVIS NOBLE ROSENBLUM
& WERNER
David T. Hamilton
Paul J. Puricelli
Michael P. Burke, Dennis C. Donnelly, Jerry M. Hunter, Ned O. Lemkemeier
SCHUCHAT, C O OK
EMPLOYMENT LAW–INDIVIDUALS
HAMILTON WEBER
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON PAISNER
P OL SINELLI
Cathryn Conrad, Lori W. Jones, Richard J. Pautler, Patricia A. Winchell
Gerard T. Carmody
Jason W. Kinser
ATTORNEY AT LAW
Matthew J. Reh, Thomas B. Weaver CARMODY MACD ONALD
BEHR , MC CARTER & P OTTER
OF CARL M. WARD
THOMP SON C OBURN
Mary M. Bonacorsi
STINSON
John R. Munich
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
BRUNTRAGER
PAISNER
& BILLING S
THOMECZEK & BRINK
Neil J. Bruntrager
James G. Thomeczek
Highlighted Name
BestLawyers_1120.indd 72
Robert A. Kaiser, Michael B. Kass, Daniel K. O’Toole, Eric M. Trelz
Richard Shinners
THOMP SON C OBURN
THE LAW OFFICE
SCHWARTZ & FRY HUSCH BLACKWELL
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
SHINNERS
U TZ & LATTAN
Richard H. Sindel Gordon L. Ankney, Stephen B. Higgins, Claire M. Schenk
John W. Dillane, Vincent J. Garozzo, Thomas G. Lewin, Jay A. Nathanson, Patrick J. Sweeney
HAMMOND AND
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
SINDEL NOBLE
THOMP SON C OBURN
THOMP SON C OBURN
EMINENT DOMAIN AND CONDEMNATION LAW
SCHWARTZ & FRY
Gary E. True
HEMKER & GALE
EMPLOYMENT LAW– MANAGEMENT
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
WELL S
GREENSFELDER ,
Thomas H. Mug, Douglas S. Neville, Daniel J. Schwartz
PAMELA D. PERDUE ,
& B OYLE
Joseph S. von Kaenel
Julie Berkowitz
HE MKER & GALE
HAAR & WO ODS
HEMKER & GALE
BERKOWITZ
Mary M. Bannister, Ruben K. Chuquimia, Jeffrey E. Fine, Margaret H. Hillman, Joan B. Killgore, Paul G. Klug, Kenneth H. Suelthaus
D OSTER , ULLOM
EVANS & DIXON
LAW OFFICE OF JULIE
P OL SINELLI
SUMMERS C OMP TON
Denis P. McCusker
ELDER LAW
MARTHA C. BROWN
RIEZMAN BERGER
Sherrie A. Hall
GREENSFELDER ,
GREENSFELDER ,
CARMODY MACD ONALD
Brian C. Behrens, Donald R. Carmody, Leo H. MacDonald Jr.
Amy Clendennen, Melanie Gurley Keeney
Jennifer W. Stokes, Lisa A. Van Fleet, R. Randall Wang
Mary Anne Sedey, Benjamin F. Westhoff
JACKSON LEWIS
Thomas E. Berry Jr., Jessica L. Liss, R. Michael Lowenbaum, Stephanie O. Zorn
LEWIS RICE
Neal F. Perryman, Gary M. Smith
DENOTE S “LAWYER OF THE YEAR”
10/5/20 9:17 AM
LITTLER MENDEL SON
CURTIS, HEINZ,
Charles E. Reis, Harry W. Wellford Jr., Kimberly A. Yates
GARRETT & O ’KEEFE
Leland B. Curtis, Carl J. Lumley
ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY LAW
RAZA & JONE S
FRANKEL , RUBIN,
Stephanie L. Jones, Sophya Q. Raza
KLEIN, SIEGEL ,
REINKER , HAMILTON MC CARTHY, LEONARD
LUEDERS, ROBERTSON
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
& FENLEY
& KAEMMERER
& KONZEN
Michael E. Kaemmerer
R. Eric Robertson
William Ray Price Jr.
John R. Fenley, Robert N. Hamilton
MCMAHON BERGER
Thomas O. McCarthy, David F. Yates
ENTERTAINMENT LAW–MOTION PICTURES AND TELEVISION
MICKE S O ’ TO OLE
Wendy D. Boggiano, Vincent D. Reese NEUNER MEDIATION &
O GLETREE , DEAKINS,
BARD OL LAW FIRM
Stephen Bardol
Michael A. Kahn, Peter Salsich III
ENTERTAINMENT LAW–MUSIC
Joyce M. Capshaw, James P. Carmody, Joseph Kodner, Cary J. Mogerman, Mary E. Niemira, Jordan A. Poole
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
C OULTER LAMB SON
Michael A. Kahn
Joseph A. Lambson
DANIEL R . FRIEDMAN
CURTIS, HEINZ,
Daniel R. Friedman
GA RRETT & O ’KEEFE
A. Courtney Cox SHANDS, ELBERT,
Hope K. Abramov, David Deterding, Clifford A. Godiner, Laura M. Jordan, Krissa P. Lubben
David Betz THE CENTER
ENERGY LAW ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Daniel J. Godar BUCKLEY & BUCKLEY
Ann E. Buckley
C OPELAND THE CENTER FOR
THOMP SON JEEP
FAMILY LAW
Rachel A. Jeep
Ann E. Bauer
D OWD BENNETT
FINANCIAL SERVICES REGULATION LAW
James F. Bennett FRANKEL , RUBIN,
P OL SINELLI
Jonathan D. Marks
Kenneth H. Suelthaus
FAUL STICH LAW FIRM
Lisa Faulstich
Amy L. Wachs
KLEIN, SIEGEL ,
Anne Lageson, Michael L. Schechter
Scot J. Seabaugh
THURMAN LAW FIRM
David P. Senkel
Christopher E. Erker, Michael H. Wetmore
Mathew G. Eilerts, Richard J. Eisen
ROUSE FRETS WHITE
HAAR & WO ODS
Goss Gentile Rhodes Gene P. Schmittgens
Pete Woods
FAMILY LAW ARBITRATION
David H. Rubin
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
NORTON
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
ROSE FULBRIGHT
Michael A. Kahn
Stacey L. Murphy, James George Wiehl
THOMP SON C OBURN
Joyce M. Capshaw
Mark Sableman
Tonya D. Page
FRANCHISE LAW
PAULE , CAMAZINE
DENTONS U.S.
& BLUMENTHAL
BUCHHOLZ & PARTNEY
Renee Cipriano, Edward A. Cohen, Crystal Kennedy, Peter S. Strassner
Jennifer Graves Borcherding
Alan E. Freed
Stephen H. Rovak
THOMP SON C OBURN
FAMILY LAW MEDIATION
Melissa Moss PAGE LAW
Tonya D. Page PAULE , CAMAZINE & BLUMENTHAL
P OL SINELLI
Jane E. Arnold, Mark H. Goran, Margaret H. Hillman, Joan B. Killgore, Rebecca F. Romine, Donna Ruzicka, Andrew J. Voss
GREENSFELDER ,
MOS S P O CIASK
Ruthanne Hammett
LEWIS RICE
FIRST AMENDMENT LAW
KR AMER , HAND,
THOMP SON C OBURN
Michael Barth, Stuart J. Vogelsmeier, Richard D. Watters Michael P. Davidson, Lynn A. Hinrichs, Tracy L. Mathis, John J. Riffle
CARMODY MACD ONALD
PAGE LAW
Mark W. Haefner
LASHLY & BAER
THOMP SON C OBURN
Jennifer A. Shaw
GROWE EISEN KARLEN
Mark S. Rubin GREENSFELDER ,
SPENCER FANE
Elaine A. Pudlowski
EILERTS
John L. Sullivan
LAW FIRM
PAYNE & PUDLOWSKI
P OL SINELLI
KLEIN, SIEGEL , PAYNE & PUDLOWSKI
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
THE SCHECHTER
Anthony R. Garavalia FRANKEL , RUBIN,
EQUIPMENT FINANCE LAW
Steven Pozaric
THE MARKS LAW FIRM
Alisse C. Camazine, Alan E. Freed, Bruce E. Friedman, Amy Hoch Hogenson, Lisa G. Moore
STLMAG.C OM
BestLawyers_1120.indd 73
Sophya Q. Raza
Kathy H. Butler, John W. Dillane, Gregg J. Lepper
HAEFNER LAW OFFICE
Ian P. Cooper, Margaret A. Hesse, Melanie Gurley Keeney
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
HEMKER & GALE
HUSCH BLACKWELL
& JACKSTADT
HEALTH CARE LAW
Thomas C. Erb
THE SHAW LAW GROUP
Jon Santangelo
Alan E. Freed
E. Rex Bradley
AND GARAVALIA
C O OPER MOHAN
PAULE , CAMAZINE
LEWIS RICE
FLYNN GUYMON
STINSON
Kit Bond
LAW FIRM
Dale A. Guariglia, Steven J. Poplawski
T UETH KEENEY
THOMP SON C OBURN
Tonya D. Page
THE E . RE X BRADLEY
PAISNER
Stephen G. Jeffery
THOMP SON C OBURN
THE BETZ LAW FIRM
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Mark J. Bremer, Charles S. Elbert
PAGE LAW
Erwin O. Switzer
David B. Lacks Jennifer R. Piper
JEFFERY LAW GROUP
HEMKER & GALE
DAVID B. LACKS
Julie E. O’Keefe, George M. von Stamwitz
& GIL JUM
GREENSFELDER ,
Jennifer Graves Borcherding
Patricia Susi
FAMILY ALLY
GIANOULAKIS
BUCHHOLZ & PARTNEY
& O ’ROURKE
Allan F. Stewart
Jonathan F. Dalton
KRAMER , HAND,
RAZA & JONE S STEWART, MITTLEMAN
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Ann E. Bauer, Penny Robinson, Alan N. Zvibleman
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
P OL SINELLI
& VON G ONTARD
Michelle Spirn
FOR FAMILY LAW
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Leonard J. Frankel, Elaine A. Pudlowski
& BLUMENTHAL
CARMODY MACD ONALD
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
SANDBERG PHOENIX
Zofia Garlicka Sowers SPIRN FAMILY LAW
Heidi Kuns Durr, Burton D. Garland Jr., Timothy A. Garnett, William M. Lawson, Gregg M. Lemley, James M. Paul, Robert W. Stewart, Eric A. Todd, Erin E. Williams, R. Lance Witcher
Bradley G. Kafka
SOWERS ERNST
Crystal L. Blacketer
& STEWART
Peter J. Dunne
Justin W. Ruth
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
NASH, SMOAK
PITZER SNOD GRAS S
RIEZMAN BERGER
BLACKETER LAW FIRM CAPE S, SOKOL ,
DISPU TE RE SOLU TION
Francis X. Neuner Jr.
FAMILY LAW
PAYNE & PUDLOWSKI
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS PRACTICE
73
HEMKER & GALE
SANDBERG PHOENIX
Dawn M. Johnson, Leonard D. Vines
& VON G ONTARD
AMATO FAMILY LAW
HEPLERBRO OM
Susan L. Amato
Glenn E. Davis
BLACKETER LAW FIRM
LAW OFFICE S
Crystal L. Blacketer
OF JANE C OHEN
Kenneth W. Bean, Jeffrey Dunn SPENCER FANE
David M. Harris, Donn H. Herring
Jane E. Cohen
CARMODY MACD ONALD
Joyce M. Capshaw
SPENCER FANE
David M. Harris
NOVEMBER 2020
10/5/20 9:17 AM
LITIGATION– ANTITRUST
THOMP SON C OBURN
BUCKLEY & BUCKLEY
GREENSFELDER ,
HARTNETT
James L. Fogle, Evan Raskas Goldfarb, Joyce Harris Hennessy, Christina Z. Randolph, Claire M. Schenk
Ann E. Buckley, Martin J. Buckley
HE MKER & GALE
REYE S-JONE S
Jeffrey E. Hartnett
Lisa A. Pake
T. Christopher Bailey, Jill K. Luft, Kevin T. McLaughlin, Mary Beth Ortbals
HEPLERBRO OM
HARRIS D OWELL
Michael L. Young
FISHER & YOUNG
SCHUCHAT, C O OK
Ronald K. Fisher, Michael Harris
& WERNER
GRAY, RITTER
George O. Suggs
& GRAHAM
HE S SE MARTONE
WORKERS RIGHTS
Andrew J. Martone
LAW FIRM
HEPLERBRO OM
Sherrie A. Hall
Glenn E. Davis
IMMIGRATION LAW
HAAR & WO ODS
LAW OFFICE S OF
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Martha N. Hereford
P OL SINELLI
Thomas Hohenstein
ARTHUR G. CARR III
Arthur G. Carr III THOMP SON C OBURN
Linda L. Shapiro
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
LAW OFFICE S OF
PAISNER
ROBERT H. BROWNLEE
Terry L. Potter, Randall S. Thompson
John Michael Clear, Rebecca A.D. Nelson, Thomas C. Walsh
Robert H. Brownlee
ROBERTS PERRYMAN
Susan M. Dimond, Mary Adina Johnson, Ted L. Perryman, Korissa M. Zickrick
T UETH KEENEY
Don M. Downing
HUSCH BLACKWELL
Terry L. Potter, Robert J. Tomaso
LAND USE AND ZONING LAW
LEWIS RICE
Barry A. Short, Richard B. Walsh Jr.
JACKSON LEWIS
Thomas E. Berry Jr., R. Michael Lowenbaum
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
THE SIMON LAW FIRM
Timothy J. Tryniecki
Anthony G. Simon
RYNEARSON, SUE S S,
& JACKSTADT
SCHNURBUSCH
LEWIS RICE
GARRETT & O ’KEEFE
Melanie Gurley Keeney
& CHAMPION
Debbie S. Champion
Robert J. Golterman, Gary M. Smith
Helmut Starr
SCHULTZ & MYERS
LITTLER MENDEL SON
CURTIS, HEINZ,
Joshua P. Myers
Stephen D. Smith, Harry W. Wellford Jr.
LITIGATION– BANKING AND FINANCE
HUSCH BLACKWELL
SMITHAMUNDSEN ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
John F. Cowling
Patrick A. Bousquet
& KAEMMERER THOMP SON C OBURN
HEPLERBRO OM
Glenn E. Davis
MC CARTHY, LEONARD
Brandi Burke, Matthew Darrough
Michael E. Kaemmerer
David B. Jennings THOMP SON C OBURN
Benjamin Hulsey
INTERNATIONAL MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS
& GRAHAM
SMITHAMUNDSEN
MICKE S O ’ TO OLE
THOMP SON C OBURN
Vincent D. Reese
William J. Kuehling
J. Bradford Goss
John Michael Clear CARMODY MACD ONALD
Gerard T. Carmody
Don M. Downing
Don G. Lents
NASH, SMOAK
LEGAL MALPRACTICE LAW–DEFENDANTS
P OL SINELLI
BROWN & JAME S
PAISNER
Bradley G. Kafka
A. J. Bronsky, Robert S. Rosenthal
William R. Bay, Michael J. Morris Vicki L. Little
Brent W. Baldwin
G OLDENHERSH
HAAR & WO ODS
John Gazzoli
Robert T. Haar, Lisa A. Pake
LITIGATION– BANKRUPTCY David L. Going
James Keller
Paul H. Berens
NORTON ROSE BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
FULBRIGHT
PAISNER
Tim Walsh
& GIL JUM
Gerard T. Noce
Cullen K. Kuhn, Brian C. Walsh
ROBERTS PERRYMAN
CARMODY MACD ONALD
Richard C. Wuestling
Robert E. Eggmann, Christopher J. Lawhorn, Thomas H. Riske
Corey L. Franklin
THOMP SON C OBURN
Hope K. Abramov, Clifford A. Godiner, Charles M. Poplstein
LABOR LAW–UNION
LEGAL MALPRACTICE LAW–PLAINTIFFS
HAMMOND AND
GRAY, RITTER
SHINNERS
Greg Campbell, Janine M. Martin, Richard Shinners
Highlighted Name
SANDBERG PHOENIX & VON G ONTARD
C OUSINS ALLIED
Quinn Murphy, John S. Sandberg THOMP SON C OBURN
David Dick
Steven N. Cousins
LITIGATION– ENVIRONMENTAL
& GRAHAM
G OLDSTEIN
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Robert F. Ritter
& PRE S SMAN
PAISNER
Steven Goldstein
Dale A. Guariglia, Steven J. Poplawski
PAISNER
FORDHARRISON
Joseph C. Blanner, Brian E. McGovern, Matthew D. Menghini MIDWE ST LAW
HEPLERBRO OM
Dennis C. Donnelly, Jerry M. Hunter, Ned O. Lemkemeier
MC CARTHY, LEONARD
& BILLMEYER
GIANOULAKIS
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Kenneth A. Slavens
C O CHRANE , BERENS
Denis P. McCusker
Robert A. Kaiser, Michael B. Kass
Jackson D. Glisson, Richard R. Hardcastle, Andrew W. Manuel, Michael E. Wilson
BRADSHAW, STEELE ,
SHANDS, ELBERT,
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
GREENSFELDER ,
& KAEMMERER ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
& B OYLE
Charles S. Elbert
William S. Thomas
HUSCH BLACKWELL
BALDWIN LAW GROUP
ROSENBLUM
D OSTER , ULLOM
LABOR LAW– MANAGEMENT
GAUSNELL , O ’KEEFE
HEMKER & GALE THOMP SON C OBURN
WINTERS LAW GROUP O GLETREE , DEAKINS,
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
BestLawyers_1120.indd 74
C O CKRIEL &
Stephen L. Kling Jr.
John F. Mahon Jr., Richard I. Woolf
Robert L. Brady, David P. Bub, John D. Cooney, Brandon Copeland, Bradley Hansmann, Jacqueline Kinder, Corey L. Kraushaar, Todd A. Lubben, Michael B. Maguire, Elaine M. Moss, John P. Rahoy, T. Michael Ward, Russell F. Watters, Teresa M. Young, Edward W. Zeidler
Jason W. Kinser, W. Dudley McCarter
GRAY, RITTER
C OWDEN & RICE
BROWN & JAME S
& P OTTER
JENKINS & KLING
BAKER STERCHI
Gary P. Paul, Lawrence R. Smith
LITIGATION– CONSTRUCTION
Philip J. Christofferson, Steven M. Cockriel
INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND FINANCE LAW
BRINKER & D OYEN
Mark V. Bossi, David A. Warfield
CHRISTOFFERSON
Thomas O. McCarthy, David F. Yates
PAISNER
Frederick W. Bartelsmeyer, Don G. Lents
THOMP SON C OBURN
PAISNER
William M. Lawson, Gregg M. Lemley, James M. Paul, Robert W. Stewart
Clark H. Cole, Patrick J. Kenny
Matthew S. Layfield
& THOMAS
& STEWART ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
P OL SINELLI
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
INSURANCE LAW
Larry E. Parres, Joseph J. Trad
Gary H. Feder, Jonathan Giokas, Caroline L. Hermeling, David G. Richardson, Gregory R. Smith
MCMAHON BERGER STINSON
LEWIS RICE
BEHR , MC CARTER
C O OPER MOHAN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LAW
Marshall C. Turner
HUSCH BLACKWELL
DAVID A . RUBIN
David A. Rubin
HUSCH BLACKWELL
STRATEGIC ADVISORS
DENOTE S “LAWYER OF THE YEAR”
10/5/20 9:17 AM
GREAT RIVERS ENVIRONMENTAL
LITIGATION– INSURANCE
LITIGATION– LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT
FOLEY & MANSFIELD
Timothy D. Krieger
LAW CENTER
Bruce A. Morrison
JEFFERY LAW GROUP
Stephen G. Jeffery
GREENSFELDER ,
Clark H. Cole
HE MKER & GALE
AFFINITY LAW GROUP
NEUNER MEDIATION &
HEPLERBRO OM
Jessica M. Mendez
Ira Potter
DISPU TE RE SOLU TION
Glenn E. Davis
& P OTTER
HARNE S S, DICKEY
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Stephen J. Potter
& PIERCE
Robert A. Kaiser, Travis R. Kearbey, Daniel K. O’Toole
BEHR , MC CARTER
BROWN & JAME S THOMP SON C OBURN
Renee Cipriano, Edward A. Cohen, Peter S. Strassner
Justin Chapell, Todd A. Lubben, Irene J. Marusic, John P. Rahoy, Steven H. Schwartz
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
BUCKLEY & BUCKLEY
SCHO OL OF LAW
Martin J. Buckley
Maxine I. Lipeles
Robert Wulff GREENSFELDER ,
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
HEMKER & GALE
Wilbur L. Tomlinson
Russell K. Scott
GREENSFELDER ,
HEPLERBRO OM
HEMKER & GALE
Troy A. Bozarth, Margaret Fowler, Thomas J. Magee
Daniel J. Schwartz
Matthew L. Cutler, Greg W. Meyer, Douglas A. Robinson, Joel R. Samuels, Michael L. Smith, Bryan K. Wheelock
BAKER STERCHI C OWDEN & RICE
Paul N. Venker
HE PLERBRO OM
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Glenn E. Davis
Paisner Charles B. Jellinek
HUSCH BLACKWELL EVANS & DIXON
LITIGATION–ERISA
LITIGATION– MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
HUSCH BLACKWELL
Bradley S. Hiles
Thomas O. McCarthy, David F. Yates
MCMAHON BERGER
HAMMOND AND
Francis X. Neuner Jr. O GLETREE , DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART
Heidi Kuns Durr, Burton D. Garland Jr., Rodney A. Harrison, William M. Lawson, Gregg M. Lemley, James M. Paul, Robert W. Stewart
CURTIS, HEINZ,
P OL SINELLI
LEWIS RICE
Jon A. Bierman, Bradley G. Kafka
John M. Hessel
Michael R. Annis, Kara Fussner, Kenneth R. Heineman, Jennifer E. Hoekel, Steven E. Holtshouser, Daisy Manning, Alan S. Nemes, Rudolph A. Telscher
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
LEWIS RICE
FORDHARRISON
Corey L. Franklin, Karen E. Milner
& GIL JUM
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
Teresa Pupillo CARMODY MACD ONALD
Gerard T. Carmody, David P. Stoeberl Edwin C. Ernst
SANDBERG PHOENIX
A. Courtney Cox
LITIGATION– PATENT
SHANDS, ELBERT,
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
GIANOULAKIS
Richard L. Brophy, Jeffrey Schultz, Marc W. Vander Tuig
Michael H. Wetmore
THOMP SON C OBURN
ROBERTS PERRYMAN
Richard J. Pautler
Ted L. Perryman RYNEARSON, SUE S S,
PATENT LAW OFFICE
GREENSFELDER ,
SCHNURBUSCH
Paul M. Denk
HEMKER & GALE
THOMP SON C OBURN
Gary A. Pierson
T. Christopher Bailey, Amy L. Blaisdell, Dennis G. Collins
Hope K. Abramov, Clifford A. Godiner, Laura M. Jordan, Krissa P. Lubben, Pamela J. Meanes, Charles M. Poplstein
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON PAISNER
SANDBERG PHOENIX
Gerald R. Ortbals
& VON G ONTARD
P OL SINELLI
HAMMOND AND
Stephen M. Strum
Keith J. Grady
SHINNERS
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
SCHULTZ & MYERS
SANDBERG PHOENIX
Michael A. Kahn
Joshua P. Myers
& VON G ONTARD
LEWIS RICE
SMITHAMUNDSEN
John M. Hessel, Joseph E. Martineau
Heather A. Bub
Janine M. Martin, Richard Shinners
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
THOMP SON C OBURN
Mark Sableman
LITIGATION– HEALTH CARE ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Maureen O. Bryan, Timothy J. Gearin SANDBERG PHOENIX & VON G ONTARD
Stephen M. Strum
LITIGATION– INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Keith A. Rabenberg
THOMP SON C OBURN
PAISNER
Anthony Blum, Matt Braunel, Dean L. Franklin, Steven E. Garlock, David B. Jinkins, Michael Nepple, Alan H. Norman, Mark Sableman
J. Bennett Clark, Daniel A. Crowe, David A. Roodman, Thomas C. Walsh CAPE S, SOKOL , G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
Michael A. Kahn EVANS & DIXON
Don V. Kelly
Ian P. Cooper
Ronald K. Fisher
WORKERS RIGHTS HARTNETT
LAW FIRM
REYE S-JONE S
Sherrie A. Hall
Jeffrey E. Hartnett
Anthony Friedman, Anthony G. Simon
FOLEY & MANSFIELD
Timothy D. Krieger HARNE S S, DICKEY & PIERCE
T UETH KEENEY & JACKSTADT
Matthew L. Cutler, Michael P. Kella, Greg W. Meyer, Douglas A. Robinson, Joel R. Samuels, Michael L. Smith, Bryan K. Wheelock HUSCH BLACKWELL
Andrew J. Martone
LITIGATION–LAND USE AND ZONING
HUSCH BLACKWELL
CARMODY MACD ONALD
Terry L. Potter, Randall S. Thompson, Robert J. Tomaso
Gerard T. Carmody
Michael R. Annis, Kara Fussner, Jennifer E. Hoekel, Rudolph A. Telscher LEWIS RICE
Helmut Starr
Robert M. Evans Jr., Michael J. Hartley, Kathleen Markowski Petrillo
HUSCH BLACKWELL
PATENT LAW OFFICE
Gary H. Feder
Paul M. Denk
JENKINS & KLING
P OL SINELLI
Stephen L. Kling Jr.
Keith J. Grady
CURTIS, HEINZ, GARRETT & O ’KEEFE
JACKSON LEWIS
Thomas E. Berry Jr., Jessica L. Liss, R. Michael Lowenbaum, Stephanie O. Zorn
T UCKER ELLIS
LEWIS RICE
SANDBERG PHOENIX
Nicholas B. Clifford, Sandra J. Wunderlich
Curtis C. Calloway
& VON G ONTARD
LITTLER MENDEL SON
Patricia J. Martin, Charles E. Reis
STLMAG.C OM
BestLawyers_1120.indd 75
J. Bennett Clark, David A. Roodman, Randy J. Soriano, Thomas C. Walsh
FISHER & YOUNG
HE S SE MARTONE
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
PAISNER
Erik O. Solverud
HARRIS D OWELL
STINSON
THE SIMON LAW FIRM
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON SPENCER FANE
C O OPER MOHAN
G. Harley Blosser, William B. Cunningham, Scott Gray, McPherson D. Moore, Jonathan P. Soifer
Richard L. Brophy, Kyle G. Gottuso, Jeffrey Schultz
David A. Castleman, Charles S. Elbert
G OFFSTEIN LAW
PIERSON WELL S
Portia C. Kayser
D. Keith Henson
Janine M. Martin
Debbie S. Champion
SAYLER & SMITH
& BLUMENTHAL
Robert M. Evans Jr., Michael J. Hickey, Bridget G. Hoy, Frank B. Janoski, Richard B. Walsh Jr.
& CHAMPION
FISHER PATTERSON
Russell Riggan
P OL SINELLI
LITIGATION–FIRST AMENDMENT
Helmut Starr
PAULE , CAMAZINE
SHINNERS
John H. Goffstein
GARRETT & O ’KEEFE
RIG GAN LAW FIRM
& VON G ONTARD ERNST LAW FIRM
LITIGATION– MUNICIPAL
75
G. Harley Blosser, William B. Cunningham, McPherson D. Moore
NOVEMBER 2020
10/5/20 9:17 AM
SPENCER FANE
CARMODY MACD ONALD
CARMODY MACD ONALD
KEANE LAW
FRANKEL , RUBIN,
SANDBERG PHOENIX
Glenn K. Robbins
Meghan M. Lamping
David P. Stoeberl
Ryan A. Keane
KLEIN, SIEGEL ,
& VON G ONTARD
PAYNE & PUDLOWSKI
Kenneth W. Bean, G. Keith Phoenix, Jonathan Ries, Peter von Gontard
STINSON
HAAR & WO ODS
C OSMICH SIMMONS
LAW OFFICE OF
Janet S. Hendrickson, Ph.D., Keith A. Rabenberg
Susan E. Bindler
& BROWN
RICHARD S. C ORNFELD
Thomas L. Orris
Richard S. Cornfeld
LAWYER
EVANS & DIXON
MC CUNE WRIGHT
John E. Dooling Jr.
Ronald Hack
AREVALO
THE SIMON LAW FIRM
Anthony Friedman, Anthony G. Simon THOMP SON C OBURN
Anthony Blum, Matt Braunel, Dean L. Franklin, Steven E. Garlock, David B. Jinkins, Alan H. Norman
JOHN D O OLING
Derek Y. Brandt
KIRKLAND WO ODS
HE PLERBRO OM
& MARTINSEN
Brenda G. Baum, Eric P. Hall, Jeffrey S. Hebrank, Larry E. Hepler
John M. Challis, Andrew M. Mitchell
Robert J. Selsor ROS SITER & B O O CK
Matthew J. Rossiter
CARMODY MACD ONALD
Gerard T. Carmody, David P. Stoeberl HUSCH BLACKWELL
Gary H. Feder
& VON G ONTARD
Bhavik R. Patel, James Rixey Ruffin
Thomas L. Caradonna SANDBERG PHOENIX
Charles A. Redd
ST. LOUIS MEDIATION
PATRICK, WE STBRO OK
CENTER
GRAY, RITTER
VOELKER & ALLEN
& BRICKMAN
& GRAHAM
Kent Plotner
Jena L. Borden
Ronald G. Wiesenthal
HINSHAW &
SCHLICHTER B O GARD
ARBITRATION
CULBERTSON
& DENTON
& MEDIATION
Jeffrey R. Glass
Alex Braitberg, Jerome J. Schlichter
Michael S. Geigerman
M. Graham Dobbs, Maurice B. Graham, Joan M. Lockwood, Robert F. Ritter, Stephen R. Woodley
UNITED STATE S
WASHINGTON
LAW OFFICE OF
SIMMONS HANLY
UNIVERSITY
DANIEL P. FINNEY III
C ONROY
SCHO OL OF LAW
Karen L. Tokarz
Daniel P. Finney
Ted L. Perryman
Michael J. Angelides, Nicholas J. Angelides, John A. Barnerd, Perry J. Browder, Amy Garrett, Ted N. Gianaris, Jo Anna Pollock, Drew Sealey, John Simmons
SWANSON, MARTIN
THE HOLLAND
BAKER STERCHI
& BELL
LAW FIRM
C OWDEN & RICE
Gary C. Pinter
R. Seth Crompton
Paul N. Venker
THOMP SON C OBURN
THE SIMON LAW FIRM
BALDWIN LAW GROUP
C ONROY
Joseph M. Kellmeyer, Michael B. Minton, Carl L. Rowley
Amy Collignon Gunn, John G. Simon
Brent W. Baldwin
Ted N. Gianaris
BLANTON, NICKELL ,
THE LAW OFFICE
C OLLINS, D OUGLAS
OF JOHN S. WALLACH
& HANSCHEN
John S. Wallach
Kenneth R. Heineman, Christine F. Miller, J.Y. Miller, Joseph C. Orlet LEWIS RICE
Thomas P. Berra Jr. ROBERTS PERRYMAN
NEWMAN BRONSON
MEDICAL MALPRACTICE LAW–DEFENDANTS
LITIGATION– REGULATORY ENFORCEMENT (SEC, TELECOM, ENERGY) BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON PAISNER
Jeffrey J. Kalinowski
LITIGATION AND CONTROVERSY– TAX CAPE S, SOKOL , G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
Sanford J. Boxerman, David V. Capes, Sara G. Neill, Michelle F. Schwerin
MEDIA LAW
TR E S SLER
Patrick W. Stufflebeam T UCKER ELLIS
& GIL JUM
Sandra J. Wunderlich
Joseph P. Giljum THOMP SON C OBURN
PAISNER
Edward J. Buchholz, Matthew Landwehr, Janette M. Lohman
HEPLERBRO OM
Glenn E. Davis THOMP SON C OBURN
Kenton E. Knickmeyer
LITIGATION– TRUSTS AND ESTATES
MASS TORT LITIGATION / CLASS ACTIONS– DEFENDANTS
Timothy J. Gearin
Matthew J. Padberg
OF GRETCHEN MYERS
Michael A. Kahn
David P. Ellington, Brian R. Plegge, Robert S. Rosenthal, Peter F. Spataro, Philip L. Willman
Gretchen Myers
LEWIS RICE
Joseph E. Martineau
MASS TORT LITIGATION / CLASS ACTIONS– PLAINTIFFS
THOMP SON C OBURN
Mark Sableman
ECKENRODE-MAUPIN,
THE SIMON LAW FIRM
Timothy M. Cronin, Amy Collignon Gunn, John G. Simon, Erica Blume Slater
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
MEDIATION
J. Thaddeus Eckenrode
& AS SO CIATE S
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
GREENSFELDER ,
Christopher E. Roberts
William Ray Price Jr.
HEMKER & GALE
ZEVAN DAVIDSON
Edward S. Bott, Donald K. Schoemaker
ROMAN
BU TSCH, ROBERTS
C OWDEN & RICE
Raymond R. Fournie, Anita M. Kidd
John E. Campbell
Michael P. David
ERICH VIETH
BEHR , MC CARTER
Erich V. Vieth
& P OTTER
WOLFF & WOLFF TRIAL LAWYERS
Alvin A. Wolff Jr.
Rachel L. Roman, David M. Zevan
HAMILTON WEBER
W. Dudley McCarter
GRAY, RITTER BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
& GRAHAM
CRAWFORD IP LAW
Kathleen R. Sherby, Douglas J. Stanley
PAISNER
Kaitlin A. Bridges, Don M. Downing, Thomas K. Neill, Robert F. Ritter
David E. Crawford
Highlighted Name
V. Scott Williams HENNELLY & AS SO CIATE S
PAISNER
Ketrina G. Bakewell, A. Elizabeth Blackwell
THE LAW OFFICE S BROWN & JAME S
CAMPBELL LAW
Tucker Blaser
Donald L. Schlapprizzi
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
BROWN & JAME S
Joseph C. Blanton Jr.
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
BAKER STERCHI
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
BestLawyers_1120.indd 76
PADBERG, C ORRIGAN
SI MMONS HANLY
GIANOULAKIS
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
John Michael Clear, Jeffrey J. Kalinowski
Mark I. Bronson
SCHLAPPRIZZI
SHANDS, ELBERT,
LITIGATION– SECURITIES
& WALLIS
& APPELBAUM ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
& VON G ONTARD
John S. Sandberg
MEDICAL MALPRACTICE LAW–PLAINTIFFS
RICHARDSON,
THOMP SON C OBURN
Mike Bartolacci, Thomas R. Corbett
Mark A. Gonnerman
HEYL , ROYSTER ,
STINSON LEWIS RICE
THE LAW OFFICE OF MARK A . G ONNERMAN
PAULE , CAMAZINE &
Mark R. Niemeyer
& KRUSE
HUSCH BLACKWELL SANDBERG PHOENIX
Jerome A. Diekemper
Thomas M. Blumenthal, Alan E. Freed
NIEMEYER , GREBEL
P OL SINELLI
LITIGATION– REAL ESTATE
JEROME A . DIEKEMPER
BLUMENTHAL
LEWIS RICE
Matthew J. Madsen, Robert J. Will
Leonard J. Frankel
James J. Hennelly LASHLY & BAER
Kenneth C. Brostron, James P. Reinert, Stephen G. Reuter
DENOTE S “LAWYER OF THE YEAR”
10/5/20 9:17 AM
MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS LAW
MUNICIPAL LAW
PAISNER ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
David W. Braswell, Daniel J. Godar, Mark L. Stoneman
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Robert D. Klahr, James E. Mello, Matthew J. Reh
J. Bennett Clark, David A. Roodman
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Clark H. Cole, William M. Corrigan Jr., David G. Ott, James L. Stockberger
CRAWFORD IP LAW
David E. Crawford
CURTIS, HEINZ, BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
GARRETT & O ’KEEFE
EVANS & DIXON
PAISNER
Kevin M. O’Keefe, Helmut Starr
Joseph M. Rolnicki
Frederick W. Bartelsmeyer, Steven M. Baumer, Ryan S. Davis, Don G. Lents, Robert L. Newmark, William F. Seabaugh, Peter D. Van Cleve, R. Randall Wang, John M. Welge
DENTONS U.S.
Thomas K. Vandiver
CARMODY MACD ONALD
Brian C. Behrens
Mark Piontek
GREENSFELDER ,
Vincent J. Garozzo
MUTUAL FUNDS LAW
HUSCH BLACKWELL
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Craig A. Adoor, Mary Anne O’Connell
PAISNER
HEMKER & GALE
LEWIS RICE
John C. Bodnar, Brian D. Bouquet, Steven C. Drapekin, Thomas C. Erb PAULE , CAMAZINE & BLUMENTHAL
Donald W. Paule
Dee Anne Sjogren
NONPROFIT / CHARITIES LAW
Peter B. Hoffman, Michael B. Hunter, Nathan D. Leming, John F. Mahon Jr., Terrence J. O’Toole Jr., Steven P. Sanders, Paul N. Venker, Theodore J. Williams
Gary A. Growe
HARNE S S, DICKEY
Matthew L. Cutler, Michael P. Kella, Greg W. Meyer, Brian G. Panka, Michael J. Thomas, Joseph E. Walsh Jr., Bryan K. Wheelock
BALDWIN LAW GROUP
Brent W. Baldwin
Frank B. Janoski, Kathleen Markowski Petrillo Paul M. Denk
Mary M. Bannister, Ruben K. Chuquimia, Paul G. Klug, Kenneth H. Suelthaus
Bernard C. Huger HUSCH BLACKWELL
Matthew G. Perlow SPENCER FANE
K. Edward Holderle III, Leonard J. Pranschke
Kathryn J. Doty, Tara A. Nealey, Ph.D.
G. Harley Blosser, William B. Cunningham, Lionel L. Lucchesi, McPherson D. Moore, J. Philip Polster, Jonathan P. Soifer
Mark J. Becker, Thomas M. Burke, Stephen H. Ringkamp
SANDBERG PHOENIX
LAW OFFICE OF
Lawrence R. Smith
& VON G ONTARD
DANIEL P. FINNEY III
Kenneth W. Bean, G. Keith Phoenix, John S. Sandberg, Rodney Sharp, Peter von Gontard
Daniel P. Finney III
THE LAW OFFICE OF
MANDEL & MANDEL
MARK A . G ONNERMAN
Alan S. Mandel
David P. Bub, Justin Chapell, David P. Ellington, Bradley Hansmann, Jacqueline Kinder, Corey L. Kraushaar, John P. Rahoy, Joseph Swift, Philip L. Willman
Mark A. Gonnerman
Ryan A. Keane
LAW OFFICE S OF PATRICK S. O ’BRIEN
Patrick S. O’Brien
NEWMAN BRONSON THOMP SON C OBURN
& WALLIS
Mark I. Bronson, Marc S. Wallis
Charles H. Billings
Nicholas J. Lamb, John R. Musgrave, Carl L. Rowley, Dudley W. Von Holt
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
T UCKER ELLIS
SPENCER FANE
PAISNER
Glenn K. Robbins
Dan H. Ball, Thomas C. Walsh
Sandra J. Wunderlich
BRUNTRAGER & BILLING S
NIEMEYER , GREBEL & KRUSE
STINSON
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
THOMP SON C OBURN
Donald B. Dorwart, Ronald E. Haglof, Thomas A. Litz, Thomas J. Minogue, Frederick R. Strasheim
Derick E. Allen, Patrick Brennan, Daniel Fitzgerald, Christopher M. Goff, Michael G. Munsell, Patrick W. Rasche, Richard A. Schuth
Matt Braunel, David B. Jinkins, Kevin M. Kercher, Alan H. Norman, Thomas A. Polcyn, Steven M. Ritchey, Benjamin L. Volk
John W. Finger
HULLVERSON LAW FIRM
BRINKER & D OYEN
THOMP SON C OBURN
SMITHAMUNDSEN
Ted L. Perryman, Richard C. Wuestling
KEANE LAW
PATENT LAW
Jacqueline A. Dimmitt, Lawrence P. Katzenstein, Richard L. Lawton
ROBERTS PERRYMAN
Debbie S. Champion, Sam P. Rynearson
R. Troy Kendrick, Tessa Rolufs Trelz
Warren W. Davis
James E. Hullverson Jr.
& CHAMPION
STINSON
THOMP SON C OBURN
& HULLVERSON
Gary E. Snodgrass
Anthony R. Behr, Stephen J. Potter
BUCKLEY & BUCKLEY
& VON G ONTARD
HULLVERSON PITZER SNOD GRAS S
SCHNURBUSCH
Robert M. Bain, Paul I. Fleischut, Janet S. Hendrickson, Ph.D., Kurt F. James, Vincent M. Keil, Andrew C. Wegman
SANDBERG PHOENIX
James P. Holloran
Micheal P. Corrigan
& P OTTER
BROWN & JAME S
P OL SINELLI
& VON G ONTARD
& GAERTNER
& APPELBAUM
BEHR , MC CARTER
PATENT LAW OFFICE
Keith J. Kehrer, Frank P. Wolff Jr.
HOLLORAN, SCHWARTZ PADBERG, C ORRIGAN
RYNEARSON, SUE S S,
LEWIS RICE
SANDBERG PHOENIX
HEMKER & GALE
Mark J. Temkin
Grace J. Fishel
PAISNER
P OL SINELLI
RIEZMAN BERGER
KARLEN EILERTS
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
GREENSFELDER ,
Terese A. Drew
GROWE EISEN
& PIERCE
Joseph S. von Kaenel
CULBERTSON
Stephen L. Beimdiek, Kenneth C. Brostron
Mark E. Stallion
& VON G ONTARD
HINSHAW &
Morry S. Cole, Maurice B. Graham, Patrick J. Hagerty, Joan M. Lockwood, Robert F. Ritter, Stephen R. Woodley
C OWDEN & RICE
David T. Hamilton, Wm. Randolph Weber
EVANS & DIXON
& GRAHAM
GRACE J. FISHEL
HE MKER & GALE
SANDBERG PHOENIX
GRAY, RITTER
Theodore J. MacDonald Jr., Thomas J. Magee, Gerard T. Noce
LASHLY & BAER
HAMILTON WEBER
John M. Hessel
HEPLERBRO OM
BAKER STERCHI
GREENSFELDER ,
LEWIS RICE
PERSONAL INJURY LITIGATION– DEFENDANTS
Martin J. Buckley
David Grebel PADBERG, C ORRIGAN & APPELBAUM
PERSONAL INJURY LITIGATION– PLAINTIFFS
ECKENRODE-MAUPIN,
Theresa Appelbaum, Micheal P. Corrigan, Matthew J. Padberg PAGE LAW
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
BRUNTRAGER
J. Thaddeus Eckenrode
& BILLING S
Neil J. Bruntrager
John J. Page, Christopher A. Wright
THE SMALL PATENT
FRANKE SCHULTZ
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
ROSENBLUM
LAW GROUP
& MULLEN
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
SCHWARTZ & FRY
Dean D. Small
Jennine D. Adamek Moore
Mark E. Goodman
Matthew Fry
CASEY, DEVOTI
ROS SITER & B O O CK
GREENSFELDER ,
& BRO CKLAND
HEMKER & GALE
Russell K. Scott
Anne-Marie Brockland
Jamie L. Boock, Zachary R. Pancoast
HENNELLY
D OWD & D OWD
& AS SO CIATE S
Douglas P. Dowd
SCHLAPPRIZZI
James J. Hennelly
Craig Schlapprizzi, Donald L. Schlapprizzi
FINNEY LAW OFFICE
MILITARY LAW
Daniel Finney Jr.
SCHLICHTER B O GARD & DENTON
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
G OLDBLATT + SINGER
Brian E. Kaveney
Amanda N. Murphy
STLMAG.C OM
BestLawyers_1120.indd 77
77
Jerome J. Schlichter, Nelson G. Wolff
NOVEMBER 2020
10/5/20 9:17 AM
SCHULTZ & MYERS
BROWN & JAME S
Stephen R. Schultz
A. J. Bronsky, Bradley Hansmann, Corey L. Kraushaar, Irene J. Marusic, Brian R. Plegge, Joseph Swift, Philip L. Willman
SIMMONS HANLY C ONROY
Michael J. Angelides, Nicholas J. Angelides, Perry J. Browder, J. Conard Metcalf
PRODUCT LIABILITY LITIGATION– PLAINTIFFS
PROJECT FINANCE LAW THOMP SON C OBURN
Michael F. Lause
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
Mark E. Goodman
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
DEVOTO LAW FIRM
PAISNER
Dan H. Ball, Stephen G. Strauss
Thomas C. DeVoto
LAW FIRM
GRAY, RITTER & GRAHAM
THE HOLLAND
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
LAW FIRM
Adam E. Miller
Joan M. Lockwood, Robert F. Ritter, Jason D. Sapp
CARPENTER MOSER
KEANE LAW
Amy Lorenz-Moser
Ryan A. Keane
C OSMICH SIMMONS
NEWMAN BRONSON
& BROWN
& WALLIS
Matthew E. Pelikan
Mark I. Bronson
OF GRETCHEN MYERS
GREENSFELDER ,
PAGE LAW
Gretchen Myers
HEMKER & GALE
Brad Wilmoth
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
R. Seth Crompton THE LAW OFFICE OF
THE SIMON LAW FIRM
Timothy M. Cronin, Amy Collignon Gunn, John G. Simon, Erica Blume Slater
Thomas J. Magee, Jason Rankin
Alex Braitberg SIMMONS HANLY
HEYL , ROYSTER ,
& DIMMITT
VOELKER & ALLEN
Richard C. Witzel
Douglas Heise, Kent Plotner, Michael Schag
WOLFF & WOLFF TRIAL LAWYERS
Alexander Wolff, Alvin A. Wolff Jr. ZEVAN DAVIDSON ROMAN
Rachel L. Roman, David M. Zevan
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Timothy J. Gearin, David G. Ott BAKER STERCHI C OWDEN & RICE
Peter B. Hoffman, John F. Mahon Jr., Jennifer L. Maloney, Steven P. Sanders
Sara E. Kotthoff, Michael F. Lause, Steven Mitchell, Deborah K. Rush
QUI TAM LAW ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Daniel K. O’Toole
THE HOLLAND LAW FIRM
THOMP SON C OBURN
R. Seth Crompton
Gordon L. Ankney
Kenneth R. Heineman, Christine F. Miller, Joseph C. Orlet
THE LAW OFFICE S OF GRETCHEN MYERS
Gretchen Myers
RAILROAD LAW
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Hillary Bean, Daniel J. Burke Jr., Michael A. Chivell, James A. Fredericks, Joseph F. Hipskind Jr., Mark Murray, Timothy J. Tryniecki, Daniel R. Wofsey
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON PAISNER
MICKE S O ’ TO OLE
James G. Buell, Harold R. Burroughs, Victoria I. Goldson, John W. Hoffman, Bruce E. Lowry Jr., George E. Murray
Thomas J. O’Toole
John P. Lord, Theodore J. Williams
John S. Meyer
Christopher Lang
Timothy M. Cronin, Amy Collignon Gunn, John G. Simon
SANDBERG PHOENIX
ZEVAN DAVIDSON
B OYLE BRASHER
& VON G ONTARD
ROMAN
Aaron French, G. Keith Phoenix, Mark A. Prost, Jonathan Ries, Andrew Ryan, John S. Sandberg, Lyndon Sommer, Stephen M. Strum, Peter von Gontard
Rachel L. Roman, David M. Zevan
Anthony R. Behr
& BELL
Lisa A. Pake
Marcie J. Vantine
BLANTON, NICKELL ,
CURTIS, HEINZ,
ROSENBLUM
FRIEDMAN
GARRETT & O ’KEEFE
G OLDENHERSH
C. Marshall Friedman
Helmut Starr
Brian J. Beck, Roger M. Herman, Carl C. Lang, David S. Lang, Michael A. Markenson, David T. Woods
Patrick J. Hagerty
Alan B. Bornstein, Danette Davis, Amelia M. Lewis
GROVE S P OWERS
D OSTER , ULLOM
Steven L. Groves
& B OYLE
SANDBERG PHOENIX
Michael J. Doster
& VON G ONTARD
LAW OFFICE S
HE NNELLY
C OLLINS, D OUGLAS
THOMP SON C OBURN
& AS SO CIATE S
& HANSCHEN
Richard A. Mueller, John R. Musgrave, Carl L. Rowley
James J. Hennelly
OF PATRICK S. O ’BRIEN
GREENSFELDER ,
Patrick S. O’Brien
HEMKER & GALE
SANDBERG PHOENIX & VON G ONTARD
James A. Bax
HE PLERBRO OM
Thomas J. Magee
T UCKER ELLIS
Elizabeth J. Cummings
Joseph A. Bealmear, Bob C. Graham III, John P. McNearney
C. MARSHALL
& GRAHAM
HAAR & WO ODS
P OL SINELLI
Richard E. Boyle, William A. Brasher, Charles J. Swartwout
Wilbur L. Tomlinson
SWANSON, MARTIN
Donald W. Paule
REALTY LAW PARTNERS CARMODY MACD ONALD
DENTONS U.S.
& P OTTER
& BLUMENTHAL
Lisa Greenman Kraner, Phillip James Paster, Steven M. Weinstein, Bryan C. West, Robert T. West, Stacy Engles Wipfler
GRAY, RITTER
A. J. Bronsky
PAULE , CAMAZINE
Donald R. Carmody, Kevin M. Cushing, Mark B. Hillis, Brian J. Nolan, Josh J. Reinert, Ronald E. Rucker
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
BEHR , MC CARTER
Jared Minkoff, Christopher T. Pierce, Colleen McNitt Ruiz David B. Lemkemeier, Catherine R. Phillips, Jacob W. Reby
Kevin C. Fleming, Richard B. Rothman
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
STANTON BARTON
LATHROP GPM
LEWIS RICE
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
PROFESSIONAL MALPRACTICE LAW–DEFENDANTS
Gregory M. Otto
& DEU TSCH
C OWDEN & RICE
NICHOL S LANG
JENKINS & KLING
BLITZ, BARD GETT
BAKER STERCHI
BROWN & JAME S
James E. Adkins, Alfred Henneboehle, Donald G. Kennedy, Thomas L. Story
Philip Graham, David F. Neiers, Keith D. Price, Andrew Ruben SMITHAMUNDSEN
Elizabeth H. Lum
GUG GENHEIM ROBERTS PERRYMAN
PARTNERS
Richard C. Wuestling
Jennifer A. Marler
Highlighted Name
BestLawyers_1120.indd 78
Andrew Rushing
THE SIMON LAW FIRM
Jonathan T. Barton, Todd C. Stanton
Joseph C. Blanton Jr.
Harold R. Burroughs
HUSCH BLACKWELL
& HAMLIN
PRODUCT LIABILITY LITIGATION– DEFENDANTS
J. Conard Metcalf, John Simmons
REAL ESTATE LAW
PAISNER
THOMP SON C OBURN
SCHLICHTER B O GARD
Harlan A. Harla, Thomas E. Jones, Nicholas J. Lamb, Kurt E. Reitz
AFFINITY LAW GROUP BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
David W. Brown
C ONROY WITZEL , KANZLER
Robert D. Klahr, Thomas E. Lowther, James E. Mello
LEWIS RICE
& DENTON HEPLERBRO OM
J. Andrew Crossett, Gary H. Feder, Richard E. Feldman, Jonathan Giokas, Caroline L. Hermeling, Courtney L. Hill, William M. Hof, David R. Human, David A. Linenbroker, David G. Richardson, Ernesto R. Segura, Gregory R. Smith, Melissa K. Smith-Groff, Frans J. von Kaenel
Jerome J. Schlichter, Nelson G. Wolff
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Mark D. Grimm, Claire J. Halpern
THE LAW OFFICE S
Jonathan Garside, Dale M. Weppner
PUBLIC FINANCE LAW
GILMORE & BELL
JOHN S. WALLACH
John S. Wallach, Bruce J. Weingart
HUSCH BLACKWELL
& DENTON
THOMP SON C OBURN
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
THE HOFFMANN
Christopher S. Hoffmann
SCHLICHTER B O GARD
DENOTE S “LAWYER OF THE YEAR”
10/5/20 9:18 AM
SPENCER FANE
Bradford J. Cytron, Robert H. Epstein, Thomas W. Jerry, Richard K. Mersman III, Thomas Osterholt STINSON
Harold A. Tzinberg
SPORTS LAW SPENCER FANE
Robert H. Lattinville THOMP SON C OBURN
Robert E. Wallace
TAX LAW
THOMP SON C OBURN
PIERSON WELL S
JOHN D O OLING
THURMAN LAW FIRM
Henry A. Bettendorf, Edward J. Buchholz, Steven B. Gorin, Richard L. Lawton, Janette M. Lohman
Gary A. Pierson
LAWYER
John W. Howald
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Douglas M. Baron, Halpin J. Burke, Daniel T. Engle, Cheryl A. Kelly, Paul M. Macon, Gayle Smith Mercier
Sarah Roe Sise
SECURITIES/ CAPITAL MARKETS LAW
TECHNOLOGY LAW
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
David W. Braswell
PAISNER
PAISNER
Frank P. Wolff Jr.
P OL SINELLI
Jeffrey E. Fine
Leo H. MacDonald Jr.
LEIGHTON PAISNER
Steven M. Baumer, Robert J. Endicott, J. Mark Klamer, Don G. Lents, James L. Nouss, William F. Seabaugh, R. Randall Wang
HUSCH BLACKWELL
LEWIS RICE
Raymond S. Kreienkamp
John B. Greenberg
HUSCH BLACKWELL
John C. Bodnar, Tom W. Zook
LEWIS RICE
Matthew J. Madsen, Albert S. Rose, Lawrence H. Weltman
SPENCER FANE
LATHROP GPM
Glenn K. Robbins
Bennett S. Keller, Scott H. Malin
VENTURE CAPITAL LAW
LEWIS RICE
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Matthew J. Madsen, Marian V. Mehan, Jaime R. Mendez, Michael D. Mulligan, Albert S. Rose, Joel L. Weeks
PAISNER
MGD LAW
HOYNE LAW FIRM
Adrienne J. Davis, Lisa D. McLaughlin
Andrew T. Hoyne
Donald W. Paule
Ruben K. Chuquimia, Andrew C. Speciale
AFFINITY LAW GROUP
P OL SINELLI
THOMP SON C OBURN
Kathleen W. Bilderback
George E. Diehr, Adam W. Randle
BLITZ, BARD GETT
RIEZMAN BERGER
Thomas A. Litz, Christopher B. Reid, Frederick R. Strasheim
& DEU TSCH
TRUSTS AND ESTATES
SANDBERG PHOENIX
Donna Frazier Schmitt
PAISNER
& VON G ONTARD
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Lawrence Brody, Stephen B. Daiker, Jeanne Mattingly Miller, John D. Schaperkotter, Kathleen R. Sherby, Douglas J. Stanley
Patricia D. Gray, Bhavik R. Patel, Edward F. Reilly, James Rixey Ruffin
George M. von Stamwitz
Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner J. Bennett Clark, David A. Roodman, Thomas C. Walsh
RIEZMAN BERGER
James R. Dankenbring, Ravi Sundara
Mark J. Temkin
Meg Marshall Thomas
ROSENBLUM
GRACE J. FISHEL
G OLDENHERSH
Grace J. Fishel
CARMODY MACD ONALD
David W. Braswell BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON PAISNER
J. Mark Klamer, James L. Nouss, R. Randall Wang
M. Spencer Garland HARNE S S, DICKEY & PIERCE
Joseph P. Giljum
Joel R. Samuels, Michael J. Thomas, Joseph E. Walsh Jr., Bryan K. Wheelock
Robert Lewis Jackson James R. Dankenbring
Michael H. Korein
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
& GIL JUM
Lisa M. Adams, Harvard W. Muhm
Franklin F. Wallis
HEMKER & GALE
Jennifer Clump Davis, Keith A. Herman, Thomas H. Mug, Betty Schaefer
Caroline Chicoine, Alan S. Nemes
HUSCH BLACKWELL
THOMP SON C OBURN
LEWIS RICE
Thomas A. Litz
Frank B. Janoski
Raymond S. Kreienkamp, Mark R. Leuchtmann, Jill M. Palmquist, Matthew G. Perlow, James R. Strong
PATENT LAW OFFICE
Paul M. Denk
STLMAG.C OM
BestLawyers_1120.indd 79
GLAS S & KOREIN
GIANOULAKIS
GREENSFELDER ,
HUSCH BLACKWELL SPENCER FANE
SHANDS, ELBERT,
Leo H. MacDonald Jr., Mark A. Mulchek, Meg Marshall Thomas, Kevin J. Williams
HE MKER & GALE
& GIL JUM
Carrie S. Schormann
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW–CLAIMANTS
SCHORMANN LAW FIRM
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
CARMODY MACD ONALD GREENSFELDER ,
GIANOULAKIS
WATER LAW
MANDEL & MANDEL
Alan S. Mandel
SPENCER FANE
SHANDS, ELBERT,
SMITHAMUNDSEN
& BLUMENTHAL
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
SPENCER FANE
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
PAULE , CAMAZINE
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
James J. Wotruba
SECURITIES REGULATION
J. Powell Carman, Charles Brendan Johnson, Kathryn Elliott Love, James L. Nouss
Robert G. Oesch, Mark J. Temkin
P OL SINELLI
Carl C. Lang, Michael A. Markenson
Timothy J. Tryniecki
Bridget Nave
Ruben K. Chuquimia
Thomas A. Litz
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Andrew M. Mitchell
TRADEMARK LAW
P OL SINELLI
THOMP SON C OBURN
& MARTINSEN
P OL SINELLI
William M. Corrigan Jr., Jeffrey Schultz
Bennett S. Keller, Jared Minkoff
LEWIS RICE
TRADE SECRETS LAW ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Thomas G. Lewin Craig A. Adoor
Tessa Rolufs Trelz
Thomas H. Mug, Jay A. Nathanson
LATHROP GPM
UTILITIES LAW
KIRKLAND WO ODS
Matt Braunel, David B. Jinkins, Thomas A. Polcyn, Mark Sableman, Jennifer Visintine
STINSON
HEMKER & GALE
HEMKER & GALE
Kimberly N. Springer
G. Harley Blosser, J. Philip Polster, Jonathan P. Soifer
THOMP SON C OBURN
GREENSFELDER ,
GREENSFELDER ,
Nichole Y. Wren
ATTORNEY AT LAW
Paul I. Fleischut, Kurt F. James, William D. O’Neill, Keith A. Rabenberg
Andrew T. Hoyne
G O ODMAN & SARACHAN
WREN B OTTINI KIMBERLY N. SPRINGER ,
STINSON
HOYNE LAW FIRM
CAPE S, SOKOL ,
CARMODY MACD ONALD BRYAN CAVE
Saraann S. Parker
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
David V. Capes, Laura E. Krebs Al-Shathir
Jeffrey E. Fine
& VON G ONTARD
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
Lawrence Brody, Michael N. Newmark, Philip B. Wright
P OL SINELLI
SANDBERG PHOENIX
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE THOMP SON C OBURN
John E. Dooling Jr.
79
Jeff D. Figge Charles A. Redd
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW–EMPLOYERS
SUMMERS C OMP TON
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
WELL S
Wilbur L. Tomlinson
STINSON
William H. Hobson, Gary E. True
HARRIS D OWELL FISHER & YOUNG
THOMP SON C OBURN
Thomas R. Corbett, Stephen E. Cupples, Jacqueline A. Dimmitt, Laura M. Duncan, Steven B. Gorin, Lawrence P. Katzenstein, Lacey R. Searfoss
J. Bradley Young KNAPP, OHL & GREEN
L. David Green MCANANY, VAN CLEAVE & PHILLIP S
Stephen A. McManus
NOVEMBER 2020
10/5/20 9:18 AM
BEST LAWYERS: O ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION
BEHR , MC CARTER
STINSON
& P OTTER
Julie C. Scheipeter, Benjamin D. Woodard
Joel O. Christensen
P OL SINELLI
BROWN & JAME S
Sherin Bruning
Jessica S. Holliday, Benjamin S. McIntosh, Patrick C. Meyer
APPELLATE PRACTICE
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON BROWN & JAME S
PAISNER
Kelly M. Brunie
Alicia E. Ragsdale Olszeski, Alan L. Schilling Jr., Barbara A. Smith
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON PAISNER
Barbara A. Smith
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Erin M. Edelman STINSON
Jenna R. Hueneger
BANKRUPTCY AND CREDITOR DEBTOR RIGHTS/ INSOLVENCY AND REORGANIZATION LAW ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
John G. Willard
BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS (INCLUDING LLCS AND PARTNERSHIPS)
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Nicolas P. Cejas
THE SIMON LAW FIRM
John M. Simon
Alice Aten
THOMP SON C OBURN
Jonathan G. Bremer, Rachel A. Harris, Benjamin I. Middleton, Ryan M. Prisock, Elise N. Puma, Kristen E. Sanocki
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS (ERISA) LAW Lauren Schuster GREENSFELDER ,
LEWIS RICE
Kelly M. Gorman
HEMKER & GALE
GAUSNELL , O ’KEEFE
John H. Chassaing, Lacy M. Fields Keune, Caitlin M. Meyers, Benjamin C. Tiller, Ronnie L. White II
& THOMAS
THOMP SON C OBURN
Hayley M. Hughes
Amy E. Oslica
GREENSFELDER , HEM-
ENERGY LAW
KER & GALE
Jessica E. Courtway, Chantal S. Fink
GREENSFELDER , HEMKER & GALE
Andrew J. Kriegshauser, Joseph H. Neill, Devon E. Vincent
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND COMPLIANCE LAW
Ronnie L. White II
HUSCH BLACKWELL
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
CARMODY MACD ONALD
Cynthia M. Juedemann, Alissa B. Kelso, Sarah L. Zimmerman
PAISNER
Brittany A. Brown
FAMILY LAW
Caitlin H. ReardonAshley
Kayte E. Rossi, Sarah J. Wittrock
THOMP SON C OBURN
Sarah E. Larson
Jeffrey C. Klaus, Scott Pummell
CORPORATE LAW
LAW FIRM
CARMODY MACD ONALD
LATHROP GPM
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Brad D. Zimmerman
Alicia M. Goedde, Mitchell Martin
Andrew B. Wurdack
HEALTH CARE LAW
CARMODY MACD ONALD
LASHLY & BAER
Brad D. Zimmerman
Richard W. Hill III, Scott Pummell
COMMERCIAL LITIGATION ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Laura A. Bentele Tod Stephens BAKER STERCHI C OWDEN & RICE
SPENCER FANE
Rebecca A. Guntli
Arthur D. Gregg
Ajla Alunovic
GREENSFELDER , HEM-
Patrick J. Brazill
LEWIS BRISB OIS
NASH, SMOAK
BISGAARD & SMITH
& STEWART
Alyson M. Hau
Thomas R. Chibnall, Julia B. Drafahl, Andrew L. Metcalf
Ben W. Hohenstein
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW
LITIGATION– CONSTRUCTION GREENSFELDER ,
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
HEMKER & GALE
Jesse S. Harper, Jacob R. Mueller, Adam R. Wuller
Jessica E. Courtway, Chantal S. Fink LASHLY & BAER
GREENSFELDER ,
Jeffrey C. Klaus
Jared S. Manse Myers Dill, Michael Martinich-Sauter, Shannon D. Peters
LITIGATION– ENVIRONMENTAL GREENSFELDER , HEMKER & GALE
Benjamin C. Tiller
STINSON
Jonathan G. Pollmann THOMP SON C OBURN
Thaddeus J. Blenke
LITIGATION– INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT LAW–MANAGEMENT
Mark A. Thomas HUSCH BLACKWELL
Michael MartinichSauter
FOLEY & MANSFIELD
William S. Clark
THOMP SON C OBURN
Justin P. Mulligan
FORDHARRISON
Jamie Mahler Westbrook GREENSFELDER ,
LITIGATION– LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT
HEMKER & GALE
KER & GALE
LATHROP GPM
Chantal S. Fink
Emilie W. Eschbacher
HE PLERBRO OM
Lauren A. Daming, Katherine L. Fechte
BLITZ, BARD GETT & DEU TSCH
Aaron Sanders
HUSCH BLACKWELL
Amanda R. McQuaid
INSURANCE LAW
Kaytlin E. Kopen, Scott D. Meyers
CARMODY MACD ONALD
BROWN & JAME S
LEWIS RICE
GREENSFELDER ,
Nina C. Sykora
Matthew J. Haas, Kenneth J. Mallin Jr.
HEMKER & GALE
Jordan R. Lewis
THOMP SON C OBURN
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Adam S. McGonigle, Bradley M. Zaffiri
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Michael Armstrong, Jacqueline K. Graves, Matthew J. Haas, Justin M. Ladendorf, Sonette T. Magnus, Kenneth J. Mallin Jr., John S. Martin, Sarah A. Milunski
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Becky Christensen
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PERSONAL INJURY LITIGATION– DEFENDANTS
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Ben W. Hohenstein
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE THE SIMON LAW FIRM
Elizabeth S. Lenivy
BAKER STERCHI HUSCH BLACKWELL
C OWDEN & RICE
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PROFESSIONAL MALPRACTICE LAW
Becky Christensen, Lillian T. Manning
LITCHFIELD CAVO
Ben W. Hohenstein
Rebecca A. Guntli, Meghan C. Kane, Megan Sterchi Lammert
MICKE S O ’ TO OLE
SWANSON, MARTIN
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Sarah A. Milunski
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Clement D. Warr Jr.
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Hayley M. Hughes, Tim McAleenan Jr.
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THE SIMON LAW FIRM
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Carson Maricle
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LEWIS RICE
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Andrea M. Patton
PAISNER
GREENSFELDER ,
MASS TORT LITIGATION / CLASS ACTIONS– DEFENDANTS
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Anne H. Jump, Elizabeth J. Schlesinger CARMODY MACD ONALD
Brad D. Zimmerman GREENSFELDER , HEMKER & GALE
REAL ESTATE LAW ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
LATHROP GPM
Benjamin L. Musholt, John G. Willard
Abbi H. Kirchner LEWIS RICE
Brian J. Figueroa P OL SINELLI
Jeffrey M. Glogower
LATHROP GPM
John N. Mueller
Peter W. Bay
TAX LAW
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW–EMPLOYERS
DENTONS U.S.
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
EVANS & DIXON
Timothy M. Guntli
PAISNER
James W. Gallen, Alexandra LaBarge
THOMP SON C OBURN
Sarah E. Larson, Taylor R. Melching
PATENT LAW
HUSCH BLACKWELL
Jared L. Dodd
TRUSTS AND ESTATES
Cassie L. Barr, Andrew V. Wolkiewicz
Scott L. Smithson Jr.
Cathryn R. Benedict, Mary Beth Dolan, Jarriot L. Rook, Elizabeth J. Schlesinger
HEMKER & GALE
Leland R. Moloney
Zachary T. Faires
DENTONS U.S.
GREENSFELDER ,
PAISNER
Andrew M. Bleyer
Rebecca A. Guntli, Megan Sterchi Lammert BROWN & JAME S
BROWN & JAME S
HUSCH BLACKWELL
PRODUCT LIABILITY LITIGATION– DEFENDANTS
HEMKER & GALE
TRANSPORTATION LAW
ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
C OWDEN & RICE LEWIS RICE
Thor T. Mathison
BRYAN CAVE LEIGHTON
HE PLERBRO OM THOMP SON C OBURN
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ARMSTRONG TEASDALE
Patrick Coyle, Adam R. Wuller
HE PLERBRO OM
Thomas A. Haine, Andrew J. Kriegshauser, Adam S. McGonigle, Devon E. Vincent, Bradley M. Zaffiri
Ben W. Hohenstein MCANANY, VAN CLEAVE
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Brad D. Zimmerman
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GREENSFELDER ,
VOELKER & ALLEN
HEMKER & GALE
Kendra Wolters
Rachel M. Hirshberg
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Meghan C. Kane
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K I N G T H E
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KEVIN A. ROBERTS
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I T S
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JUNE 16, 2020 (THREE WEEKS EARLIER).
JULY 7, 2020. MISSOURI GOVERNOR MIKE PARSON IS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. HE’S WRAPPING UP THREE AND A HALF MINUTE S OF PRAISE FOR PRE SIDENT DONALD TRUMP, WHO IS SEATED AT THE SAME TABLE JUST TWO CHAIRS DOWN, DURING THEIR LIVE STREAMED SUMMIT ON SAFELY REOPENING SCHOOL S. TRUMP LETS THE GOVERNOR FINISH, THEN VEERS OFF TOPIC TO ASK: “AND YOU WON’ T BE CHANGING THE NAME ST. LOUIS, WILL YOU?” ¶ “NO ,” PARSON SAYS WITH A CHUCKLE, “ WE WILL NOT BE.” ¶ “THANK YOU,” TRUMP SAYS. “THANK YOU VERY—THAT ’S VERY IMP ORTANT.” HE GRINS.
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A petition appears on the website Change.org under the title “Change the Name of St. Louis.” Its sponsors claim that a new civil rights movement is underway. Triggered by the Ferguson unrest of 2014, the movement has succeeded in toppling “statues of racists, slavemasters, and Confederates from public spaces.” Locally, it has won the removal of the Confederate Memorial from Forest Park, in 2017, and then that of the Christopher Columbus statue from Tower Grove Park, that very morning. The moment has finally come, the sponsors declare, to reckon with the historical figure of Saint Louis: our city’s eponym, King Louis IX, who ruled France in the 1200s and was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. A giant bronze statue of Louis on horseback presides over Art Hill, in front of the Saint Louis Art Museum. That statue needs to go, the sponsors write, and the city needs a new name.
10/1/20 1:46 PM
The problem with Louis, according to the petition, is that he was a “rabid anti-semite” who persecuted the Jews, not to mention a “vehemently Islamophobic” king who “led a murderous crusade against Muslims.” Therefore, they posit, the commemoration of him is an “outright disrespect” to the metro area’s Jewish and Muslim communities. The petition’s author is activist Umar Lee. He grew up, he says, on the wrong side of the law, but after reading Malcolm X he converted to Islam. He spent years on the East Coast ensconced in Salafism, a reactionary strain of Islamism. He then became disillusioned with it, returned to St. Louis, and adopted a more secular and largely progressive outlook. An autodidact with the trash-talking style of a pro wrestler, Lee has drawn press coverage over the years for fighting the arrival of Uber (which he panned as an ally of the “techno-libertarian right wing”) and for his unofficial mayoral bid in 2015. In June, when protests erupted over a policeman’s killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Lee sensed an opening. He went to the home of his friend Ben Poremba, a native of Israel who’s launched multiple restaurants here, including Elaia, Olio, Nixta, and The Benevolent King. (They’d met by chance years earlier when Lee overheard Poremba speaking Hebrew in the Delmar Loop.) Both men harbor a longstanding discomfort with the saintking’s record. “I said to Ben, ‘This is the right time to bring up Louis IX,’” recalls Lee. “Things that seemed impossible are becoming possible.” So Lee posts the petition, adds Poremba as a co-sponsor, and then adds a third co-sponsor, Muslim activist Moji Sidiqi. It generates some buzz. It also rankles Jim Hoft, the blogger behind the far-right site Gateway Pundit. Hoft issues a call to Catholic and Christian men to meet at the statue, pray the rosary, and oppose “the continued assault on our country, our history and our culture.” Concludes Hoft: “We must make a stand. This can’t go on.” In response, Lee and his co-sponsors call on their own supporters to show up and “Stop Hate and Racism in Forest Park.” The two camps converge at the
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statue on the overcast afternoon of June 27. They nearly fill the plaza. Police officers stand between them as a buffer. The pro-statue demonstrators—who include Hoft, members of the alt-right group the Proud Boys, some lay Catholics, and several priests—recite the Hail Mary aloud. The anti-statue protestors chant, hold aloft Black Lives Matter signs, chalk graffiti on the statue’s pedestal (e.g., “Genocide≠Saintly”). At one point, Lee cedes his bullhorn to the Reverend Stephen Schumacher. Clad in a black cassock, Schumacher perches over the crowd and defends Louis, arguing that he “willed to use his kingship to do good for his people,” but the protestors are shouting questions. Lee takes back the bullhorn. The crowd thins out as people drift away. The sky darkens. So does the mood. Brief scuffles ensue. One protester, Terrence Page, punches a man he believes to be a racist skinhead. He will later be charged with assault—then tell KMOV he has no regrets. These developments wind up not only on local newscasts but also on Fox News and, therefore, on Trump’s radar. And all this over a king of France who died 750 years ago. In some ways, it’s no surprise. Many attendees likely processed the dispute through the lens of America’s rancorous politics in 2020, taking their cues less from an Continued on p. 106
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FIVE STAR AWARD WINNERS These days, it takes a village to manage your financial world. Whether it is managing your assets with a wealth manager, navigating the ever-changing tax landscape, sorting out your estate and succession planning or picking the right life insurance, finding the right team can be a daunting task. In fact, many consumers have a hard time figuring out where to even begin. Sometimes, a few simple questions can put you on the right path. Asking a professional what makes working with them a unique experience can help you understand how they work and if their style meshes with your own. This is a great place to start! Five Star Professional uses its own proprietary research methodology to name outstanding professionals, then works with publications such as St. Louis Magazine to spread the word about award winners. Each award candidate undergoes a thorough research process (detailed here) before being considered for the final list of award winners. For the complete list of winners, go to www.fivestarprofessional.com.
RESEARCH DISCLOSURES In order to consider a broad population of high-quality wealth managers, award candidates are identified by one of three sources: firm nomination, peer nomination or prequalification based on industry standing. Self-nominations are not accepted. St. Louis-area award candidates were identified using internal and external research data. Candidates do not pay a fee to be considered or placed on the final lists of Five Star Wealth Managers. • The Five Star award is not indicative of a professional’s future performance. • Wealth managers may or may not use discretion in their practice and therefore may not manage their clients’ assets. • The inclusion of a professional on the Five Star Wealth Manager list should not be construed as an endorsement of the professional by Five Star Professional or St. Louis Magazine. • Working with a Five Star Wealth Manager or any professional is no guarantee as to future investment success, nor is there any guarantee that the selected professionals will be awarded this accomplishment by Five Star Professional in the future. • Five Star Professional is not an advisory firm and the content of this article should not be considered financial advice. For more information on the Five Star Wealth Manager award program, research and selection criteria, go to fivestarprofessional.com/research. • 2,431 award candidates in the St. Louis area were considered for the Five Star Wealth Manager award. 170 (approximately 7% of the award candidates) were named 2020 Five Star Wealth Managers.
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER CRITERIA DETERMINATION OF AWARD WINNERS
Award candidates who satisfied 10 objective eligibility and evaluation criteria were named 2020 Five Star Wealth Managers. Eligibility Criteria – Required: 1. Credentialed as a registered investment adviser or a registered investment adviser representative. 2. Actively employed as a credentialed professional in the financial services industry for a minimum of five years. 3. Favorable regulatory and complaint history review. 4. Fulfilled their firm review based on internal firm standards. 5. Accepting new clients. Evaluation Criteria – Considered: 6. One-year client retention rate. 7. Five-year client retention rate. 8. Noninstitutional discretionary and/or non-discretionary client assets administered. 9. Number of client households served. 10. Education and professional designations. Regulatory Review: As defined by Five Star Professional, the wealth manager has not: been subject to a regulatory action that resulted in a license being suspended or revoked, or payment of a fine; individually contributed to a financial settlement of a customer complaint; been convicted of a felony. Within the past 11 years the wealth manager has not: been terminated from a wealth management or financial services firm; filed for personal bankruptcy; had more than a total of three settled or pending complaints filed against them (and no more than five total pending, dismissed or denied) with any regulatory authority. Five Star Professional conducts a regulatory review of each nominated wealth manager using the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) website. Five Star Professional also uses multiple supporting processes to help ensure that a favorable regulatory and complaint history exists. Data submitted through these processes was applied per the above criteria; each wealth manager who passes the Five Star Professional regulatory review must attest that they meet the definition of favorable regulatory history based upon the criteria listed above. Five Star Professional promotes via local advertising the opportunity for consumers to confidentially submit complaints regarding a wealth manager.
All award winners are listed in this publication. Business Planning Donald J. Fitzgerald ∙ MML Investors Services Charles P. Schulz ∙ Krilogy Financial Donald Aulbert ∙ Cornerstone Wealth Management Page 9 Ruth Auer Chady ∙ Financial & Business Consultants Christine Marie Cipolla ∙ RFG Advisory
•
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James Todd Gentry ∙ MML Investors Services Page 9
William J. Pohrer ∙ Krilogy Financial
John E. Burke ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Stephen E. Green ∙ Krilogy Financial
Jeffrey Rainwater ∙ Mariner Wealth Advisors Page 6
Michael S. Karasick ∙ Morgan Stanley Page 3
Troy Ray Hedman ∙ Visionary Wealth Advisors
Stephen Douglas Robbins ∙ Steve Robbins
Gary N. Kwawer ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors Page 9
Jake Horseman ∙ Horseman Group/ LPL Financial Page 4
Duane M. Roth ∙ The Roth Companies Page 7
Sheri Carol McCann ∙ Morgan Stanley
Curt Clayton Sawyer ∙ Sawyer Capital Management
William L. Meyer ∙ Cutter & Co.
John Horseman ∙ Horseman Group/ LPL Financial Page 4
Matthew Claus ∙ Thrivent Page 8
Debra Light ∙ Mariner Wealth Advisors Page 6
Richard Michael Collop ∙ Visionary Wealth Advisors
Bill Macher ∙ Horseman Group/LPL Financial Page 4
Patricia Maureen Conway ∙ Conway Financial Group
William N. Maxson ∙ The America Group Page 7
John J. Gallia ∙ Gallia Wealth Management Group Page 9
Mark W. Minton ∙ Cornerstone Wealth Management
Laura Tierney Scobee ∙ Vertical Financial Group Alan M. Smith ∙ ASA Advisors, Inc. Susan Sommer ∙ Sommer Investments Page 9 Timothy Ward ∙ Legends Financial Services Group Page 6
Investments Brock E. Ayers ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Gene Anthony O’Dell ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors George D. Peters ∙ Morgan Stanley Page 5 Gregory E. Robinson ∙ Cambridge Page 8 Matthew Lee Rufkahr ∙ Cornerstone Wealth Management Frederick Bruce Salus ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors Albert Theis IV ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Continued on FS-10
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Morgan Stanley Left to right: Janna Eastwood, Client Service Associate; 2013 – 2020 winner Michael S. Karasick, Senior Vice President, Financial Advisor; Maggie Friedhoff, Wealth Management Asscociate 7733 Forsyth Boulevard, Suite 2100 • Clayton, MO 63105 Office: 314-889-8145 • michael.karasick@morganstanley.com advisor.morganstanley.com/michael.karasick
SPE
For more than 39 years, I have assisted clients in the management of their investments by providing independent, objective and unbiased advice. Whether you are looking for investment recommendations, financial or estate planning strategies, family wealth planning or corporate benefit programs, we offer comprehensive resources, services and experience to help you reach your goals. Morgan Stanley and its Financial Advisors do not provide tax or legal advice. Individuals should seek advice based on their particular circumstances from an independent tax or legal advisor. NMLS 1421428. ©2020 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Member SIPC. CRC 3223302 09/20.
The Five Star Wealth Manager award, administered by Crescendo Business Services, LLC (dba Five Star Professional), is based on 10 objective criteria. Eligibility criteria – required: 1. Credentialed as a registered investment adviser or a registered investment adviser representative; 2. Actively licensed as a registered investment adviser or as a principal of a registered investment adviser firm for a minimum of 5 years; 3. Favorable regulatory and complaint history review (As defined by Five Star Professional, the wealth manager has not; A. Been subject to a regulatory action that resulted in a license being suspended or revoked, or payment of a fine; B. Had more than a total of three settled or pending complaints filed against them and/or a total of five settled, pending, dismissed or denied complaints with any regulatory authority or Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process. Unfavorable feedback may have been discovered through a check of complaints registered with a regulatory authority or complaints registered through Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process; feedback may not be representative of any one clients’ experience; C. Individually contributed to a financial settlement of a customer complaint; D. Filed for personal bankruptcy within the past 11 years; E. Been terminated from a financial services firm within the past 11 years; F. Been convicted of a felony); 4. Fulfilled their firm review based on internal standards; 5. Accepting new clients. Evaluation criteria – considered: 6. One-year client retention rate; 7. Five-year client retention rate; 8. Non-institutional discretionary and/or non-discretionary client assets administered; 9. Number of client households served; 10. Education and professional designations. Wealth managers do not pay a fee to be considered or placed on the final list of Five Star Wealth Managers. Award does not evaluate quality of services provided to clients. Once awarded, wealth managers may purchase additional profile ad space or promotional products. The Five Star award is not indicative of the wealth manager’s future performance. Wealth managers may or may not use discretion in their practice and therefore may not manage their clients’ assets. The inclusion of a wealth manager on the Five Star Wealth Manager list should not be construed as an endorsement of the wealth manager by Five Star Professional or this publication. Working with a Five Star Wealth Manager or any wealth manager is no guarantee as to future investment success, nor is there any guarantee that the selected wealth managers will be awarded this accomplishment by Five Star Professional in the future. For more information on the Five Star award and the research/selection methodology, go to fivestarprofessional.com. 2,431 St. Louis-area wealth managers were considered for the award; 170 (7% of candidates) were named 2020 Five Star Wealth Managers. 2019: 2,481 considered, 185 winners; 2018: 2533 considered, 179 winners; 2017: 1,681 considered, 181 winners; 2016: 1,427 considered, 324 winners; 2015: 2,194 considered, 358 winners; 2014: 1,401 considered, 389 winners; 2013: 1,726 considered, 485 winners; 2012: 1,800 considered, 455 winners.
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Left to right: 2020 winner Jake Horseman; 2013, 2014, 2018, 2019 and 2020 winner John Horseman; 2012, 2013, 2014, 2018, 2019 and 2020 winner Bill Macher
Actively esulted mplaint idually cepting Wealth d is not ment of ve Star : 2,481 inners.
3 Cityplace Drive, Suite 290 • St. Louis, MO 63141 Phone: 314-692-7842 info@horsemangroup.com • horsemangroup.com
For 40 years, John, Bill, Jake and the team at Horseman Group have helped clients plan for retirement, manage their money and leave legacies to their loved ones. They listen and provide holistic financial guidance and personal attention to each client. Horseman Group is committed to helping you enjoy your successful retirement.
Securities and Advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a Registered Investment Advisor, Member FINRA/SIPC.
The Five Star Wealth Manager award, administered by Crescendo Business Services, LLC (dba Five Star Professional), is based on 10 objective criteria. Eligibility criteria – required: 1. Credentialed as a registered investment adviser or a registered investment adviser representative; 2. Actively licensed as a registered investment adviser or as a principal of a registered investment adviser firm for a minimum of 5 years; 3. Favorable regulatory and complaint history review (As defined by Five Star Professional, the wealth manager has not; A. Been subject to a regulatory action that resulted in a license being suspended or revoked, or payment of a fine; B. Had more than a total of three settled or pending complaints filed against them and/or a total of five settled, pending, dismissed or denied complaints with any regulatory authority or Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process. Unfavorable feedback may have been discovered through a check of complaints registered with a regulatory authority or complaints registered through Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process; feedback may not be representative of any one clients’ experience; C. Individually contributed to a financial settlement of a customer complaint; D. Filed for personal bankruptcy within the past 11 years; E. Been terminated from a financial services firm within the past 11 years; F. Been convicted of a felony); 4. Fulfilled their firm review based on internal standards; 5. Accepting new clients. Evaluation criteria – considered: 6. One-year client retention rate; 7. Five-year client retention rate; 8. Non-institutional discretionary and/or non-discretionary client assets administered; 9. Number of client households served; 10. Education and professional designations. Wealth managers do not pay a fee to be considered or placed on the final list of Five Star Wealth Managers. Award does not evaluate quality of services provided to clients. Once awarded, wealth managers may purchase additional profile ad space or promotional products. The Five Star award is not indicative of the wealth manager’s future performance. Wealth managers may or may not use discretion in their practice and therefore may not manage their clients’ assets. The inclusion of a wealth manager on the Five Star Wealth Manager list should not be construed as an endorsement of the wealth manager by Five Star Professional or this publication. Working with a Five Star Wealth Manager or any wealth manager is no guarantee as to future investment success, nor is there any guarantee that the selected wealth managers will be awarded this accomplishment by Five Star Professional in the future. For more information on the Five Star award and the research/selection methodology, go to fivestarprofessional.com. 2,431 St. Louis-area wealth managers were considered for the award; 170 (7% of candidates) were named 2020 Five Star Wealth Managers. 2019: 2,481 considered, 185 winners; 2018: 2533 considered, 179 winners; 2017: 1,681 considered, 181 winners; 2016: 1,427 considered, 324 winners; 2015: 2,194 considered, 358 winners; 2014: 1,401 considered, 389 winners; 2013: 1,726 considered, 485 winners; 2012: 1,800 considered, 455 winners.
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WEALTH MANAGERS
George D. Peters Senior Vice President, Wealth Advisor, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™
9
YEAR WINNER Mary Vass, Assistant Vice President, Wealth Management Associate, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional; Nine-year winner George D. Peters, Senior Vice President, Wealth Advisor, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional; Kerry Bradley, Senior Registered Associate
The Peters Group Strives for Excellence in Wealth Management The Peters Group at Morgan Stanley works with individuals and families to help grow and preserve their wealth. The Peters Group is focused on giving personalized investment advice and exceptional client service. They take the time to understand their clients’ financial objectives and to develop and execute a disciplined plan to help them achieve their personal investment goals. 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 Five Star Wealth Manager George Peters simplifies his clients’ lives by offering advice that is tailored to each client’s needs and risk tolerance. The Peters Group strives to know their clients well and to build long-lasting relationships.
The Peters Group at Morgan Stanley 7733 Forsyth Boulevard, Suite 2100 • St. Louis, MO 63105 Direct: 314-726-5676 • Toll-free: 866-646-4705
Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, and federally registered CFP (with flame design) in the U.S., which it awards to individuals who successfully complete CFP Board’s initial and ongoing certification requirements. ©2020 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, LLC. Member SIPC. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, LLC, its affiliates and Financial Advisors do not provide tax or legal advice. Individuals should consult their tax and legal advisers for tax, trust and estate planning matters. CRC3210539 08/20. Wealth Manager Award Winner
The Five Star Wealth Manager award, administered by Crescendo Business Services, LLC (dba Five Star Professional), is based on 10 objective criteria. Eligibility criteria – required: 1. Credentialed as a registered investment adviser or a registered investment adviser representative; 2. Actively licensed as a registered investment adviser or as a principal of a registered investment adviser firm for a minimum of 5 years; 3. Favorable regulatory and complaint history review (As defined by Five Star Professional, the wealth manager has not; A. Been subject to a regulatory action that resulted in a license being suspended or revoked, or payment of a fine; B. Had more than a total of three settled or pending complaints filed against them and/or a total of five settled, pending, dismissed or denied complaints with any regulatory authority or Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process. Unfavorable feedback may have been discovered through a check of complaints registered with a regulatory authority or complaints registered through Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process; feedback may not be representative of any one clients’ experience; C. Individually contributed to a financial settlement of a customer complaint; D. Filed for personal bankruptcy within the past 11 years; E. Been terminated from a financial services firm within the past 11 years; F. Been convicted of a felony); 4. Fulfilled their firm review based on internal standards; 5. Accepting new clients. Evaluation criteria – considered: 6. One-year client retention rate; 7. Five-year client retention rate; 8. Non-institutional discretionary and/or non-discretionary client assets administered; 9. Number of client households served; 10. Education and professional designations. Wealth managers do not pay a fee to be considered or placed on the final list of Five Star Wealth Managers. Award does not evaluate quality of services provided to clients. Once awarded, wealth managers may purchase additional profile ad space or promotional products. The Five Star award is not indicative of the wealth manager’s future performance. Wealth managers may or may not use discretion in their practice and therefore may not manage their clients’ assets. The inclusion of a wealth manager on the Five Star Wealth Manager list should not be construed as an endorsement of the wealth manager by Five Star Professional or this publication. Working with a Five Star Wealth Manager or any wealth manager is no guarantee as to future investment success, nor is there any guarantee that the selected wealth managers will be awarded this accomplishment by Five Star Professional in the future. For more information on the Five Star award and the research/selection methodology, go to fivestarprofessional.com. 2,431 St. Louis-area wealth managers were considered for the award; 170 (7% of candidates) were named 2020 Five Star Wealth Managers. 2019: 2,481 considered, 185 winners; 2018: 2533 considered, 179 winners; 2017: 1,681 considered, 181 winners; 2016: 1,427 considered, 324 winners; 2015: 2,194 considered, 358 winners; 2014: 1,401 considered, 389 winners; 2013: 1,726 considered, 485 winners; 2012: 1,800 considered, 455 winners.
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Timothy Ward AIF®, President
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∙ Engaging, listening, understanding ∙ Defining, researching, selecting ∙ Recommending, executing, communicating
6 YEAR
WINNER Left to right: Chrisann Jones; Six-year winner Timothy Ward, AIF®, President; Alexander Hoover; Vickie Ward
16759 Main Street, Suite 215 • Wildwood, MO 63040 Phone: 636-821-2200 • timward@legendsfinancialservices.com www.legendsfinancialservices.com • @TWLegends
When planning for your future, it’s important to seek the help of a trusted, qualified financial advisor who sees the big picture and current season of your life as well as your financial circumstances. Tim Ward and his team listen and understand your life goals before developing financial plans. The result is a plan driven by knowledge and technology, created just for you to keep you on track. The financial arena has grown increasingly complicated. When unraveled, these complexities can provide you with greater opportunities than ever before. You are at the center of our team within Legends Financial Services Group. You receive timely, solid, objective advice backed by meaningful information and research with easy access to the services that fit your circumstances. Securities offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through Cornerstone Wealth Management, LLC a registered investment advisor. Legends Financial Services Group, LLC and Cornerstone Wealth Management, LLC are separate entities from LPL Financial.
Wealth Manager Award Winner
Debra Light and Jeff Rainwater Your Story, Your Goals, Your Advocate Mariner Wealth Advisors
Photo 6.2” wide by 4.5” high at 300 dpi. Maximum of 6 people.
∙ Debra Light: Eight-year Five Star Wealth Manager award winner ∙ Jeffrey Rainwater: Two-year Five Star Wealth Manager award winner
8
YEAR WINNER Left to right: Two-year winner Jeffrey Rainwater; Eight-year winner Debra Light; Crystal Reinhold, Client Service Associate
Putting the client first has always been their purpose. As a wealth management professional for 25 years, Debra has dedicated her practice to helping families define, achieve and maintain financial security. “Never for one moment do I take for granted the trust placed in me — especially in these challenging times.” — Debra Light Jeff and Debra have been working together to help clients live their dreams through comprehensive, tailored and objective advice.
1401 S Brentwood Boulevard, Suite 375 • St. Louis, MO 63144 Office: 314-227-2466 • debra.light@marinerwealthadvisors.com www.marinerwealthadvisors.com
Mariner Wealth Advisors (“MWA”) is an SEC registered investment adviser with its principal place of business in the State of Kansas. Registration of an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. For additional information about MWA, including fees and services, please contact MWA or refer to the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website (www.adviserinfo.sec.gov). Please read the disclosure statement carefully before you invest or send money.
Wealth Manager Award Winner
The Five Star Wealth Manager award, administered by Crescendo Business Services, LLC (dba Five Star Professional), is based on 10 objective criteria. Eligibility criteria – required: 1. Credentialed as a registered investment adviser or a registered investment adviser representative; 2. Actively licensed as a registered investment adviser or as a principal of a registered investment adviser firm for a minimum of 5 years; 3. Favorable regulatory and complaint history review (As defined by Five Star Professional, the wealth manager has not; A. Been subject to a regulatory action that resulted in a license being suspended or revoked, or payment of a fine; B. Had more than a total of three settled or pending complaints filed against them and/or a total of five settled, pending, dismissed or denied complaints with any regulatory authority or Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process. Unfavorable feedback may have been discovered through a check of complaints registered with a regulatory authority or complaints registered through Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process; feedback may not be representative of any one clients’ experience; C. Individually contributed to a financial settlement of a customer complaint; D. Filed for personal bankruptcy within the past 11 years; E. Been terminated from a financial services firm within the past 11 years; F. Been convicted of a felony); 4. Fulfilled their firm review based on internal standards; 5. Accepting new clients. Evaluation criteria – considered: 6. One-year client retention rate; 7. Five-year client retention rate; 8. Non-institutional discretionary and/or non-discretionary client assets administered; 9. Number of client households served; 10. Education and professional designations. Wealth managers do not pay a fee to be considered or placed on the final list of Five Star Wealth Managers. Award does not evaluate quality of services provided to clients. Once awarded, wealth managers may purchase additional profile ad space or promotional products. The Five Star award is not indicative of the wealth manager’s future performance. Wealth managers may or may not use discretion in their practice and therefore may not manage their clients’ assets. The inclusion of a wealth manager on the Five Star Wealth Manager list should not be construed as an endorsement of the wealth manager by Five Star Professional or this publication. Working with a Five Star Wealth Manager or any wealth manager is no guarantee as to future investment success, nor is there any guarantee that the selected wealth managers will be awarded this accomplishment by Five Star Professional in the future. For more information on the Five Star award and the research/selection methodology, go to fivestarprofessional.com. 2,431 St. Louis-area wealth managers were considered for the award; 170 (7% of candidates) were named 2020 Five Star Wealth Managers. 2019: 2,481 considered, 185 winners; 2018: 2533 considered, 179 winners; 2017: 1,681 considered, 181 winners; 2016: 1,427 considered, 324 winners; 2015: 2,194 considered, 358 winners; 2014: 1,401 considered, 389 winners; 2013: 1,726 considered, 485 winners; 2012: 1,800 considered, 455 winners.
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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
WEALTH MANAGERS
Duane M. Roth CLU®, ChFC®, LUTCF®, RFC®, Founder, President
Providing Solutions for Wealth ∙ Wealth advisory and investment management ∙ Advanced training in retirement distribution planning ∙ Estate planning and tax minimization ∙ Business advisory team of experts for exit planning Duane M. Roth, founder of The Roth Companies, Inc., started the firm in 2004 to help people navigate today’s complex financial landscape. Duane helps clients create lifelong financial security using a full spectrum of resources so they can be prepared. They offer wealth management, retirement, investments, taxes, insurance, estate planning and business advisory services. With his holistic approach to wealth management, Duane helps clients create lifelong financial security using a full spectrum of resources so they can be prepared for whatever lies ahead. 4925 Stone Falls Center • O’Fallon, IL 62269 Phone: 618-632-7684 • duane@therothcompanies.com www.therothcompanies.com
6 YEAR
WINNER Six-year winner Duane M. Roth, Founder, President
Securities offered through United Planners Financial Services, Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory Services offered through RDA Financial Network, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor. RDA Financial Network DBA The Roth Companies, Inc., United Planners and RDA Financial Network and The Roth Companies, Inc. are separate entities. Wealth Manager Award Winner
William N. Maxson CFP®, CLU®, ChFC®, CFS™
Positively Impacting Lives Forever ∙ Broad range of expertise and experience ∙ Serving clients for more than 30 years ∙ Assists in navigating financial waters
8 YEAR
WINNER Left to right: Standing: Ross Pfeifer, CEBS, GBA, RPA; Jeffery Seeberger; Aaron Stewart, RICP®; Seated: Eight-year winner William N. Maxson, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC®, CFS®
10845 Olive Boulevard, Suite 190 • St. Louis, MO 63141 Phone: 314-918-8080 • bmaxson@theamericagroup.com www.theamericagroup.com
Bill Maxson and The America Group, a team of more than 25 advisors, have been working together to assist their clients in solving financial problems since 1981. We believe solutions lie not in any product, but through an implementation of a comprehensive, individualized plan. We have expertise in both wealth management and protection strategies to assist clients in navigating their entire financial future. Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and federally registered CFP (with flame design) in the U.S. which it awards to individuals who successfully complete CFP Board’s initial and ongoing certification requirements. Securities offered through The O.N. Equity Sales Company, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment Advisory Services provided through O.N. Investment Management Company.
Wealth Manager Award Winner
The Five Star Wealth Manager award, administered by Crescendo Business Services, LLC (dba Five Star Professional), is based on 10 objective criteria. Eligibility criteria – required: 1. Credentialed as a registered investment adviser or a registered investment adviser representative; 2. Actively licensed as a registered investment adviser or as a principal of a registered investment adviser firm for a minimum of 5 years; 3. Favorable regulatory and complaint history review (As defined by Five Star Professional, the wealth manager has not; A. Been subject to a regulatory action that resulted in a license being suspended or revoked, or payment of a fine; B. Had more than a total of three settled or pending complaints filed against them and/or a total of five settled, pending, dismissed or denied complaints with any regulatory authority or Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process. Unfavorable feedback may have been discovered through a check of complaints registered with a regulatory authority or complaints registered through Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process; feedback may not be representative of any one clients’ experience; C. Individually contributed to a financial settlement of a customer complaint; D. Filed for personal bankruptcy within the past 11 years; E. Been terminated from a financial services firm within the past 11 years; F. Been convicted of a felony); 4. Fulfilled their firm review based on internal standards; 5. Accepting new clients. Evaluation criteria – considered: 6. One-year client retention rate; 7. Five-year client retention rate; 8. Non-institutional discretionary and/or non-discretionary client assets administered; 9. Number of client households served; 10. Education and professional designations. Wealth managers do not pay a fee to be considered or placed on the final list of Five Star Wealth Managers. Award does not evaluate quality of services provided to clients. Once awarded, wealth managers may purchase additional profile ad space or promotional products. The Five Star award is not indicative of the wealth manager’s future performance. Wealth managers may or may not use discretion in their practice and therefore may not manage their clients’ assets. The inclusion of a wealth manager on the Five Star Wealth Manager list should not be construed as an endorsement of the wealth manager by Five Star Professional or this publication. Working with a Five Star Wealth Manager or any wealth manager is no guarantee as to future investment success, nor is there any guarantee that the selected wealth managers will be awarded this accomplishment by Five Star Professional in the future. For more information on the Five Star award and the research/selection methodology, go to fivestarprofessional.com. 2,431 St. Louis-area wealth managers were considered for the award; 170 (7% of candidates) were named 2020 Five Star Wealth Managers. 2019: 2,481 considered, 185 winners; 2018: 2533 considered, 179 winners; 2017: 1,681 considered, 181 winners; 2016: 1,427 considered, 324 winners; 2015: 2,194 considered, 358 winners; 2014: 1,401 considered, 389 winners; 2013: 1,726 considered, 485 winners; 2012: 1,800 considered, 455 winners.
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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
WEALTH MANAGERS
Matthew Claus Financial Consultant
Opening the Door to Financial Clarity Photo 6.2” wide by 4.5” high at 300 dpi. Maximum of 6 people.
∙ Wealth and asset management ∙ Comprehensive, customized and strategic financial strategies ∙ Financial guidance focused around your values and goals
4
YEAR WINNER Left to right: Four-year winner Matt Claus; Kari Lovera; Brock Howard
1515 Des Peres Road, Suite 100 • St. Louis, MO 63131 • Phone: 314-783-4213 matthew.claus@thrivent.com • connect.thrivent.com/gateway-financial-group
Matt with Gateway Financial Group specializes in providing generational financial guidance that establishes a foundation of confidence and clarity for decades to come. He does this by providing financial solutions and products designed for specific needs. He offers several platforms and options in which he can manage and build your investment portfolio. Keeping management costs low while providing investment strategies that are aligned with your values and needs is core to his planning practice. Thrivent is the marketing name for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. Insurance products issued by Thrivent. Not available in all states. Securities and investment advisory services offered through Thrivent Investment Management Inc., a registered investment adviser, member FINRA and SIPC, and a subsidiary of Thrivent. Licensed agent/producer of Thrivent. Registered representative of Thrivent Investment Management, Inc. Advisory services available through investment adviser representatives only. Thrivent.com/disclosures. 3202353-081320.
Wealth Manager Award Winner
Gregory E. Robinson Financial Advisor
Helping People Build, Protect and Transfer Wealth Photo 6.2” wide by 4.5” high at 300 dpi. Maximum of 6 people.
∙ Independent financial advice ∙ Personalized investment management ∙ Committed, experienced and professional
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YEAR WINNER Left to right: Brenda J. Moore; Seven-year winner Gregory E. Robinson, J.D.; Rebekah L. Chapman
Estate Planning and Wealth Strategies, Inc. 1422 Elbridge Payne Road, Suite 170 • Chesterfield, MO 63017 Phone: 636-532-1562 • greg@stlwealthstrategies.com www.stlwealthstrategies.com • Facebook: Estate Planning & Wealth Strategies, Inc.
Helping people build, protect and transfer their wealth requires a disciplined, long-term investment plan. Your investment plan should be customized and tailored to your specific goals and objectives. However, it should be flexible enough to evolve with you over the course of your lifetime. Gregory E. Robinson is the president of Estate Planning and Wealth Strategies, Inc. He has the experience to offer you independent financial advice and assist you in developing an investment strategy that is appropriate for you and your loved ones. Registered Representative, securities offered through Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a Broker/Dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment Advisor Representative, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor. Cambridge and Estate Planning and Wealth Strategies, Inc., are not affiliated.
Wealth Manager Award Winner
The Five Star Wealth Manager award, administered by Crescendo Business Services, LLC (dba Five Star Professional), is based on 10 objective criteria. Eligibility criteria – required: 1. Credentialed as a registered investment adviser or a registered investment adviser representative; 2. Actively licensed as a registered investment adviser or as a principal of a registered investment adviser firm for a minimum of 5 years; 3. Favorable regulatory and complaint history review (As defined by Five Star Professional, the wealth manager has not; A. Been subject to a regulatory action that resulted in a license being suspended or revoked, or payment of a fine; B. Had more than a total of three settled or pending complaints filed against them and/or a total of five settled, pending, dismissed or denied complaints with any regulatory authority or Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process. Unfavorable feedback may have been discovered through a check of complaints registered with a regulatory authority or complaints registered through Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process; feedback may not be representative of any one clients’ experience; C. Individually contributed to a financial settlement of a customer complaint; D. Filed for personal bankruptcy within the past 11 years; E. Been terminated from a financial services firm within the past 11 years; F. Been convicted of a felony); 4. Fulfilled their firm review based on internal standards; 5. Accepting new clients. Evaluation criteria – considered: 6. One-year client retention rate; 7. Five-year client retention rate; 8. Non-institutional discretionary and/or non-discretionary client assets administered; 9. Number of client households served; 10. Education and professional designations. Wealth managers do not pay a fee to be considered or placed on the final list of Five Star Wealth Managers. Award does not evaluate quality of services provided to clients. Once awarded, wealth managers may purchase additional profile ad space or promotional products. The Five Star award is not indicative of the wealth manager’s future performance. Wealth managers may or may not use discretion in their practice and therefore may not manage their clients’ assets. The inclusion of a wealth manager on the Five Star Wealth Manager list should not be construed as an endorsement of the wealth manager by Five Star Professional or this publication. Working with a Five Star Wealth Manager or any wealth manager is no guarantee as to future investment success, nor is there any guarantee that the selected wealth managers will be awarded this accomplishment by Five Star Professional in the future. For more information on the Five Star award and the research/selection methodology, go to fivestarprofessional.com. 2,431 St. Louis-area wealth managers were considered for the award; 170 (7% of candidates) were named 2020 Five Star Wealth Managers. 2019: 2,481 considered, 185 winners; 2018: 2533 considered, 179 winners; 2017: 1,681 considered, 181 winners; 2016: 1,427 considered, 324 winners; 2015: 2,194 considered, 358 winners; 2014: 1,401 considered, 389 winners; 2013: 1,726 considered, 485 winners; 2012: 1,800 considered, 455 winners.
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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
Conti
WEALTH MANAGERS
David
John J. Gallia
James Todd Gentry
John Ser
Financial Advisor, CFP®
CFP®, ChFC®, CAP®, LUTCF®
Jerry
Kevin
Neal
Head and Shoulders photo 3.6” wide by 3.8” high at 300 dpi
Three City Place Drive, Suite 590 Creve Coeur, MO 63141 Phone: 314-699-9215 jgallia@galliawealth.com www.galliawealthmanagement.com Your Partner in Financial Planning
Head and Shoulders photo 3.6” wide by 3.8” high at 300 dpi
2 YEAR
WINNER
Lisa
16150 Main Circle Drive, Suite 400 Chesterfield, MO 63017 Phone: 314-548-4825 Cell: 314-691-0819 jamesgentry@financialguide.com www.calendly.com/jtgentry/fsp
Jason
Terri
Matt
Brian
Synergy Wealth Solutions
Aaro Sol
John J. Gallia, CFP®, founded Gallia Wealth Management Group in 2015 as an independent financial planning firm. John obtained master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Lindenwood University and is an adjunct faculty member at Maryville University in the John E. Simon School of Business. Additionally, John speaks at various seminars for both public and businesses, dealing with topics from retirement planning, investing, tax planning and estate planning. He has been featured in various media outlets.
∙ Focuses: investment strategies, retirement planning, estate conservation strategies, special needs planning and more for your family and business
David Ser
Todd Gentry has over 27 years of experience in the financial services industry. He understands a great relationship and skills can make all the difference. His experience, creativity and commitment to developing strategic alliances enhance their client experience. His team is committed to building long-term relationships with their clients and helping them reach their goals.
Bill A
Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and federally registered CFP (with flame design) in the U.S. Securities offered through PCS, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment services offered through RFG Advisory, a Registered Investment Advisor. RFG, Gallia Wealth Management Group, and PCS are unaffiliated.
Local firms are sales offices of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), and are not subsidiaries of MassMutual or its affiliated companies. James Todd Gentry is a registered representative of and offers securities and investment advisory services through MML Investors Services, LLC. Member SIPC (www.SIPC.org). CRN202209-270462.
Wealth Manager Award Winner
Wealth Manager Award Winner
Jeffre
Mich
Todd
Chris Ser
John
Liz H
Gary N. Kwawer
Susan Sommer CFP®, CFS™
Sommer Investments
Josef
Financial Advisor, Senior Vice President – Investment Officer
Mich Adv
10369 Clayton Road St. Louis, MO 63131 Office: 314-991-7853 gary.kwawer@wellsfargoadvisors.com www.garykwawer.wfadv.com
Head and Shoulders photo 1.5” wide by 1.5” high at 300 dpi
7
Josep
Robe
YEAR WINNER
1395 Triad Center Drive, Suite 4 St. Peters, MO 63376 Phone: 636-441-1700 susan@sommerinvestments.com sommerinvestments.com
Head and Shoulders photo 3.6” wide by 3.8” high at 300 dpi
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∙ 2012 – 2014, 2016, 2018 – 2020 Five Star Wealth Manager
Eliza
Gary began his investment industry adventure in 1988. An inveterate polymath, he focuses on helping a diverse client base manage their assets to achieve life goals by embracing strategies that are as individual and dynamic as they are.
Halin Ser
Fess Ma
Wells Fargo Advisors is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, Member SIPC. [CAR-0820-02120]. Wealth Manager Award Winner
We Plan on You Retiring
YEAR WINNER
Donald Aulbert
∙ Dedicated to your financial success ∙ 2012 – 2020 Five Star Wealth Manager Sommer Investments, LLC was started to provide independent and objective financial advice. When our clients are truly confident in their financial stability, we have done our job. Whether you are experienced in the world of financial matters or are just starting to build your portfolio, Sommer Investments, LLC is willing to help you every step of the way. Our experienced staff contributes additional value through continuing education for those working with us. Securities offered through Securities America, Inc., Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory Services offered through BEAM Asset Management, LLC. Securities America, Inc., BEAM Asset Management, LLC and Sommer Investments, LLC are separate entities. Wealth Manager Award Winner
Willi Str
Billy Inv
Financial Advisor, Partner
7417 Mexico Road St. Peters, MO 63376 Office: 636-397-6200 donald.aulbert@lpl.com www.donaulbert.com
8
Mich
Robe
YEAR WINNER
Betsy
Don Aulbert is a financial advisor committed to providing holistic financial advice and personalized service. Specializing in comprehensive wealth accumulation, preservation and transfer strategies, he offers the knowledge and experience required to work toward the needs of successful individuals, families, businesses and charitable organizations.
Joss Ser
Willi
Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA & SIPC. Investment advice offered through Cornerstone Wealth Management, a registered investment advisor and separate entity from LPL Financial. Wealth Manager Award Winner
Certifie Financ The Five Star Wealth Manager award, administered by Crescendo Business Services, LLC (dba Five Star Professional), is based on 10 objective criteria. Eligibility criteria – required: 1. Credentialed as a registered investment adviser or a registered investment adviser representative; 2. Actively licensed as a registered investment adviser or as a principal of a registered investment adviser firm for a minimum of 5 years; 3. Favorable regulatory and complaint history review (As defined by Five Star Professional, the wealth manager has not; A. Been subject to a regulatory action that resulted in a license being suspended or revoked, or payment of a fine; B. Had more than a total of three settled or pending complaints filed against them and/or a total of five settled, pending, dismissed or denied complaints with any regulatory authority or Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process. Unfavorable feedback may have been discovered through a check of complaints registered with a regulatory authority or complaints registered through Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process; feedback may not be representative of any one clients’ experience; C. Individually contributed to a financial settlement of a customer complaint; D. Filed for personal bankruptcy within the past 11 years; E. Been terminated from a financial services firm within the past 11 years; F. Been convicted of a felony); 4. Fulfilled their firm review based on internal standards; 5. Accepting new clients. Evaluation criteria – considered: 6. One-year client retention rate; 7. Five-year client retention rate; 8. Non-institutional discretionary and/or non-discretionary client assets administered; 9. Number of client households served; 10. Education and professional designations. Wealth managers do not pay a fee to be considered or placed on the final list of Five Star Wealth Managers. Award does not evaluate quality of services provided to clients. Once awarded, wealth managers may purchase additional profile ad space or promotional products. The Five Star award is not indicative of the wealth manager’s future performance. Wealth managers may or may not use discretion in their practice and therefore may not manage their clients’ assets. The inclusion of a wealth manager on the Five Star Wealth Manager list should not be construed as an endorsement of the wealth manager by Five Star Professional or this publication. Working with a Five Star Wealth Manager or any wealth manager is no guarantee as to future investment success, nor is there any guarantee that the selected wealth managers will be awarded this accomplishment by Five Star Professional in the future. For more information on the Five Star award and the research/selection methodology, go to fivestarprofessional.com. 2,431 St. Louis-area wealth managers were considered for the award; 170 (7% of candidates) were named 2020 Five Star Wealth Managers. 2019: 2,481 considered, 185 winners; 2018: 2533 considered, 179 winners; 2017: 1,681 considered, 181 winners; 2016: 1,427 considered, 324 winners; 2015: 2,194 considered, 358 winners; 2014: 1,401 considered, 389 winners; 2013: 1,726 considered, 485 winners; 2012: 1,800 considered, 455 winners.
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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION Continued from FS-2
Joseph A. Rosenbaum ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
David Allen Adam ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Stephen M. Erken ∙ Maxele Advisors
Kevin Michael Landy ∙ Merrill Lynch
John William Adams ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Robert Edwin Ferguson ∙ Millennium Financail Group
Matthew Aaron Lapides ∙ MBM Wealth Consultants
Jerry Alan Adzima ∙ Reliant Financial Services
Matt D. Fisher ∙ Mariner Wealth Advisors
Paul Douglas Larson ∙ Larson Financial Group
Dennis Scott Sappington ∙ Morgan Stanley
Kevin W. Albritton ∙ Albritton Financial Services
Todd Michael Freund ∙ Freund & Co. Investment Advisors
Peter Joseph Lazaroff ∙ Plancorp
Thomas Karl Schlag ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Anthony Ziad Gennaoui ∙ Droms Strauss Wealth Management
Thomas Scott Lennartz ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Mark A. Schuette ∙ Prudential Advisors
Lawrence R. Lexow ∙ Nicol Advisors
Morris W. Shank ∙ IFG Advisory
Paul Joseph Liberatore ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Maribeth Renee Snodgrass ∙ HM Capital Management
Brian Paul Lich ∙ Money Concepts Advisory Service
Mark John Stegmann ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Kathleen Keary Marsden ∙ Buckingham Strategic Wealth
Eric P. Steiner ∙ Trinity Wealth Advisors
Richard Alan Hale ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Thomas Morris Martin ∙ LPL Financial
Peter Beyerstedt Harre ∙ Cauble & Harre
Bradley Dean Stiegemeier ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
John Michael McArthur ∙ Krilogy Financial
Neal M. Albritton ∙ Albritton Financial Services Lisa Michelle Avenevoli ∙ Steve Robbins Jason Robert Baldus ∙ Visionary Wealth Advisors Terri Elizabeth Beaty ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Adam Gene Goldstein ∙ Buckingham Strategic Wealth
Matthew W. Becker ∙ Eagle Strategies
James Wides Goralnik ∙ RBC
Brian R. Bell ∙ RBC
Kevin R. Grelle ∙ RFG Advisory
Aaron Michael Bockman ∙ Synergy Wealth Solutions
Todd J. Groesch ∙ Nicol Advisors
David Scott Boersig ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC Bill Andrew Brinkmeyer ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors Jeffrey Jerram Brown ∙ Shearwater Capital Michael R. Brown ∙ Krilogy Financial Todd B. Buss ∙ Equitable Advisors Christopher Joshua Campo ∙ MML Investors Services John M. Carter ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors Liz H. Cauble ∙ Cauble & Harre Josef D. Chiapelli ∙ KCH Financial Michael Dewayne Clark ∙ Visionary Wealth Advisors Joseph Aloysius Coleman ∙ First Allied Securities Robert Paul Compton ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors Elizabeth Frances Connelly ∙ Krilogy Financial Halina Jozefa Conti ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
James E. Matush Jr. ∙ Trinity Wealth Advisors
Michael Haverstick ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Michael Edward McMurtrey ∙ McMurtrey Financial
Mark Dean Heffernan ∙ Moneta Group Investment Advisors
Scott Charles Meine ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Myron Christian Henley ∙ Northwestern Mutual John Drew Henry ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Mark A. Minnella ∙ Integrity Investors Michael Moeller ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors Shannon Faye Moenkhaus ∙ Clarity Financial Planners
Harry Curtis Ittner ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
James R. Moore ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Carolynn Vasel ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC Kerry B. Vetter ∙ Merrill Lynch Maryann Irene Vognild ∙ Greencourse Financial Advisors
William Sam Kallaos Jr. ∙ Cornerstone Wealth Management
Eric William Mundwiller ∙ AdvicePeriod
Douglas Voss ∙ Voss Financial Services
Michael Scott Murphy ∙ Droms Strauss Wealth Management
Bob Leo Edmund Wacker ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Brian E. Keister ∙ Commonwealth Financial Network Charles Dennis Kemper ∙ Frontier Wealth Management Pamela E. Kennon ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Mark Stahlmann Muschick ∙ LPL Financial
Timothy Walkenhorst ∙ Securian Financial Services
Kevin George Nicol ∙ Nicol Fianancial Services
Bradley Thomas Wastler ∙ LPL Financial
Jeremy D. North ∙ 360 IRA
Brian Paul Watkins ∙ Morgan Stanley
Chad M. Opel ∙ Visionary Wealth Advisors
David Waynick ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Daniel Jordan Klein ∙ RFG Advisory
Joseph Alan Pesnell ∙ Frontier Wealth Management
Nathaniel W. Klitzing ∙ Cambridge
Anne Marie Phelps ∙ BDO Wealth Advisors
Billy David Dickens III ∙ Moneta Group Investment Advisors
Margaret Jean Klokkenga ∙ Clayton Financial Group
James Pommert ∙ Equitta Advisors
Michael Gerlando DiSalvo ∙ Krilogy Financial
Bradford William Koeneman ∙ Moneta Group Investment Advisors
William Jack Elliot ∙ Morgan Stanley
Kevin Scott Swinigan ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Geneen Marie Von Kloha ∙ Moneta Group Investment Advisors
William Patrick Davis ∙ Archford Capital Strategies
Joss Louis D’Souza ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Julie Thomas Sward ∙ Moneta Group Investment Advisors
Tammy Lyn Mudd ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Lindsey Kerber ∙ Renaissance Financial
Betsy E. Dow ∙ Mariner Wealth Advisors
Randall Todd Stewart ∙ RTS Financial Consultants
Christopher Joseph Jacobs ∙ Cambridge
Fess Eugene Crockett ∙ 4-C Personal Wealth Management Consultants
Robert Toombs Dixon ∙ Dixon Financial Services
Michelle Marie Sabo ∙ Wells Fargo Advisors
Kristin Bence Poole ∙ Krilogy Financial John David Rehani ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Jeffrey J. Kohls ∙ Thrivent Richard Freeman Kraner ∙ BDO Wealth Advisors
Jason Gerard Reynolds ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Greg Dean Kraus ∙ Merrill Lynch
Kevin Michael Reynolds ∙ Krilogy Financial
Gary D. Kulik ∙ Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Dennis Alan Roodman ∙ LPL Financial
William Robert Weckback ∙ MBM Wealth Consultants Benjamin Matthew Westerman ∙ HM Capital Management Matthew Lawrence Westhoff ∙ MBM Wealth Consultants Craig Joseph Wright ∙ On Investment Management Co. Richard John Zaegel ∙ Cetera Advisor Networks William Christopher Ziebold ∙ Nicol Advisors
Jennifer Sue Landers ∙ Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, Certified finanCial Planner™ and federally registered CFP (with flame design) in the U.S., which it awards to individuals who successfully complete CFP Board’s initial and ongoing certification requirements. The Chartered Financial Consultant credential [ChFC®] is a financial planning designation awarded by The American College. The Five Star Wealth Manager award, administered by Crescendo Business Services, LLC (dba Five Star Professional), is based on 10 objective criteria. Eligibility criteria – required: 1. Credentialed as a registered investment adviser or a registered investment adviser representative; 2. Actively licensed as a registered investment adviser or as a principal of a registered investment adviser firm for a minimum of 5 years; 3. Favorable regulatory and complaint history review (As defined by Five Star Professional, the wealth manager has not; A. Been subject to a regulatory action that resulted in a license being suspended or revoked, or payment of a fine; B. Had more than a total of three settled or pending complaints filed against them and/or a total of five settled, pending, dismissed or denied complaints with any regulatory authority or Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process. Unfavorable feedback may have been discovered through a check of complaints registered with a regulatory authority or complaints registered through Five Star Professional’s consumer complaint process; feedback may not be representative of any one clients’ experience; C. Individually contributed to a financial settlement of a customer complaint; D. Filed for personal bankruptcy within the past 11 years; E. Been terminated from a financial services firm within the past 11 years; F. Been convicted of a felony); 4. Fulfilled their firm review based on internal standards; 5. Accepting new clients. Evaluation criteria – considered: 6. One-year client retention rate; 7. Five-year client retention rate; 8. Non-institutional discretionary and/or non-discretionary client assets administered; 9. Number of client households served; 10. Education and professional designations. Wealth managers do not pay a fee to be considered or placed on the final list of Five Star Wealth Managers. Award does not evaluate quality of services provided to clients. Once awarded, wealth managers may purchase additional profile ad space or promotional products. The Five Star award is not indicative of the wealth manager’s future performance. Wealth managers may or may not use discretion in their practice and therefore may not manage their clients’ assets. The inclusion of a wealth manager on the Five Star Wealth Manager list should not be construed as an endorsement of the wealth manager by Five Star Professional or this publication. Working with a Five Star Wealth Manager or any wealth manager is no guarantee as to future investment success, nor is there any guarantee that the selected wealth managers will be awarded this accomplishment by Five Star Professional in the future. For more information on the Five Star award and the research/selection methodology, go to fivestarprofessional.com. 2,431 St. Louis-area wealth managers were considered for the award; 170 (7% of candidates) were named 2020 Five Star Wealth Managers. 2019: 2,481 considered, 185 winners; 2018: 2533 considered, 179 winners; 2017: 1,681 considered, 181 winners; 2016: 1,427 considered, 324 winners; 2015: 2,194 considered, 358 winners; 2014: 1,401 considered, 389 winners; 2013: 1,726 considered, 485 winners; 2012: 1,800 considered, 455 winners.
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S P EC IA L A DV E R T IS IN G S EC T IO N
LEADERS IN LAW These local firms represent knowledge and experience in different areas of laws. Use the following pages as an additional tool in your search for quality legal representation.
The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.
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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON
Bringing Clients Exceptional and Cost-Effective Service with Superior Results Hais, Hais & Goldberger Hais, Hais & Goldberger is a full-service family law firm, limiting its practice to complex divorce cases and modifications of decrees, custody, property division and support, business and professional practice valuations, stock options, tax-related divorce issues, pension problems, and enforcement of decrees. Its core staff of full-time attorneys and paralegals has provided in-depth client services, meticulous case preparation, and complete litigation management throughout
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the firm’s 40-year history. Additionally, the firm employs an extended group of financial experts, tax– and pension–benefits professionals, therapists, psychologists, and vocational experts to provide the highest level of preparation possible in its trial presentations. Since launching the firm in 1979, founder Susan M. Hais has represented many of St. Louis’ most prominent citizens from a great variety of professions and occupations, and has been personally responsible for the establishment of an impressive array of legal precedents in the areas of divorce law, child custody, benefits, grandparents’ rights, property division, and spousal support. Before joining the firm, Samuel J. Hais was a judge of the 21st Judicial Circuit, St. Louis County, where he was a founding member and judge of the Family Court of St. Louis County for many years. Samuel and Susan have both written and lectured extensively in the area of family law. In 2007, the firm was proud to welcome partner Elliot Goldberger, who has practiced law for more than 25 years, concentrating on family law.
The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.
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S P EC IA L A DV E R T I S I NG S EC T I O N
Dzenana Delic received her bachelor’s degree from Maryville University. She graduated from Valparaiso University School of Law. During her time in law school, Dzenana served as a certified legal intern in Indiana and Illinois representing indigent clients in criminal law matters and was a participant in National Trial Advocacy Competitions. She recently made partner in the firm. Daniel Zdrodowski is an experienced civil litigator who is not afraid to take on novel or unique legal issues. He is licensed in both Missouri and Illinois and has practiced in every court in the Greater St. Louis area. Patrick J. Rollings graduated from Washington University School of Law and received his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University. He is licensed to practice law in Missouri and Illinois. While in law school, Patrick clerked at the Missouri Eastern District Court of Appeals. Since he first started practicing law, Patrick has focused on civil litigation from the pre-filing analysis to post-verdict motions. Sarah Washburn graduated from DePaul University College of Law,
where she was actively involved in the family law legal clinic representing indigent clients in family law matters. Following law school, she worked for an international intellectual property law firm as a patent associate before returning to her true passion of family law. Sarah is a tenacious advocate for her clients in all areas of family law, focused on guiding her clients through high-stress situations. The guiding principle of Hais, Hais & Goldberger has always been to provide services in the practice area of family law in the most effective manner, with the utmost level of professional integrity, at the fairest and most reasonable cost. The practice keeps as its credo the words of Abraham Lincoln: “Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.” 222 S. CENTRAL AVENUE, STE. 600, CLAYTON, MO 63105 314-326-4885 | HHG-LAW.COM
PICTURED: Samuel J. Hais and Susan M. Hais
The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.
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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON
Family Law with a Team Approach Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal, PC Caring, responsive, and realistic advice. Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal clients expect it, and Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal attorneys deliver it. When you call or email a PBC attorney, expect a prompt response. When a critical issue arises, they will advise you honestly and directly. If your case can be settled, they will apply their many years of experience to getting you the best possible outcome. If it has to be tried, they have some of the most battle-tested lawyers in Missouri at your disposal. With 13 attorneys who work exclusively in family law and another 18 lawyers with diverse areas of knowledge including business, estate planning, tax, real estate, elder law, disability law, intellectual property, litigation, insurance defense, and immigration, they can find the right lawyer for your individual needs.
Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal, PC is proud of its eight lawyers who have been honored with recognition by Best Lawyers® for 2021, including five in family law: Alisse C. Camazine, Alan E. Freed, Bruce E. Friedman, Amy Hoch Hogenson, and Lisa G. Moore. Alisse, Bruce, and Lisa have each been honored in 2010, 2014 and 2020, and 2017 respectively as St. Louis “Lawyer of the Year” in Family Law, and Alan was named as St. Louis “Lawyer of the Year” in Family Law Mediation for 2021. Other PCB Best Lawyers® honorees for 2021 are Thomas M. Blumenthal (Mediation, Arbitration), D. Keith Henson (Litigation – Municipal), and Donald W. Paule (Real Estate, M&A, Corporate, Trusts & Estates). Call and find out how Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal can make a difference in your life.
LEFT TO RIGHT: Allison Schreiber Lee, Alan E. Freed, Samantha B. Jones, Kathryn L. Dudley, Tim R. Schlesinger, Alisse C. Camazine, Bruce E. Friedman, Susan E. Block, Lisa G. Moore, Amy Hoch Hogenson, Lauren A. Gearhart, Amy Rebecca Johnson, Eleanore I. Palozola 165 N. MERAMEC AVENUE STE. 110 ST. LOUIS, MO 63105 314-727-2266 1001 BOARDWALK SPRINGS PLACE STE. 111 O’FALLON, MO 63368 636-443-2050 PCBLAWFIRM.COM
How do your attorneys help others in the community outside of the office? PCB attorneys volunteer for organizations throughout the community including Safe Connections, Kids In The Middle, Food Outreach, Gateway to Hope, Alzheimer’s Association, Family Resource Center, Caring for Kids, Ambassadors of Harmony Foundation, The Sheldon, Women’s Safe House, St. Francis Community Services, and the Saint Louis Zoo.
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The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.
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S P EC IA L A DV E R T I S I NG S EC T I O N
Advocacy, Passion, Results Frankel, Rubin, Klein, Siegel, Payne & Pudlowski, PC
STANDING, FROM LEFT: Mayer S. Klein, Michael J. Payne, Mark S. Rubin; SEATED: Elaine A. Pudlowski, Leonard J. Frankel
Leonard Frankel’s mediation experience includes employment law, personal injury, contracts, statutory remedies, and family law. Frankel is listed in The Best Lawyers in America© for his expertise in mediation and family law mediation. He was named St. Louis “Lawyer of the Year” in Family Law Mediation in 2012, 2014, and 2020 and St. Louis “Lawyer of the Year” in Mediation in 2013, 2015, and 2021. Mark Rubin practices in the fields of health care law with an emphasis on long-term care, representing local, regional and national skilled nursing homes, assisted living and senior independent living developers and operators, real estate, commercial, and corporate law. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America© in 2021 for his expertise in Health Care Law. Michael Payne practices in the fields of civil and fiduciary litigation, and estate planning. In 2012, Payne was recognized as an “Up and Coming Lawyer” by Missouri Lawyers Weekly. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America© in 2021 for his expertise in civil litigation. Elaine Pudlowski practices in the field of domestic relations handling divorce, paternity, child custody, support, and adoptions. Elaine is certified as a court-appointed guardian ad litem, mediator and parent coordinator. She received the Women’s Justice Award in 2019 and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America©, in 2020 and 2021, for her expertise in Family Law. 231 S. BEMISTON, STE. 1111, CLAYTON, MO 63105 314-725-8000 | FRANKELRUBIN.COM
Marta Papa Helps Clients Divorce During the Pandemic Without Going to Court Marta J. Papa, PC
Marta J. Papa, P.C.
How has the pandemic changed how you work? Using mediation,
After helping more than 14,000 unhappy couples dissolve their marriages, Marta Papa knows the secrets to working within the court system to get her clients the results they want. If the courts are closed, she can use divorce mediation to help them make their own decisions and run their divorce through the courts’ computer system to get the judge’s signature in as little as two months for about $5,000, without ever appearing in court. Mediation saves time, lots of money, and their children from being harmed by the usual conflict of divorce. If clients can’t mediate and need legal protection from their spouse, Marta Papa is a seasoned litigator who can defend clients and help them protect their rights, their children, and their property. She can also help clients design a blueprint for their future, so they can wake up each day and live their new life which is full of things that are important to them.
I can help clients divorce in a few months for $5,000, whether the courts are open or closed. Answered by Marta Papa.
314-862-0202 | CONSIDERINGDIVORCE.COM INFO@CONSIDERINGDIVORCE.COM
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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON
Consistently Providing Outstanding Results for Injury Victims for 28 Years Holland Injury Law
How has the pandemic changed how you work? The pandemic allowed me to have dinner with my family six to seven times a week—which is super rare for a busy trial lawyer! Answered by Bill Holland.
FIRST ROW, FROM LEFT: Julie Holland, April Dudley, Nancee Ripcse, Aliyah Brooks, Sharon Brooner; BACK ROW: John Moffitt, Bill Holland, Joe McDowell, Meghan Pohrer
Whether helping victims fight their way through the insurance company maze or ensuring they receive timely and appropriate medical care, the lawyers at Holland Injury Law are always available to answer questions. Backed by an exceptionally strong team, Holland Injury Law offers big-firm, state-of-the-art technology coupled with small-firm, personal support and guidance. The firm has been featured on local TV stations including KSDK, KMOV, and Fox 2 News for their work with high-profile personal injury cases. Bill Holland has been recognized as a Missouri Kansas Super Lawyer, a National Trial Lawyer Top 100 Lawyer, and a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America. Holland has personally recovered more than $100 million for his clients. Clients appreciate his passion: “I will always be grateful for William Holland and highly recommend him to anyone in need of a caring and professional attorney. William worked tirelessly on my wrongful death case and helped me through the most difficult challenge of my life.” 130 S. BEMISTON AVE, STE. 706, ST. LOUIS, MO 63105 314-888-7888 | STLINJURY.LAWYER
Practical Solutions for Complex Problem Raza & Jones, LLC
Susan Amato
How has the pandemic changed how your law office works? We had already structured ourselves for a remote-working, paperless environment before the pandemic so we easily transitioned to
Founding attorneys Sophy Raza and Stephanie Jones were once again voted by their peers to the prestigious annual listing of Best Lawyers in America© for 2021 in Family Law, while associate attorneys Sarah Wittrock and Kayte Rossi were named to the Best Lawyers®: Ones to Watch list for 2021 in Family Law. The firm is exclusively focused on representing individuals in all family law matters. They provide compassionate, effective representation for clients, and do it with the backing of a collective 30 years of experience practicing family law. For many, family-related matters are the only reason that they ever hire an attorney. When in need of legal advice due to a pending divorce or other family-related issue, you may have no idea what to expect. They strive to make the process as clear and easy as possible. Whether you’re going through a divorce, structuring a prenuptial agreement, or modifying child support or custody, they understand this time of need and are passionate about treating clients like family. Each attorney is committed to finding creative solutions to clients’ legal needs. They represent fiancés, spouses, parents, same-sex partners, and anyone else in need of counsel on family law matters.
offering legal services remotely. It has worked really well for our clients too. Answered by Stephanie Jones, founding attorney.
1610 DES PERES ROAD, STE. 340, ST. LOUIS, MO 63131 314-449-8830 | RAZAJONES.COM
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The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.
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S P EC IA L A DV E R T I S I NG S EC T I O N
Navigating the Legal Process with a Focus on Emotional Health and the Future Amato Family Law, LLC
Susan L. Amato
What is something your clients would never guess about you? Perhaps that I am a registered yoga teacher. There are many overlaps in conflict resolution practice and yoga practice. The need
Susan Amato’s practice focuses on resolving family law disputes through mediation, collaborative practice, and litigation. She has the experience necessary to assist you in selecting the process needed to resolve your family law matters and to guide you through the complex legal and financial issues that you face. She will help you to resolve issues around the parenting of your children and to focus on the future. Amato is a recognized trailblazer in mediation and collaborative law on the forefront of introducing, developing, and utilizing these methods in the St. Louis legal arena. A graduate of Washington University School of Law, Amato has held the Martindale-Hubbell AV Peer Review rating for professional excellence for 15 years. She is a Certifed Advanced Practitioner with the Academy of Professional Family Mediators and has been named by Best Lawyers® as St. Louis Collaborative Law Family Law “Lawyer of the Year” in 2015 and 2019 and as St. Louis Family Law Mediation “Lawyer of the Year” in 2016.
for a steady mind and ability to stay balanced even through some 230 S. BEMISTON AVENUE, STE. 510, CLAYTON, MO 63105
heat. Answered by Susan Amato.
314-727-7122 | AMATOFAMILYLAW.COM
A Record of Success in State and Federal Courts All Over the Country The Law Offices of John M. Lynch, LLC When dealing with a serious criminal matter, personal-injury, or employment discrimination issue, you need an experienced lawyer to aggressively pursue your case. As a former police investigator, federal drug task force agent, and insurance defense attorney, John M. Lynch understands how the other side views an issue. Clients benefit from his breadth of legal knowledge and ability to offer a candid perspective for realistic solutions that benefit his clients. The media, judiciary, and peers recognize Lynch for his excellent legal guidance. Other attorneys often call him to assist with tough criminal cases or help with their civil litigation. His legal proficiency is demonstrated not only by his record of case successes, including acquittals for his criminal clients, but also the millions recovered for his civil clients. The result is his inclusion in Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers and Rising Stars lists. Mr. Lynch has received an AV Preeminent® rating, the highest possible rating by Martindale-Hubbell®, a nationally recognized rating agency. Mr. Lynch also serves as a high-demand legal commentator, routinely appearing on many local and national news outlets.
John M. Lynch
5770 MEXICO ROAD, STE. A, ST. PETERS, MO 63376 314-726-9999 | LYNCHLAWONLINE.COM
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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON
Working Hard to Protect Your Interests and Achieve the Best Outcome Gausnell, O’Keefe & Thomas, LLC
What’s your favorite part about practicing law in this region? St. Louis is a big small town, and the collegiality and professionalism demonstrated by local lawyers set us apart from many major metropolitan areas. Our judges are hard-working and juries fair-minded. Answered by William (Bill) Thomas, member.
LEFT TO RIGHT: Don O’Keefe, Hayley Hughes, William (Bill) Thomas; Tim McAleenan, Seth Gausnell
Gausnell, O’Keefe & Thomas, LLC is founded on principles of hard work, ethics and professionalism, and driven by clients’ successes. The firm is grateful that founding member William (Bill) Thomas, is recognized by Best Lawyers in America© in 2021 for Construction Law. The founding members each have 25 years or more of deep industry knowledge and extensive practical trial experience bringing a unique perspective to issues their clients face. Whether it be upfront risk assessment, loss prevention or coverage analysis, or a litigated matter, mediation, arbitration or civil trial, the lawyers at GOT have the skills and know-how to get the best outcome. Along with Bill Thomas, the firm is happy to recognize firm associates Tim McAleenan and Hayley Hughes for their inclusion in this year’s issue. Bill has now been recognized as a top construction lawyer for the past three years, and Tim and Hayley are included in the inaugural edition of Best Lawyers®: Ones to Watch for Personal Injury Litigation–Defendants. Gausnell, O’Keefe & Thomas help clients navigate the complexities of claims and litigation. The team knows results are what matter most and pride themselves on their record of success. 701 MARKET STREET, STE. 200, ST. LOUIS, MO 63101 314-257-9800 | GOTLAWSTL.COM
Dedicated to Preserving Clients’ Constitutional Rights to a Fair Trial Newman Bronson & Wallis
Mark I. Bronson, Marc S. Wallis, Lauren E. Bronson
How has the pandemic changed how your law office works? We have used the disruption of daily in-office tasks as an opportunity to laser focus on strategic planning for our client’s
The trial lawyers at Newman Bronson & Wallis represent individuals and families who suffer injury or death due to dangerous behavior. They strive to make the community safer and are dedicated to preserving the people’s 7th Amendment constitutional right to a jury trial. They do this through advocating for the community’s best interests and by ensuring the civil justice system is doing what it should be doing: promoting justice and correcting injustice. NB&W’s experienced trial lawyers hold dangerous drivers, corporations, tractor trailer companies, product and pharmaceutical manufacturers, and employers accountable for the harm they cause. NB&W has more than 80 years of combined legal experience recovering compensation for people injured by others’ disregard for the safety of the community. NB&W makes sure their clients’ voices are heard by working together to right these wrongs.
cases and to communicate more often with our clients about their lives. Answered by Lauren Bronson, trial lawyer.
2300 WEST PORT PLAZA DRIVE, ST. LOUIS, MO 63146 314-878-8200 | NEWMANBRONSON.COM
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The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.
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S P EC IA L A DV E R T I S I NG S EC T I O N
Representing Clients in Appellate, Family, and Criminal Law Cases The Family Law Group, LLC
Benicia Livorsi
How do you unwind? I enjoy using technology to learn physics, math, and history. I also am learning how to create art and
The Family Law Group, LLC represents family members in crisis. Known for innovative advocacy, Benicia Livorsi initiated the United States’ first international extradition against a parent for financial nonsupport. Recognizing the importance of supporting her community, Benicia has been a municipal prosecutor, a president of the local bar association, a foster parent for nearly a decade, and a guardian ad litem for nearly 20 years. Benicia is a well-known appellate lawyer who has successfully won a reversal in the United States Supreme Court as well as successfully briefed and argued numerous cases in the Missouri appellate courts and the Missouri Supreme Court. The Family Law Group, LLC is primarily focused on matters related to family law such as divorce, custody cases, adoptions, juvenile cases, and similar matters in all levels of the judicial system within Missouri. Their office also handles criminal matters that typically affect family members, from minor speeding tickets to more substantial abuse allegations and DWI matters.
refreshing my violin- and piano-playing. Having a hobby during a pandemic is crucial. Answered by Benicia Livorsi.
6 WESTBURY DRIVE, STE. D, ST. CHARLES, MO 63301 636-947-8181 | FAMILYLAWGROUPLLC.COM
There’s more to see online!
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OCTOBER 4, 1906 (113 YEARS
Long Live the King? Continued from p. 85
independent dive into the history than from a look at how their co-partisans were lining up. And on this issue, their alignment jibes with recent research by political psychologists: Folks on the left tend to be more open to the unfamiliar (such as a renamed city), whereas those on the right generally show a preference for order and tradition. Yet the left-right prism only reveals so much here. Place names—or “toponyms,” to use the technical term—are the fruit of a primal human impulse. Nearly every language has them. Place names are so crucial to cooperation that governments at the highest levels have set up bodies to standardize them and resolve disputes. (In the United States, most flashpoints over the past half century have been racist or sexist names for land features, such as Squaw Peak in Montana.) Scholars Lisa Radding and John Western wrote in the Geographical Review in 2010 that when it comes to toponyms, “we sometimes are prepared to fight. We care about names differently from how we care about other words.” Indeed, place names are like fossils— relics of the past, preserved today in our conversations, our text messages, our road signs. The meaning a name carries when it first circulates may fade with age, observes Tjeerd Tichelaar in a training manual issued by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, “but somewhere inside its iconic image and sound, in a fossilized form maybe and only extractable by the trained eye, it remains there to tell its own unique story to anyone who can see through the scars of time.” The name St. Louis is no exception. Dig into its past, layer by layer, and you begin to see why we’re talking about a French king, who he really was, and why we probably won’t be changing the name anytime soon.
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earlier). At Grand and Lindell, the sun warms the back of a police horse as it begins striding west, kicking off an epic civic celebration. Behind the horse rolls a carriage carrying Mayor Rolla Wells, and behind him, stretching 4 miles, is a parade of roughly 9,000 policemen, firemen, postal workers, and municipal employees, most on foot. There are “two gigantic avalanches of humanity banked on either side” of Lindell, the Globe-Democrat will later report, and as the city workers pass, their friends and acquaintances call out to them in “a continuous interchange of greetings, raillery and banter.” The cops give up trying to clear the parade’s path; traffic is a mess; vehicles clog the side streets. The head of the parade at last arrives, around 2:30 p.m., atop Art Hill, where an estimated 25,000 spectators have gathered. Wells steps up onto a reviewing stage to hear a speech by David Francis, president of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company. On behalf of his fellow shareholders, Francis is about to bestow upon the city a large statue, at that moment draped with a large cloth. Francis explains the meaning and motivation behind the statue—and religion, it turns out, has almost nothing to do with it. He gushes instead about the financial and educational benefits of the World’s Fair, which is still a fresh memory, and says that the statue “has been erected to mark the site where were congregated the representatives of the thought and progress of all ages.” It is “a present,” he says, “to the city of St. Louis in appreciation of the interest manifested” by the city and its residents in that huge undertaking. He mentions Christianity only indirectly, and even then he connects it to America’s civic tradition: “The gallant crusader whose name our city bears, panoplied in martial attire, and holding aloft his inverted sword, forming the cross, the cause to which he devoted so much time and treasure and effort, might be regarded as typifying that period in the history of the Louisiana territory during which its early settlers braved the dangers and hardships of frontier life, and by courage and sacrifices advanced the outposts of civilization, felling the forests, tilling the soil, establishing homes and extending commerce. Right
well did they perform their duty, it was a glorious heritage they left us.” (By “they,” he means white settlers, and by “us,” he’s likely not including the Black St. Louisans then living under segregation and certainly isn’t including the Native Americans pushed out long before.) Francis urges public and private funding for an art museum, then ends his remarks. The mayor’s daughter steps up and pulls a cord. The cloth falls, unveiling the statue. “A mighty cheer [can] be heard for miles,” the Globe later reports. The band plays “Dixie.” Mayor Wells gets the last word, and it’s brief. He calls the statue “a monument of remembrance to generations to come” of the hard work performed by the Exposition Company. He concludes: “Well may we all, as long as time permits, look upon the statue of St. Louis as our most cherished work of art.” DECEMBER, 1763 (142 YEARS
earlier). Two men plunge their oars into icy dark water, rowing north along the edge of the Mississippi. They’re in a canoe fashioned from a hollowed-out tree trunk. Soaked with sweat and wintry weather, they keep looking to the left, scanning for an ideal place to set up a trading post. The more mature man, Pierre Laclède (whose last name rhymes with “ahead”), is 34 years old. He’s a francophone, though his maternal language is Béarnais, the one spoken in the mountain village where he grew up, in the French Pyrenees, near the border with Spain. He comes from a distinguished family. As a second son, he was never going to inherit much, so he’s come to America to seek his fortune. Laclède is not a rigid Catholic; he’s a man of the Enlightenment. (His uncle had even been a good friend of the famous philosophe Voltaire.) He owns books banned by the Church. Back in New Orleans, he has a life partner, Marie Chouteau, whom he can’t marry under Church law because her husband has abandoned her without officially divorcing her, so she and Laclède have been living in sin. Laclède has taken her 14-yearold son, Auguste Chouteau, under his wing and, now, on this grueling canoe trip. They heave upriver, flanked by woodlands and mystery. They reach the mud gushing from the
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mouth of the Missouri River, then head back downstream to a spot that had seemed promising: a 2-mile-long limestone bluff on the west bank. They step ashore, climb to the top, look around. There are several earthen mounds, including one rising 34 feet above the ground. The people who built these structures are long gone, having dispersed centuries before. Their true name has vanished, too, but later they’ll be referred to as Cahokians. What the explorers are seeing is just an outpost of a much larger and equally uninhabited capital across the river. Laclède wastes no time deciding: This is the place. For one thing, it’s lifted off the river and therefore immune to flooding. It’s also endowed with hardwood, a prairie, and a freshwater spring. He grabs a blade and notches some trees. Then the pair heads back downstream to Fort de Chartres, where they have five plankboats of equipment and supplies awaiting them. Their goal is to erect a fur-trading post that will serve as a commercial satellite to New Orleans—and to get it humming tout de suite. The Crescent City badly needs an economic boost. Its royal sponsor across the Atlantic, France, has just ended a long war with Britain that’s sapped the city’s strength. Businesses are wrecked; inflation is soaring. Officials in New Orleans have therefore granted Laclède and a business partner exclusive rights to set up shop at the mouth of the Missouri to tap into the vast wilderness there. This is all happening without prior approval from the royal government at Versailles—a sort of “rogue colonialism,” as one historian will later put it. Still, the trading post must be situated on the west bank: Under the treaty that has ended the war, all the French land east of the mighty river, including the Illinois country, now belongs to the Brits. So in February 1764, as Laclède is busy making other preparations, Chouteau returns to the site above the river where they’ve notched the trees. He’s brought a work crew with him. They construct a warehouse and, later, huts on scaffolds raised 6 feet off the ground to offer protection from the prowling wildlife. In April, Laclède—having negotiated a trade alliance with the Osage Indians— makes it back to the site and finally gives it a name: St. Louis.
There’s nothing unusual about this choice, says Frederick Fausz, author of Founding St. Louis and retired history professor at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. In the age of European exploration, he notes, French colonialists were naming all kinds of things St. Louis—even the Mississippi itself, which they called le fleuve St. Louis. But in this case, it may be a political calculation. The French monarch of that moment, Louis XV, considers his North American holdings a boondoggle and a “useless wilderness.” The king’s lack of interest had become crystal clear in New Orleans when he declined to send much help during the war. So, Fausz believes, Laclède—ever the smooth diplomat— likely names his semilegal trading post after the king’s patron saint to flatter the monarch and maybe gain his favor and protection. Yet if that’s true, the gesture proves futile. Years earlier, unbeknownst to Laclède and everyone else in New Orleans, Louis XV had secretly ceded all of France’s land west of the Mississippi to his cousin King Carlos III of Spain to prevent it from falling into the hands of the British. Therefore, it appears, Laclède has in effect christened his site St. Louis to flatter a monarch who doesn’t even rule the territory anymore. Would Laclède have chosen another name if he’d known the truth? Probably not, opines Fausz. He would’ve felt no pressure to ingratiate himself to the Spanish, who didn’t even arrive to administer their newly gained territory until several years later. But it’s impossible to peer directly into his state of mind with the evidence that has survived. Much of what we know comes from Chouteau’s journal, which isn’t comprehensive. If Laclède kept notes, they’ve not turned up. Fausz suspects that he never took any. “Because they were violating so many laws,” Fausz posits, “they didn’t put a lot on paper, but I wish he’d written things down.” N OV E M B E R 2 9, 1 2 2 6 ( 5 3 7 Y E A R S
earlier). A 12-year-old boy is crowned king. His name is Louis. There, inside the unfinished Reims cathedral, he feels the weight of his royal coat and crown, smells the incense, listens to the chants. Adults have prepared him for this. His father has been dead two weeks, but his strong
mother, Blanche de Castille, is guiding him through the endless pageantry. As the late French historian Jacques Le Goff writes in his toaster-sized 1996 biography Saint Louis, the boy-king certainly will keep “a weighty and poignant memory of these hours, of these days when so many events, countrysides, decorations, and gestures paraded in the fading light of short, late autumn days.” The boy inherits the richest and most populous kingdom in Christendom. It encompasses about 10 million subjects, nearly all peasants, about whose joys and sufferings we know little today. The king lives in the walled capital of Paris, where laborers are stacking the stones of the Notre Dame cathedral into the sky, and students at the fledgling Sorbonne, on the left bank of the Seine, study theology. The streets are shared by beggars, the bourgeoisie, and everyone in between, including those who fascinate Louis the most: the mendicant friars. They wear simple robes, live off charity, and preach the word of God. Indeed, one of the first acts by the young king and his mother is to build a monastery for the Cistercian order. Louis travels to the site with his brothers and friends. He grips the handles of a stretcher holding stones for the construction and helps carry it—a chore far beneath his station. He orders his entourage to join in. When they goof off, he tells them to stay silent like the monks. Louis is exasperating to some people. At age 20 he marries 13-year-old Marguerite de Provence. Theirs is a diplomatic union. Louis doesn’t trust her political allegiance, so he restricts her freedom by forbidding her to accept gifts or even to employ servants to care for their children. She considers him “divers,” which translates loosely to “bizarre” or “difficult.” Louis is known to have soft dove eyes, and he grows to be a head taller than most Frenchmen. He earns a reputation as a military leader while battling the English and tamping down a rebellion in what’s now the South of France. (In that region, the Church conducts an inquisition to bring Cathar heretics into the Catholic fold; royal forces provide the muscle for this effort, burning some stubborn Cathars at the stake, but historians note that Louis plays no role in this.) In battle, Louis contracts a disease November 2020 stlmag.com
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that will plague him over and over: dysentery. He gets it again in 1244, and this time it’s so bad that an attendant thinks he’s dead and wants to cover his face with a sheet. But he mutters a vow that if he recovers, he’ll go on a crusade. Louis does recover, and he honors his vow: He will head to the Holy Land. Muslim forces have just invaded Jerusalem. They’ve slaughtered Christian residents, torched churches, and shrunk the gains of previous crusaders to a clutch of ports on the coast. Louis’ goal is to reverse that reversal, thereby restoring Christian authority over the land where he believes Jesus walked and died and rose again. Is such crusading a righteous defense against Muslim aggression, or is it itself an act of aggression? According to history professor Brian A. Catlos of the University of Colorado, it’s neither. In his book Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors, Catlos argues that Latin crusaders are minor challengers from a “rustic and underdeveloped” land on the outskirts of the Islamic world, which at the time is huge and highly sophisticated. Catlos finds that the Mediterranean of the period is a complex brawl in which Christians and Muslims ally against common adversaries—and that the worst atrocities are committed between militants of the same faith. “These were violent times,” Catlos writes. “Warfare, raiding, piracy, civil war, enslavement and gruesome capital justice were part of people’s daily lives.” He observes that although religion may serve as a justification for these wars, it’s rarely the true cause; to a large extent, the real triggers are “power, lust, greed and fear.” Yet Louis, Catlos writes, is a “fanatical Catholic.” Louis doesn’t want to just retake Jerusalem. As Princeton University history professor William C. Jordan points out in his book The Apple of His Eye, Louis and his fellow Catholics believe that the Apocalypse is at hand, and they yearn for mass conversions to prepare the way. One way to convert is to crusade. Jordan points to strong evidence that Louis will insist that if his commanders encounter a Muslim man defending his family, they should take him captive, if possible, instead of killing him, and should never slay Muslim wives and children. This policy, theorizes Jordan, will be for Louis
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“the initial step in proselytizing entire Muslim families.” Louis’ project gets a lukewarm reception at best. By 1244, crusades are seen by many Europeans as outdated. Other Christian rulers decline to join him. His mother begs him not to go, but he’s unmoved. He designates her head of state in his absence. Before leaving, he attends the dedication of the SainteChappelle, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture in Paris. He has commissioned it to house holy relics that he’s purchased, at enormous expense, to infuse himself and his people with extra holiness. In August 1248, he sets sail with thousands of horses, knights, foot soldiers, and crossbowmen—perhaps as many as 20,000 men in total. They regroup in Cyprus, then launch for Egypt. It’s a debacle. The crusaders seize the town of Damietta but then fall prey to illnesses that blacken their skin and rot their gums. They end up surrendering to the Egyptians, who kill the wounded and hold everyone else hostage. Queen Marguerite cobbles together a huge ransom to free them. (Famously, Louis grows incensed upon learning that his team has cheated the Muslims out of part of this ransom; he believes his word should be kept.) The Egyptians free the king and some advisers but are slow to release the troops. Louis travels to the Christian port of Acre, north of Jerusalem, where he spends several years fortifying Christian territory and monitoring from afar progress toward his troops’ release. News of his mother’s death arrives, racking him with grief. France, he realizes, has no strong leader. He decides it’s time to sail back home. He also, according to Jordan’s book, arranges for as many as 1,500 Muslim warriors, slaves, and poor people to be baptized, brought to France, and resettled as free Christians under his sponsorship. While sailing home with his entourage, Louis discovers his brother playing backgammon on the boat. It’s a game of chance and therefore sinful. He angrily seizes the board and tosses it into the sea—a preview of a changed king. LOUIS IS NOT THE SAME MAN BACK
in France. He thinks his crusade failed because of his own sinfulness. To purify himself and make penance, he engages
in some next-level piety. He wears coarse clothing and accepts flagellation with an iron chain. He dilutes his wines and sauces. He abstains from conjugal relations with the queen and avoids laughing on Fridays. He ruins his health by waking in the wee hours to hear prayers. He stays humble by sitting on the floor when chatting with people, and he dignifies his servants by addressing them with the formal vous, the more respectful form of “you.” The king spends large sums on the destitute and sick, on hospitals and nunneries and homes for women trying to leave sex work, on craftsmen who can’t work anymore. He invites the hungry into his own bedroom and serves them food himself; there are stories of his hand-feeding cooked fish to a blind man and salty chicken to a leprous monk. On Saturdays, he washes the feet of the poor. He does this in secret, not only out of humility but also to avoid the criticism of high society, who find all this wildly inappropriate. “The king’s behavior disturbed people,” wrote Le Goff. They likely saw him as a “a scandalous hybrid”—an ascetic “monk-king” or “friar-king.” The deepest impact, though, comes from Louis’ efforts to purify his kingdom. Some of these measures look, in 2020, like theocratic tyranny. By edict, he bans games of chance, ostracizes sex workers, and outlaws blasphemy. (That blasphemy ban, by the way, is no joke: The king punishes one foul-mouthed Parisian of the middle class by having his lips branded with a hot iron.) But other reforms look today like good governance: Louis declares that royal officials may neither accept gifts nor give any to their superiors, and they may no longer jail anyone for being in debt to the crown. Further, he orders them to render justice without favoritism and to assume a defendant’s innocence until he’s proven guilty. Louis doesn’t stop there. He dispatches a squad of enquêteurs (ombudsmen), many of them friars, out into the realm to hear commoners’ complaints and offer redress. Especially in the south, where just years earlier the crown crushed a rebellion, the friars seek out widows and orphans, let them speak about their hardships in the vernacular, and make them whole. The friars do this,
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Jordan finds, “with sincerity and verve.” Louis formalizes the justice system through a body called the parlement (which sounds legislative but is actually judicial). He travels the country hearing cases himself. There’s an image of him, now iconic in France, in which he’s outside the royal residence at Vincennes, seated at the foot of an oak tree, listening to his subjects’ complaints and rendering justice. Louis earns such a reputation for being above petty politics, in fact, that other European rulers seek him out as an international arbiter; on a dozen occasions, he resolves their disputes. Yet one community has reason to view him as a despot: Jews, of whom 50,000 to 100,000 reside in France. Louis appears to be inspired by widespread myths that Jews killed Jesus and that they ritualistically murder Catholic babies. According to one witness, the purity-obsessed Louis says Jews must not be allowed to “infect” France with their “venom” and that they should either leave or halt their “filthy practices,” by which he means usury, or lending at interest. By the 1260s, Louis has already seized Jewish assets to help fund his crusade, and also canceled debts that Christians owed to Jews. He has further ordered roundups and mass burnings of the Talmud—a book considered at the Sorbonne to be blasphemous to Jesus, not to mention a hurdle to converting Jews. “That does not excuse it,” writes Tom Madden, a history professor at Saint Louis University who otherwise defends Louis in the Catholic magazine First Things. Louis’ burning of the Talmud, Madden writes, “is indefensible and certainly constitutes persecution.” Furthermore, during the king’s stint in the Holy Land, he had ordered Jews expelled from his kingdom, though he later clarifies that he had meant only usurers and allows some Jews to return, offering them restitution. In 1269, Louis enacts the wishes of the Vatican and obliges Jews to wear a scarlet wheel on their clothes. It’s a chilling precursor to the yellow star that will appear centuries later in the Holocaust. Today, scholars debate whether racism, as we now understand it, is the driver of these policies, notes Northwestern University’s David Shyovitz, a historian of the Middle Ages. But they clearly derive, he says, from Louis’ ability and willing-
ness to put church teachings into practice: “They don’t stand in contrast to his sanctity. They’re part of his sanctity.” In the late 1260s, Louis decides to go on yet another crusade. He appears to believe that the sultan in Tunisia is susceptible to conversion and may give Christianity a foothold. So Louis and his troops attack Tunis, where, once again, they’re thwarted and beset by sickness. Louis’ own son dies. He himself is flattened by dysentery. A legend will spread among North African Muslims about what happens next. In this tale, embellished over time, Louis is a good man, willing to sacrifice his life to convert his enemies. But suddenly, at Tunis, angels reveal to Louis the truth: that Islam is the one true faith. So he absconds from his camp, becomes a Muslim, and remains in Tunisia. In Jordan’s view, this oral tradition “does suggest that Muslims retained the memory of precisely what their crusader opponents—especially Louis IX— had been up to. To this extent, they have been more perceptive than many modern students of his reign.” Perceptive or not, it’s just a legend— and not really how Louis’ story ends. SAPPED BY DIARRHEA, DIS-
traught, and lying on a bed of ashes, Louis dies outside Tunis on August 25, 1270. His men boil his body, extract the entrails and bones, and send them to Paris. This journey, at least in the Church’s telling, occasions the first of the 65 miracles that will bolster his sainthood. One purported miracle involves a mother who approaches the funeral cortege with her 8-year-old boy. He has a goose egg–size tumor under his left ear. She’s sought out doctors, she explains, but none can bring any relief. As the story goes, the boy touches his tumor to the reliquary holding the king’s remains and his tumor bursts, releasing “filth,” without visibly causing him pain. Praise be! By this time, canonization has morphed into a legalistic and costly process, writes Dartmouth professor Cecilia Gaposchkin in her study Making Saint Louis. It requires a “powerful lobby with deep pockets.” France has both. Thus Louis becomes a saint in 1297 through a process that is highly political—and useful to the crown. His sanctity will,
in the 1600s, equip Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” with an argument for his divine right to rule. Saint Louis’ image grows so intertwined with the French monarchy, in fact, that he is burned in effigy in 1793, the year French revolutionaries launch their Reign of Terror, erect their guillotines, and behead Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI (a distant descendant of the saint). Yet somehow, in the deeply secular France of today, Saint Louis has survived as a public hero of sorts—at least among those born before the early 1980s, who, as schoolchildren, learned history through key figures and dates (as opposed to today’s focus on broad themes and trends). Professor Marie Dejoux, a medievalist at Paris-Sorbonne University, explains that for people of her generation and older, Louis is, above all, the king under the oak tree, dispensing justice. “It’s the image of a just king who adjudicates in the same way for the rich and the poor, personally and without intermediaries,” says Dejoux. “This image has even come to symbolize the exercise of justice in France, be it by a king or by the Republic.” In 1970, when the Republic celebrated the 700th anniversary of Louis’ death with months of expositions, concerts, and events, some activists in the south splashed red paint on Louis’ statue in Aigues-Mortes and passed out leaflets accusing him of cultural genocide for having wiped out their dialect. (One mini-protest even led to a scuffle between activists and a priest.) The Jewish community pushed back, too, Dejoux says. So in 2014, the year of Louis’ 800th birthday, there were expositions at the Sainte-Chappelle and the darker sides of his reign were discussed openly. There was a whole colloquium, for example, on his Jewish policies. Professor Xavier Hélary of the University of Lyons says both sides of the political divide in France have found in Louis something to admire: The right loves his piety; the left appreciates his concern for the weak and aggrieved. This helps explain why, for example, Le Goff ’s 1996 biography became a bestseller, why magazines love putting out Saint Louis issues, why the 2014 expositions were such a success. Jokes Hélary: “Saint Louis sells!” November 2020 stlmag.com
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PRESENT DAY. THE GATEWAY CITY
isn’t alone in its toponymic soul-searching. Many folks in Columbus, Ohio, for instance, now wish to ditch their reference to the 15th-century Italian explorer. Some would even prefer to honor their native son and celebrity chef Guy Fieri by changing the city’s name to his catchphrase, Flavortown. The trouble with naming a city after any human being isn’t merely that nobody’s perfect: It’s that “perfect” is an ever-shifting goalpost. Umar Lee, the activist trying to rename St. Louis, half-joked in the Riverfront Times in 2018 that voters should get out in front of history and rename the city Obama. But imagine if, in 200 years, those who today eat meat (as Obama does) are universally viewed with disgust. Will we need yet another replacement? This is why the geographical names authorities of both the U.N. and the U.S. disapprove of naming land after individuals unless they’ve been dead at least five years: Our views of people change. A more enduring solution, it seems, would be to pick something like Confluence, another of Lee’s suggestions. It’s hard to imagine being angry at rivers. In any case, a name change wouldn’t be enacted by an administrative board. It would be a feat of politics. Chuck Hatfield, an attorney at Stinson with deep experience litigating political issues, says it’s not obvious how it would play out. If 60 percent of city voters said yes to amending the city charter and recognizing a new name, would that be sufficient? Or would the courts decide that the name-changing process in state statute, which is different, be adhered to instead? Then there’s the possibility of pushback from the Missouri General Assembly. Legislators could preempt the city’s ability to change its own name, just as they preempted the city’s freedom to set its own minimum wage. Another complication: St. Louis was already a city in 1820, when Missouri adopted its Constitution. Therefore all its provisions that refer to St. Louis may need amending, Hatfield says. “It’d be expensive,” he predicts. Certainly it would require a groundswell of political support that, for now, isn’t there. Lee’s petition on Change .org had fewer than 1,100 signatories at press time. (By contrast, another peti-
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tion on that website, demanding police body cameras, garnered 137,000 signatures.) Mayor Lyda Krewson has called it a “distraction”; her spokesman Jacob Long tells SLM, “I’m not going to spend any time speculating or elaborating on what seems like an extremely far-fetched idea. We are not changing the name of the city.” The lack of support may derive from a linguistic phenomenon. In 1764, when Pierre Laclède named his settlement, he may have been thinking about the saint-king of his homeland—that is, the link between the words “Saint Louis” and the historical figure was “transparent,” as linguists say. But over the centuries, that link has become “opaque,” such that people invoke the place name without thinking of him. This happens, according to Radding and Western in the Geographical Review, because “the toponym picks up new meanings based on the ever-changing community the name comes to represent. The community, as it were, acts back on the name, altering its meaning yet again.” This is the highest hurdle that Lee and his co-petitioners must clear: that the place name St. Louis has accrued its own distinct meaning. They claim in their petition that preserving the name is an “outright disrespect” to Muslim and Jewish residents. But thanks to linguistic opacity, nobody means any disrespect when saying it or writing it. Those who support a name change, then, are taking offense when none is intended. So they’ll have to reunite, in the popular mind, the toponym with the saint-king, or—in linguistic terms—make it transparent again, to gain leverage. And even then, reasonable minds may differ over whether, on balance, Saint Louis deserves lionization—the same debate that’s roiling over our country’s slave-owning founders George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Ghazala Hayat, a SLU physician and member of the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis, said in a written statement that her group understands the petitioners’ “sentiments and pain,” but she stopped short of endorsing the petition. “The removal of the statue will not change the history,” she wrote, “[but] the spotlight on this issue should be an opportunity for us to start listening to each other.”
Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, says she’s heard her coreligionists make offhand references over the years to Saint Louis’ oppressive policies. However, she’s detected a reluctance among them to speak out during this Black Lives Matter moment. “We didn’t want to distract from that,” she says. Poremba, a co-sponsor of the petition, feels that reluctance, too. He’s not anti-Catholic, he insists, and unlike Lee, he doesn’t want to see the statue destroyed. He believes it has artistic value and should be relocated to archdiocesan property. His goal has been to spark debate and prod Catholics into acknowledging their history. “All I wanted to hear,” he says, “was a recognition that there is some truth in what I say.” Catholics account for a quarter of the metro area’s population, according to the Pew Research Center. (Protestants make up the majority; Jews and Muslims combined, 2 percent.) Some Catholics look back with nostalgia at Saint Louis’ reign, a time when church and state were fused together and faith permeated public affairs. But these integralists, as they’re called, are a minority. What do most Catholics think? SLM hasn’t found polling on the question, but in June, the Archdiocese of St. Louis weighed in, observing in a written statement that “For Catholics, St. Louis is an example of an imperfect man who strived to live a life modeled after the life of Jesus Christ.” The statement underlined the king’s good works, eliding his Jewish policies. The archdiocese drew criticism for this from the writer Eve Tushnet, a Catholic convert from Judaism who wrote in the Jesuit magazine America: “If there is one thing a church facing a catastrophic sexual abuse crisis needs, it is willingness to admit the sins of our heroes. If our first instinct is to defend ‘the church,’ not to defend the truth or the victims, have we really learned the lessons of the abuse crisis?” Some Catholics have begun to pray at the base of the statue in Forest Park— ironic, since it’s city-owned. John Klein, an art history professor at Washington University in St. Louis, points to another irony: The protesters are the ones who’ve aroused awareness of its
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Christian content. He adds: “I do feel confident in saying that the principal intent of the statue was to commemorate the city of St. Louis, and not to glorify Christianity, but let’s be clear: Since Louis’ goal was to crusade, that can’t be ignored.” Other cities have tried to reckon with their pasts while also preserving their statues. One solution: add a plaque that explores the history. Another is to build a counter monument, akin to the slaveship sculpture outside South Carolina’s statehouse. In St. Louis, Klein sees further possibilities for the Information Age: symposia on Art Hill, or even a work of temporary performance art. “Perhaps the age of the statue has passed,” he suggests, “and a better response would be not a big physical thing, but rather, information that puts the statute in appropriate contexts.” William Chester Jordan at Princeton University—the unofficial dean of Saint Louis studies in the U.S.—feels the preservationist impulse. In 1306, he explains, Saint Louis’ grandson Philip IV expelled Jews from France. The only traces they left behind, he says, were spaces called Streets of the Jews. These names were widely replaced in the 20th century out of embarrassment. But now, Jordan has discovered, “most French people no longer know that Jews once lived among them in the Middle Ages, instead of wondering (and thinking about) why their villages and towns have such names. There is no awkward conversation, like that of a child to a parent, ‘Why is there a Street of the Jews?’ Everything is forgotten. Even the most important things, like the answer ‘I don’t know, my child. I’ll try to find out.’” Adds Jordan, “Statues, place names, and the like can be opportunities for reflection.” Rori Picker Neiss is certainly interpreting it that way. She’s working with the Archdiocese to organize a panel discussion with members of the three Abrahamic faiths to delve into Louis’ legacy. “I think there’s something healthy and beautiful about having this opportunity to grapple with a person,” says Picker Neiss. “Here you have an individual who is a hero in one story and a villain in another story, and both of those can be absolutely true stories. I love that we’re having this conversation.” ■ November 2020 stlmag.com
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S T. LO U I S SAG E
POLITICKING
Has an alderman ever launched a political party? PARTY TIMES
I
N THE SUMMER of 1919, 21st Ward
Alderman Nathan “Nat” Hall held a stormy press conference to announce the formation of the American League, a new political party that would “uphold the Americanism inherited by all of us and so basely abused by both political parties at the present day,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “What is it? A new baseball league? I am very well satisfied with the Republicans,” Mayor Henry Kiel quipped. “And anyway, I don’t think I could bat very good in the other league.” Hall, a Republican, was still smarting after his fellow aldermen failed to reelect him as board vice president. “I’m tired of seeing the city run by the Century Boat Club,” he snapped. Hall threw shade at the Anti-Saloon League, which, he said, sneakily pushed Prohibition through while 6 million young men served in the trenches of World War I. He was more secretive about the League’s membership, however. “He stated that a group of ‘businessmen had met at his home… and had perfected preliminary plans,” the paper reported. “He then declined to disclose the names of the businessmen and said that all communications would be handled by addressing them to himself as secretary.” Two weeks later, while in chambers,
MISSOURI’S ALWAYS HAD VOTERS AND CANDIDATES OUTSIDE THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM.
BULL MOOSE PARTY IN THE EARLY 1900S, CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT JOHN GUNDLACH WAS SO ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT TEDDY ROOSEVELT’S THIRD PARTY, HE BEGAN RAISING MONEY TO BUY A BULL MOOSE FOR THE ZOO.
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP PARTY A NATIONAL SOCIALIST ORGANIZATION WITH AN ARM IN ST. LOUIS, IT WAS LED LOCALLY BY A FELLOW NAMED LEE MERIWETHER. ITS SLOGAN: “THE PEOPLE MUST OWN THE RAILROADS, OR THE RAILROADS WILL OWN THE PEOPLE.”
CHIEF WANA DUBIE BORN JOSEPH BICKNELL, THIS COLORFUL CANDIDATE FROM SALEM RAN REPEATEDLY FOR OFFICE ON A ONE-ISSUE TICKET BETWEEN 1992 AND 2016. AFTER DUBIE’S DEATH, IN 2017, HIS FAMILY SCATTERED HIS ASHES ON PIKES PEAK, IN COLORADO, WHERE POT IS LEGAL.
the clerk read an opinion, purportedly written by the city counselor to the aldermanic president, citing The City of San Antonio vs. I. Bolt, in which the alderman had been booted from the board after defecting from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. According to the Post, the letter suggested, “Nathan H. Hall has automatically unseated himself through his desertion of the Republican Party, on whose platform he was elected.” Hearing his name, Hall “sat up alertly,” then demanded to see this “infamous document.” He snatched it from the clerk’s hands, denouncing its “villainous points.” After another alderman called for an investigation, Hall began wildly condemning the American League. With tears in his eyes, he pleaded with the board to allow him to keep his seat. They relented. He nearly wept again, shaking hands with everyone—until someone tipped him off: It had all been a prank. Was this true? Hall asked the reporters, who were in on the joke. In the end, his fellow aldermen found a spark of kindness in their hearts. Hall asked that they not approve the meeting minutes, erasing the whole embarrassing affair—except, that is, for the newspaper’s recollection of the elaborate practical joke. After demanding that he agree to apologize “to himself and other members of the board” for going third-party rogue, they relented.
ST. LOUIS MAGAZINE, VOL. 26, ISSUE 11 (ISSN 1090-5723) is published monthly by St. Louis Magazine LLC, P.O. BOX 191606, St. Louis, MO 63119. Change of address: Please send new address and old address label and allow 6 to 8 weeks for change. Send all remittances and requests to St. Louis Magazine, P.O. BOX 191606, St. Louis, MO 63119. Periodicals postage paid at St. Louis, MO, and additional mailing office. Postmaster: Send address changes to St. Louis Magazine, P.O. BOX 191606, St. Louis, MO 63119.
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