Home County: St. Louis County

Term of service at the Supreme Court of Missouri: April 1970-August 1982

Judge John Bardgett was born April 28, 1927, in St. Louis, Missouri.[i] He completed his primary education at Little Flower Grade School and obtained secondary education at St. Louis University High School.[ii] He attended Saint Louis University College of Commerce and Finance and Saint Louis University School of Law, where he received his bachelor of laws degree in 1951.[iii] Bardgett was admitted to the Missouri bar in 1951 and to the Illinois bar in 1964.[iv] He was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States and United States Court of Military Appeals in 1956.[v]

After receiving his license to practice, Bardgett served as city attorney for the town of Normandy in St. Louis County[vi] while simultaneously working as a member of the law firm Haley, Bardgett & Williamson.[vii] In 1968, he became the president of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys[viii] as well as the St. Louis County circuit judge for Division 12.[ix] Governor Warren Hearnes appointed Judge Bardgett to the Supreme Court of Missouri on April 27, 1970.[x]  Judge Bardgett was retained for a 12-year term in the 1972 general election and was chief justice of the Court from July 1979 until July 1981.[xi] Judge Bardgett served with the Court until August 31, 1982.[xii]

After his service with the Supreme Court of Missouri, Bardgett returned to private practice.[xiii] He was general counsel of the Central States Southeast and Southwest Health, Welfare and Pension Funds until 1987.[xiv] He then joined the firm Riezman & Blitz in 1988 and became one of the founding partners of the firm Blitz, Bardgett, and Deutsch.[xv] He also served as an ex officio counsel for the Missouri Senate,[xvi] where his legal opinions, insights and interpretations of constitutional law received respect and admiration by both Republicans and Democrats in the legislature and throughout the state.[xvii]

During his lifetime, Bardgett was a member of various associations in the legal field, including Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity, the St. Louis County Bar Association, the Metropolitan Bar Association of St. Louis, the Lawyers Association of St. Louis, the Cole County Bar Association, The Missouri Bar and its board of governors, the American Bar Association, the American Judicature Society, and the Institute of Judicial Administration.[xviii] He received honors such as the 1979 Award of Honor by the Lawyers Association of St. Louis, the 1979 University of Missouri-Columbia Law Alumni Association Award of Merit for non-alumnus,[xix]  and the Alumni Merit Award of St. Louis University.[xx] 

Bardgett died November 29, 2008, in St. Louis at the age of 81.[xxi]