Richard B. Teitelman, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri, delivered the following address during the opening luncheon of the annual meeting of The Missouri Bar and the Judicial Conference of Missouri September 22, 2011, in Kansas City.

Thank you. It is an honor to have this opportunity to talk with you at this annual meeting of our bench and bar. I have been so blessed to have worked with so many wonderful lawyers and judges for so many years. I always have been a strong supporter of The Missouri Bar and all of its efforts, especially as they have helped improve access to justice for all of our citizens, no matter their situation in life.

I was appointed to serve on the Supreme Court in 2002. I have been proud to serve there in the company of some of the finest jurists our state has ever known. I want to take a moment now to recognize my colleagues on the Court, who have made every day of my job there special: Judge William Ray Price Jr., whose very big shoes I have to try to fill as chief justice; Judge Patty Breckenridge; Judge Zel Fischer; Judge Mary Russell; and Judge Laura Stith. I also would like to recognize my former colleagues on the Court who have exchanged their Supreme Court roles for new ventures: 8th Circuit Judge Duane Benton; St. Louis attorney Ronnie White; U.S. District Judge Steve Limbaugh Jr.; and our newest-retired colleague, Professor Mike Wolff.

It is important for me to mention all of these judges to you because I want you all to understand that I may be chief justice for the next two years, but your leadership comes not from just me but from all these fine men and women who are serving and have served on the Supreme Court. I would like to take this moment to remember our recently-passed judge, Andrew Jackson Higgins, who was laid to rest on Tuesday.  He brought a great sense of grace to the bench.  I also would add my accolades to recognize our esteemed former clerk, Thomas Simon, who served with distinction for four decades as clerk of the Supreme Court of Missouri.

But, thankfully, we don’t have to carry that load alone. We have many judges in this state who serve not only their courts and local citizens with dignity and integrity, but who also serve on the numerous committees whose work helps to guide the Court in developing rules of practice, jury instructions, court forms and truly in administering justice. And they don’t do it alone, either. We have many public-service oriented lawyers – many of you are here today – who dedicate hours of your time, with no pay, to assist in the work of these committees. And together, I think we have built one of the finest justice systems in the country. You all should be very proud of all of the work you do.

But let us never forget who our work really benefits – all the people and businesses and organizations of this great state. We all have taken oaths to uphold the constitutions of the United States and the state of Missouri, to conduct ourselves with dignity and respect, and to do our best to serve the people, with consideration for the helpless and oppressed.

I am so proud to serve you now as chief justice. The Supreme Court, working with the leadership of The Missouri Bar, have proven themselves dedicated over the years to delivering justice to everyone in Missouri. Just since I’ve been on the Court, we have worked together to increase resources for legal aid, to provide more support for both public defenders and prosecutors, and to increase the amount of pro bono work being done. We are working to bring the courts closer to the people through our problem-solving courts, like drug courts and mental health courts. Our Case.net search system has no equal among state courts, allowing anyone with access to the Internet to see what is happening in cases throughout the state. For nearly 15 years, we have been putting all appellate and Supreme Court opinions online, for anyone to read. For a decade, we have put all the briefs of cases being argued in the Supreme Court online. Our appellate judges routinely take their work on the road, hearing Court of Appeals arguments in schools and other local venues in every corner of the state. We stream our Supreme Court oral arguments live over the Internet.

I am excited that we are now in full gear on our pilot project for electronic filing. The Supreme Court wrapped up all its work from the last term at the end of August and started accepting electronic filings just two days later, on September 1. The St. Charles County circuit court started accepting its first electronic filings just last week. If you have not already signed up for our Missouri eFiling System, I encourage you to do so. And if you want to see how the system works, or you need instructions for how to file cases electronically in St. Charles or our Court, please stop by our booth and our volunteers will be happy to help you.

From the outside, I hope that e-filing looks fairly simple. But I want to make sure you know how many hundreds of hours have been put into this planning process literally for years. Our court automation committee always had e-filing as a long-range goal, but first we had to finish building our statewide case management system, allowing you, through Case.net, to access cases from every Missouri state court. Then, well, I don’t need to tell anyone in this room that the economy has struggled in recent years. So we are doing our best to use existing resources – both in terms of people and equipment – to get this e-filing pilot off the ground. I think half of the Office of State Courts Administrator moved into the Supreme Court for our first few days of the pilot, just to make sure we had all the help we might need, and last week most of them moved on to help the court staff in St. Charles. This has been a remarkable cooperative effort, and I’d like us to give a round of applause to all those who have brought us to this point.

But we are not done. We value the feedback of every lawyer. We don’t know yet what changes we might need to consider for future implementation of the eFiling System, or, more importantly, what the most cost-effective way to provide an outstanding service to you and your clients will be. We have sent out surveys to get your feedback. Please respond, or contact our state courts administrator’s help desk with your ideas. We are listening!

Another highlight was Judge Price’s leadership during the budget process. With the work of the circuit court budget committee and our state courts administrator and his staff, the judiciary was able to keep our courthouses open. We froze a lot of jobs for a long time, held open other jobs a lot longer than was comfortable, and we are having to eliminate staff in some of our juvenile detention centers, but we NEVER had to close the courthouse doors, as other states have had to do.

We are privileged to be lawyers and officers of the Court. Remember that no matter how bad things might seem for any one of us at any moment in time, someone else has it worse. Fight for those people. As well-known lawyer Arthur Liman once said, “Public service … is a lawyer’s privilege, one of the rewards of the profession. It is not an act of duty or charity. For a lawyer, public service is as natural as breathing. It is what we do when we are at our best.” So commit to public service.

Thank you. Keep up all your hard work. I am humbled to serve alongside you. God Bless America!