New Missouri Legislature includes 23 lawyers

Twenty-three - Missouri currently has the lowest number in its history of lawmakers who also are lawyers.

Statistics kept by the Missouri Bar show that the smallest number of lawyers serving in the General Assembly had been 24, or 12 percent of the total Legislature - in 1985-86, 1988-89 and, most recently, in 2005.

But this year, there are 21 lawyers in the House - and only two in the state Senate.

And one of those two, Dr. Bob Onder, R-Lake St. Louis, practices medicine rather than the law.

"It's going in the right direction, isn't it?" Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin, quipped, then added: "We've done a pretty good job over the years to make sure (new laws) meet constitutional muster.

"I've got a staff of lawyers who help us outside this building, who give us information."

Last year, the Senate had five lawyers - but Republicans Eric Schmitt, of Glendale, and Kurt Schaefer, of Columbia, were term-limited and couldn't come back to the Senate this year.

(Schmitt was elected as Missouri's new treasurer. Schaefer lost last August's primary election to Republican Josh Hawley, who was sworn-in as attorney general last Monday).

And Joe Keaveney, D-St. Louis, became an administrative law judge and retired from the Senate last fall, with just more than two years left before term limits would have ended his ability to be a senator.

That leaves Onder and Scott Sifton, D-Affton, as the chamber's only lawmakers who also went to law school and now are Missouri Bar members.

Onder recently told reporters he thinks there are plenty of lawyers in the Legislature.

"I think we have plenty of legislative and legal expertise," he explained. "When something goes wrong with a bill, and something ends up in a bill that we didn't want - I don't think it's because we don't have enough lawyers around this building.

"Most of the time, it's sloppiness and inadequate attention to detail that anybody with expertise in the subject matter could have caught."

But Sifton - the Senate's only current member who practices law when he's not helping write it - told the News Tribune last week: "We had, arguably, a half-billion-dollar drafting error in a bill that I caught (during debate) two years ago - and it was a situation where everybody understood what the intent was. But it was, simply, not what the bill said.

"And I had to persuade staff attorneys and caucus attorneys that a change needed to be made, in order to effectuate the intent of the sponsoring senator."

Onder and Senate Minority Leader Gina Walsh, D-Bellefontaine Neighbors, said they're not concerned, because Legislative Research and both the Senate's Republican and Democrat caucus staffs have attorneys.

"I do not discount the staff in this building at all - because these folks are not partisan people," Walsh said. "This is their job.

"They are very good at what they do, and I have a lot of faith in the staff attorneys in this building."

But, Sifton noted, when he caught that $500 million drafting error, it was one of several instances where "the first eight or nine sets of legally trained eyes on an issue missed a critical problem."

And, Senate Judiciary Chairman Bob Dixon, R-Springfield, noted: "The legislative staff - whether they're attorneys or not - do what the senators tell them to do with the language."

Dixon is starting his fifth year as the committee's chairman, even though he's not an attorney.

"The public thinks the Legislature is full of attorneys - that's obviously not the case," he said. "I think the public would be very concerned if they saw how easy it is to get sloppy legislation passed.

"And then, when it gets to court, it doesn't stand up."

He noted some lawmakers complain about "activist judges" and their rulings, when "maybe the judges are just interpreting the stuff that we pass. Maybe, if we had some more attorneys in this building helping with the language going out of here, it would be more solid when it was challenged in court."

Sifton thinks it's good that there's at least one lawyer in each party's caucus, and said even though Onder is a doctor first and lawyer second, his legal background provides Republicans with an "important perspective" they might not otherwise have.

Those Missouri Bar statistics show the largest number of lawyers the Legislature has had at one time was 66 - 38 percent of the total 197 lawmakers - in 1901-02.

Sifton said: "I've always said I think it would be a terrible thing if we had 34 lawyers in the Senate. I don't think it would be good if we had 18.

"But I don't think zero is the right number either - and I am hopeful that we will have at least a few more members of the Bar who will run for the Senate in the years ahead."

State Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City - and one of the House's 21 attorneys - agreed.

"I'm confident in the process, but it's not ideal," Barnes said. "The best situation would be to have more lawyers in the Legislature than we have right now. Details matter.

"Some of the legislation we deal involves arcane issues of law, and attorneys have experience and training in dealing with those issues that are hard to pick up in four to five months - especially in a term-limited environment."

Although Barnes also hopes more attorneys will run for legislative offices, he said: "It's such an individual decision - there are sacrifices to be made, for lawyers or anyone else who runs for the General Assembly, and takes five months out of the year to come down here and, essentially, put everything else on hold."

Sara Schuett, executive director of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys, told the News Tribune last week: "We value the diversity of our citizen legislature and find that lawyers bring an added layer of expertise to bill drafting and solving complicated problems.

"Because they see how the laws work in the real world, they can bring a lot of practical knowledge to floor debate and provide examples of how something as simple as changing a few words can completely change the result of a proposed law."

Randy Scherr, who directs the separate organizations of Defense Lawyers and Criminal Defense Lawyers, added: "The varied backgrounds of all members of the General Assembly provide a necessary level of expertise - and this is certainly true in the drafting of legislation where lawyers from different practice areas can be extremely helpful."

Missouri Bar President Dana Tippin Cutler, a Kansas City lawyer, said: "While we believe it's important to have lawyers represented in the diverse makeup of the Legislature, we also believe it's just as important that lawyers provide facts to help legislators make informed decisions and understand the impact of new laws."

She noted the Bar plays a key role in "simply provid(ing) facts about proposals in order to be a resource - to help make sure lawmakers are making decisions which will improve the lives of all Missourians when it comes to the law and our justice system."