BusinessDecember 29, 2021
Cape attorney John Grimm talks about new role with The Missouri Bar
Attorney and former circuit judge John Grimm was elected president of The Missouri Bar in September, the organization which represents 30,000 attorneys across the Show Me State. Grimm, 58, is only the fifth individual whose practice was based in Cape Girardeau to be elected president of the organization and the first in 39 years to ascend to the position. ...
Attorney and former circuit judge John Grimm was elected president of The Missouri Bar in September, the organization which represents 30,000 attorneys across the Show Me State.
Grimm, 58, is only the fifth individual whose practice was based in Cape Girardeau to be elected president of the organization and the first in 39 years to ascend to the position. Previous local attorneys who have led The Missouri Bar include Allen L. Oliver (1943-44), Rush Limbaugh Sr. (1955-56), Jack L. Oliver (1970-71) and Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. (1982-83). Cape Girardeau native Morry Cole was president 2017-18, but his practice is based in St. Louis.
The organization selects its president on a rotating basis from the Kansas City and St. Louis areas as well as “outstate” areas such as communities in Southeast Missouri.
Grimm said the opportunity to serve the state bar association as president follows a lifetime of service in other areas where governance plays an important role, ranging from professional service to community and church.
In 2010, Grimm was elected as the board representative for Southeast Missouri. With his kids now older, he said this was a good time to pursue the leadership role with the state bar association. The term as president is for one year, but the commitment is for several years with the individual traditionally serving as vice president, president-elect, president and immediate past president.
“It’s something that I thought I had some good things to offer to The Missouri Bar and to the profession,” Grimm told B Magazine. “As far as I know of I’m the first former judge to have been elected president the bar. There’s been a number of judges on our board. For a lot of reasons, none of them have ever been officers. I think that’s appropriate. They’re public officials. And I think it’d be asking a lot to ask those who are on the public payroll to take significant time away from those positions to be an officer of the bar. But I think I’ve got a unique background.”
Citizen education
In remarks following his election as president of the bar earlier this year, Grimm talked about the importance of educating the public on legal matters. Some of his main talking points for this interview: How the courts work; how a bill becomes law; in general, how government works; and specifically, how the court system works.
“If people understand the system, they’re more likely to have confidence in the system,” Grimm said. “And that’s what we want. We want people to have confidence in the legal system and in the judicial system. We want people to have confidence that the way judges are selected is putting good judges on the bench, and the way lawsuits are handled is resulting in fair decisions. And that there’s a process when people aren’t happy with the decision to a fair appellate process so that at the end of the day, even if someone disagrees with something that happens within Missouri’s court system, hopefully they’ll have a good enough understanding of how it works to appreciate the fact that it was a fair system and they got a fair shake — even if they disagree with the end result.”
He said The Missouri Bar works with teachers across the state, and lawyers speak to high school classes, civic clubs “or anybody else that will listen to us.”
One of the education pieces championed is how Missouri selects its judges for the state Supreme Court, appellate courts, and six of its circuit courts (around Kansas City, Springfield and St. Louis). Also known nationally and internationally as the Missouri Plan, the process is promoted as the nonpartisan selection process of judges adopted by 30 other states.
“Before the Missouri plan, our appellate judges were elected in Missouri. And a lot of lawyers did not believe that was a good way to select our appellate court judges. And so for a number of years in the ’30s and ’40s, there developed a groundswell of support to change the way that our appellate judges were selected. And that’s what resulted in the nonpartisan court plan that’s now commonly referred to as the Missouri plan.”
A seven-member commission chaired by the chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court interviews applicants and nominates three people for the governor’s selection. This individual is then subjected to a retention vote at the next general election where voters have a say.
“It doesn’t happen often but there have been instances when judges at various levels have been removed by the voters,” he said.
Is it perfectly apolitical?
“No, but it’s far less political, I believe, than other methods, such as the election of judges that we see in other states where ... candidates are spending millions and millions of dollars for elected judicial positions. I just don’t believe that’s the right way to select our appellate judges.”
Some circuit courts have adopted this method for selecting judges, too, with Greene County in Springfield being the most recent in 2008.
Grimm, who was originally appointed and then elected twice to a circuit court judgeship, said he recognizes voters, particularly in smaller counties, want to elect their judges.
“I’m not sure that there’s a Democrat and Republican way of deciding a boundary line dispute or deciding a breach of contract case,” Grimm said. “I think that there’s a good argument to be made that judges to the extent they’re elected should be more like your school boards and city council elections where they’re on a nonpartisan basis, but I can certainly understand why voters in smaller counties where they feel like they know people more and can get to know people better, still want to have a vote and actually elect judges. And that’s fine. They have that option.”
What about the 32nd Judicial Circuit? Should this multi-county circuit court follow the Missouri Plan or should voters directly elect their judges?
“I think it becomes a harder question in multi-county circuits, where you have smaller counties as part of that multi-county circuit,” Grimm said.
He makes the case that the larger a community is, the better the case for the Missouri Plan. And it works better in a single county circuit as compared to multi-county ones like the 32nd Judicial Circuit.
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If Cape County was by itself as a circuit, would it be a different question?
“It becomes more a difficult question, I think. ... I personally don’t think we’re there yet, but I think as Cape County grows, there is more reason to consider the nonpartisan court plan just because of the cost of running for office. And the difficulty of voters really knowing the people who are who are running for the job.”
Business and law
Grimm said that as business matters get more complicated, the law has to follow.
“I think that you see sometimes efforts by lawyers who practice in certain business areas to promote changes in the way corporations are structures or the way that various business entities are structured. And The Missouri Bar’s involved in that. We have roughly 40 different groups that cover various practice areas. And it’s not uncommon for those different committees and sections to propose legislation that’s important to their area of practice.”
Many of these changes deal in the finer points of the law, Grimm said. Areas like the way LLCs and other business entities are restructured or changes to trust and probate law, for example.
“When advocated by our members who practice in those areas, we try to provide background materials to the legislature on the reasons for those changes and help them understand the implications.”
Much like the general citizenry needs to feel confident in the administration of justice, Grimm said business leaders need to feel comfortable with the administration of justice.
“I think that businesses want to know what to be able to predict and at what cost. ... Our clients, when they come to us and say, ‘Tell us what this law means.’ Or if we’re in a lawsuit, ‘Tell us what you think is going to happen and why and at what cost.’ And if they know those things, then they can plan their business ventures accordingly. It’s to the advantage of businesses to have a system of laws that are, yes, friendly to businesses but also fair to people that lead to predictable outcomes and that they know that if we get into a lawsuit, there’s going to be a fair and efficient method of disposition.”
With compliance issues becoming more important to certain businesses, legal counsel becomes more important. There are numerous options for online legal services, but Grimm was quick to promote the value of professionals.
“It really goes back to the very beginning of creating a business. There’s a lot of stuff that people can do online these days. But that’s certainly not something that we recommend for someone who’s starting a business. Yes, you can perhaps save a few hundred dollars for doing so. But a bad decision in trying to save that few hundred can lead to many thousands of dollars to fix it down the road. So we certainly recommend to clients and to the public, ‘Hey, if you’re thinking about starting a business, invest a few hundred dollars to go see a lawyer to talk about what type of business entity you need to establish and make sure it gets set up right so that your business starts off on the right foot — this way you can know things are done properly, correctly, and you can focus on the product or service that you’re offering.”
Lawyers in Legislature
It wasn’t that long ago that many in Southeast Missouri’s legislative delegation were lawyers. Today, that’s not the case. And Grimm said that’s becoming more common elsewhere across the state.
“We recognize that the legislators make a tremendous time commitment. And it’s hard to serve in the legislature while you’re practicing law. I mean, it’s essentially like maintaining two full time jobs, and that’s hard to do. But that’s one of the reasons that I call up local legislators and we encourage our board members and members of the legal community to have relationships with local legislators, not necessarily to advocate for something but to say, ‘Hey, if you get a piece of proposed legislation dealing with a legal issue that you don’t feel like you’ve got a complete understanding of, give us a call and we’ll try to help you understand the pros and cons and the implications and sometimes unforeseen consequences of a particular piece of legislation.’”
Grimm said The Missouri Bar encourages its members to get involved in public service, whether it’s running for school board, city council, the legislature or other areas where their expertise can be of use.
Judge at 31
Grimm’s legal career took a somewhat unusual path, becoming a circuit judge at age 31 for the 32nd Judicial Circuit of Cape Girardeau, Bollinger and Perry Counties.
“I was very young. Perhaps younger than what my parents would have preferred me to run for judge.”
His father, Stanley Grimm, was serving on the Missouri Court of Appeals when he became circuit judge. The younger Grimm noted that there may have been some who thought he was too young at the time for the position, but he noted there’s history of “some really good judges” who got an early start to their judicial careers. Grimm pointed to Stephen Limbaugh Jr., now a federal judge for the Eastern District of Missouri, who was first appointed by Gov. John Ashcroft to be circuit judge when Limbaugh was in his mid-30s.
“In hindsight, yeah, it was young,” Grimm said of his own early years as a judge. “But it was a great experience. And I think that if you were to poll the lawyers who practiced in front of me back in those days, hopefully a majority of them would think that my youthful, relative inexperience as a lawyer didn’t negatively impact decisions that I made as a judge.”
By age 40, Grimm decided to leave his unexpired term as judge and return to private practice at the Limbaugh Firm where he now focuses on personal injury and wrongful death, insurance coverage and defense, business, real estate and employment litigation along with serving as a mediator in state and federal courts.
Still, Grimm said his time as a judge provide a great perspective and has proved beneficial as he now helps clients understand potential outcomes in court cases. He now also brings that experience and perspective to his role as president of The Missouri Bar.
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