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ST. LOUIS — A black robe hanging next to a conference room on the 15th floor of the Peabody Plaza threads together a generational story about the Gateway City.

The robe belonged to former Missouri Supreme Court Judge Richard B. Teitelman. The blind jurist who cared deeply about the most vulnerable populations in Missouri, and the law’s responsibility to protect their rights, died in 2016 at the age of 69. He had served for 18 years as a judge. Before that, he spent 18 years as executive director of , a nonprofit law firm that helps poor people in 21 counties.

Dan Glazier finds meaning in the fact that Teitelman served the same number of years in the last two jobs of his career. That number — 18 — is strongly associated with the Hebrew word “chai,� which means “life.� Teitelman was Glazier’s mentor.

Nobody breathed more life into the legal profession than Teitelman, Glazier says. Both men connected their Jewish faith to a pursuit of using the law to help poor people. For 20 years, Glazier has been serving in the Legal Services role that Teitelman held before becoming a judge.

He’s the reason that robe is in the downtown building where Legal Services of Eastern Missouri moved two years ago. Some time back, Missouri Supreme Court Judge W. Brent Powell, who replaced Teitelman on the bench, ran into St. Louis Rabbi Randy Fleisher and mentioned that he had Teitelman’s old robe. Fleisher mentioned it to Glazier, who was in the process of moving Legal Services downtown.

One of the owners of the Peabody Plaza, it turns out, is Seth Berkowitz, who was a former intern at Legal Services. Berkowitz’s father, Stuart, used to work at Legal Services and was good friends with Teitelman. It was a moment of what Glazier calls “B’shert,� a Hebrew word meaning “meant to be.�

That’s also how you could describe Glazier’s 44-year career helping poor people avoid eviction, obtain health care or seek protection from domestic abuse. Born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to a dentist and social worker, Glazier knew early on he wanted to live a life of service. He enrolled in a Washington University program that earned him a social work degree followed by law school.

He’s been at Legal Services since he graduated. And he’s practiced the “holistic advocacy� that defines the organization. When people come to Legal Services, they don’t just get a lawyer. They get social workers, and access to other services, because people who live in poverty and end up in the justice system often have many unmet needs. In recent years, the organization has expanded to neighborhood advocacy, helping to weed out bad landlords in St. Louis and breathe life into areas rooted in poverty.

That , headed by managing attorney Peter Hoffman, helps people keep homes in their family by cleaning up old title problems. It also works to revive neighborhoods one property at a time.

In St. Louis, unfortunately, there is enough poverty to keep Legal Services busy, but pressures from the state and federal governments aren’t helping.

“The resources are not matching the need,� Glazier says. “I fear that it’s getting worse.�

In the past few years, for example, Legal Services has pressed major “impact� cases against the state of Missouri for its failure to adequately get food stamps to people who qualify for them, and to properly ensure the expansion of Medicaid services that voters approved.

But now, Congress is considering cuts to Medicaid that could lead to thousands of poor people losing access to health care. And it comes as federal funding that helped avoid an eviction crisis during the COVID pandemic is drying up. Glazier’s attorneys, and others who do this work, are already seeing an increase in eviction cases.

That’s why it’s so important for poor people to have access to legal services. One traffic ticket or an attempt to protect a child’s rights during a school suspension battle can be so much more difficult for a poor person than a person with financial means who can take a day off work, find transportation and afford legal help.

“When you’re a low-income person,� Glazier says, “what many of us would consider a molehill can quickly become a mountain.�

It’s why Glazier comes to work each day focused on filling what he calls the “justice gap.� There are 300,000 people in the footprint of Legal Services that qualify for legal aid, and there aren’t enough resources to serve them all. So it was four decades ago, when a young lawyer drew inspiration from Teitelman, and still today, as America’s safety net shows signs of fraying, like an old robe that has seen better days.

“In some ways,� Glazier says of poverty in Missouri, “the need is greater than ever.�