The St. Louis County Circuit Court is comprised of twenty-one (21) Circuit Judges, fourteen (14) Associate Circuit Judges and eight (8) Commissioners. Each judge and commissioner is assigned to a specific division, except for the Probate Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner.
Click a button below to view Judge/Commissioner by:
Honorable John R. Essner
Associate Circuit Judge, Division 37
Family Court
HON. JOHN R. ESSNER - March 12, 1951 - August 14, 2020.
Associate Circuit Judge John R. Essner died Friday, August 14, 2020, after a long battle with cancer. He was 69.
Judge Essner was appointed Associate Circuit Judge in 1999 by Gov. Mel Carnahan. He graduated with a B.A. cum laude from the University of California-Los Angeles in 1973, and obtained his law degree cum laude from St. Louis University School of Law in 1976.
For more than twenty years, Judge Essner was a staff attorney for Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, becoming the first director of its Volunteer Lawyers Program. In honor of his decades of dedicated service, Legal Services created the John R. Essner award. It is given annually to young lawyers to recognize their legal work on behalf of individuals marginalized because of their poverty and status. Humble and hardworking, Judge Essner was a guiding light and inspiration to hundreds of young lawyers, to whom he imparted his ethos of caring and commitment to the welfare of others.
Judge Essner was a member of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, St. Louis County Bar Association, Lawyers Association, the Women Lawyers' Association, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.