Joan M. Lockwood

Joan M. Lockwood graduated with honors from Boston College in 1990 with bachelor’s degrees in finance and human resource management. She earned her law degree from Saint Louis University in 1993, again graduating with honors.

Ms. Lockwood is admitted to practice before all Missouri state courts, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, and the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Eighth and Seventh Circuits. She is also admitted to practice before the courts in the state of Illinois.

Ms. Lockwood was honored in 2003 by the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis with the John C. Shepherd Professionalism Award. This award is given annually to a young lawyer who most exhibits the high professional standards required of the legal profession and also demonstrates a strong commitment to community service. She was also recognized by Missouri Lawyers Weekly newspaper as one of five attorneys in the publication’s 2003 “Up and Coming Lawyers” feature.

In 2008, Ms. Lockwood was the recipient of the “Rising Star Award” presented by the St. Louis Daily Record as part of its Women’s Justice Awards program. The award recognizes those women lawyers who have already made a difference in the justice system and the profession and who appear on a path toward even greater accomplishments.

She received the Litigation Practitioner Award at the 2018 Missouri Lawyers Weekly Women’s Justice Awards and the 2012 Appellate Advocate Award and the 2011 Appellate Advocate Award from Missouri Lawyers Weekly.

Ms. Lockwood serves on the Board of Governors of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys (MATA). She is the 2021 recipient of MATA’s Thomas G. Strong Trial Attorney Award, which annually goes to the “Missouri attorney who best exemplifies the qualities of professionalism, ethics, character and courtroom success,” according to the organization.

Joan has been a MATA member since 1993 and currently serves as co-editor and writes the semi-annual Appellate Case Note for The Missouri Trial Attorney, a publication of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys. She also serves on the BAMSL John C. Shepherd Professionalism Committee and the BAMSL Hon. Richard B. Teitelman Memorial St. Louis Pro Bono Challenge Committee.

She is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.

Ms. Lockwood is a member of The Missouri Bar, Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, St. Louis County Bar Association, Lawyers Association of St. Louis, American Bar Association, The Theodore McMillian American Inn of Court, American Board of Trial Advocates, Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater St. Louis, The Illinois Bar, Illinois State Bar Association, and American Association for Justice. She is also a Fellow of the BAMSL Foundation.

Ms. Lockwood has been appointed to the Missouri Supreme Court Committee on Civil Jury Instructions (MAI) and has served on this Committee since 2003. She served as Reporter to the MAI Committee from 2009-2020. In 2020, she was appointed Chair to the MAI Committee.

She also serves on The Missouri Bar’s Covid-19 Task Force as Chair of the Civil Practice Committee.

A frequent lecturer, Ms. Lockwood often speaks at seminars on various topics, including civil trial practice, civil jury instructions, discovery, bad faith litigation, issues in medical negligence claims, professionalism and premises liability for The Missouri Bar and the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys.

She handles a broad range of litigation, including personal injury, automobile and trucking accidents, products liability, medical negligence, wrongful death, and complex business and commercial litigation cases.

Ms. Lockwood received a Band 1 rating – the highest given – in the 2021 edition of Chambers and Partners, in the category of Litigation: Mainly Plaintiffs.

Ms. Lockwood was named the Best Lawyers® 2021 St. Louis Product Liability Litigation-Plaintiffs Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers 2018 St. Louis Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs “Lawyer of the Year,” and the Best Lawyers 2016 St. Louis Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs “Lawyer of the Year.”  She is listed in The Best Lawyers in America for Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs, and Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs, and Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs. She has been annually selected to Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers [among the top 5 percent of lawyers in Missouri and Kansas] since 2006, in the area of Personal Injury Plaintiff-General Litigation. She has also been cited as a Top 50 female attorney (in Missouri and Kansas) and a Top 100 attorney in Missouri and Kansas by the same publication. Ms. Lockwood has an AV Peer Review Rating from Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, which is the highest given.