Attorney Profile

ATTORNEY PROFILE By: Hanson Tipton

Watson, Roach, Batson & Lauderback, P.L.C.

A ‘LONG’ TIME COMING

What is there to say about incoming KBA President Jason Long that a DICTA reader does not already know? Even leaving aside his lengthy list of professional accomplishments and many offices held to serve the profession, longtime DICTA readers may know more about Jason than any other lawyer, if only because of his monthly comprehensive “Long Winded” column. Where else can you find running diaries and examinations of classic movies,1 imagined litigation against UT’s athletic rivals,2 and even a list of the things Jason finds in his desk drawers?3 I have thought for years that “Long Winded” should be featured more prominently in DICTA, and am happy to report that for the next year, Jason’s column will be found on page 5. Jason really needs no introduction in the Knoxville legal community, because when he is sworn in at the Annual Meeting on December 10, he will have held every bar association office a Knoxville attorney can hold. That’s only a slight exaggeration. While local attorneys have benefited from his dedicated service to the KBA (highlights include serving as president of Barristers, his “Long Winded” column, work on Habitat houses, and his recent executive offices served,) Jason may be best known as a former president of the Tennessee Bar Association for the 2016 – 2017 bar year. Jason has even held Board and Committee positions with the American Bar Association and has served on the Executive Committee of the National Conference of Bar Presidents. As a fellow attorney once noted, “It seems like Jason must have lost an election for student council once and has been trying to compensate ever since.” Somehow while serving all of those various bar associations and organizations, and also teaching legal writing at the University of Tennessee College of Law for fifteen years, Jason has managed to find time to practice law. After graduating from law school at UT in 1996, Jason went into private practice with Sarah Sheppeard and Charles Swanson, who both served as important early mentors for Jason in both the practice of law and bar service. Jason has since moved on to London Amburn where he is now a shareholder and primarily defends clients in matters related to medical malpractice and professional board representation in Tennessee and Kentucky. He also counsels on cases involving business litigation, civil trial defense, nursing home and long-term care defense, and legal malpractice. Jason’s paying job and his selfless bar service would be enough to keep anyone busy 24/7 without time for sleep, but he somehow also manages to be an active church member, a not-as-avid-as-he-wants golfer, a cook who refuses to follow recipes, a Lyndon Johnson aficionado, and a shameless cinephile (which we all know from how often movies find their way into “Long Winded.”) Jason is also well-known for his love of Tennessee Volunteers athletics, and was thrilled when his beloved Boston Celtics drafted Vol great Grant Williams a couple of years ago.

Above everything else, however, Jason is a loving and devoted father and husband. Jason and Carol Anne’s origin story is the stuff of KBA legend – I’ve heard at various times that they met working on a KBA Habitat house and that they met at a Barristers meeting. So I went to Carol Anne for the real story: she applied to work at Sheppeard and Swanson when Jason was working there and he was tasked with sending her a rejection letter, in which he somehow managed to misspell ALL THREE of her names. An auspicious start for romance, no?

These star-crossed kids kept bumping into each other everywhere from the law school to KBA events (including getting to know each other better at the legendary Habitat build and Carol Anne’s first Barristers

meeting,) and with the help of notorious matchmaker Chris Cain they began dating and eventually married in 2003. Yet another Habitat build almost intervened two weeks before the wedding when Jason partially fell through a roof, but thankfully his injuries were minor and the rest, as they say, is KBA history.4

Jason and Carol Anne have two beautiful children, James Robert (16) and Janie (12.) Jason says that of all the things he has done in his life, “raising these two kids to be the people that they are is my proudest achievement, recognizing that at least 90% of the credit belongs to Carol Anne.” As I was writing this profile, my wife Elizabeth told me that Jason once said to her that he does not like to stand next to anyone taller than he is. At Jason’s stature this is typically not a problem for him, but according to Carol Anne, James Robert only has two more inches to go before Jason isn’t even the tallest person in his own house. While our professional paths have occasionally crossed, I have mainly gotten to know Jason through our shared bar service with both the KBA and TBA, and one thing that has always impressed me about Jason is his commitment to doing what is right, regardless of the popularity of any given decision. In my own year as KBA President, which we all remember was a tumultuous one inside and outside of the bar, I often relied on Jason’s wise counsel and felt lucky to have him as a resource. It was also comforting to know that no matter how big a mess I made of things, Cheryl and then Jason would be able to fix everything. In all seriousness, I do feel like one of my biggest contributions to the KBA was the day I took Jason out to lunch and essentially begged him to consider accepting