President’s Message

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE By: Hanson R. Tipton

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

THE BEST LAID PLANS...

I had it all planned out. I had been looking forward to it for years. And then just as it was getting started, the whole thing threatened to go off the rails. While it may sound like I’m talking about being bar president in the Year of COVID, I’m actually referring to this year’s Diversity in the Profession CLE and Reception.

I have enjoyed serving on the Diversity in the Profession Committee for several years now and while the Committee (chaired by my friends Akram Faizer and Carlos Yunsan) works on great initiatives year-round, the Committee’s highlight of the calendar every year is the annual CLE and Reception. At a meeting over a year ago (an in-person meeting – remember those?), I suggested that my good friend and law school classmate Van Turner, Jr., might be a good speaker for the 2020 event. I knew that Van’s story of efforts to legally remove confederate monuments from public spaces in Memphis would make a compelling and inspirational story, and the Committee agreed. We set to work planning the 2020 event for October 1.

Of course, then 2020 intervened, and as the year went by and in-person KBA events fell like dominoes, we realized that the Diversity CLE and Reception would need to make some adjustments as well. “No worry, though!” we thought. “We have been doing virtual events all year!” The incomparable Marsha Watson and Tammy Sharpe helped the Committee come up with a great format that would work on Zoom, with a presentation by Van remotely from Memphis followed by breaking up into small groups to discuss some of the issues from the presentation.

The KBA has offered numerous meetings, webinars, and Town Halls through Zoom all year long, but the format and size of the Diversity CLE would test our Zoom skills. We had not used small group rooms before, so Marsha and Tammy wanted to be sure to test the system repeatedly before we went live. I participated in a couple of these tests, and after some trial and error, we felt like we had it figured out.

On the day of the event, I planned my day carefully to make sure I got all of my paying work done by 4pm to give me half an hour or so to prepare for the CLE. I even e-mailed a couple of the small group leaders in the morning to ask if I could call on them during the large group discussion portion when we got all the small groups back together. I patted myself on the back for thinking ahead on that one. Everything going as planned…

Right when I finished up with billable work, my cell phone rang, and I saw that it was Marsha. I nonchalantly answered, thinking she might have a final question or two about the program. Instead, she asked me in a voice that seemed to contain a bit of apprehension, “Are you logging in now?” I looked at the clock and it was 3:59 p.m. I replied, “I still have some time, don’t I?” Confused silence from Marsha. “Wait,” I said, “it starts at 4:30, right?” Nope.

More importantly, Marsha told me, Van hadn’t logged in either. And we already had 90 people in the virtual waiting room. I told Marsha I would log in immediately, hung up the phone, ran to put on my suit jacket since I would be on camera, and called Van to see what was going on with him.

Van answered the phone, and I could tell by the background noise that he was driving. Not an auspicious sign. I hurriedly told him what was happening and figured that he too had thought the program began at 4:30 p.m. He explained that he had the right TIME, but the wrong time ZONE. He thought he still had an hour. I was in full-on panic mode at this point, but Van very calmly said, “Give me 10 minutes.”

I opened Zoom on my computer, logged into the meeting and Tammy started letting the attendees into the virtual room. I had already planned to speak for about 5 minutes, including my introduction of Van, so I figured I could probably stretch the intro until he got there. Anybody know any jokes?

Shortly after my intro, Van’s window appeared in the Zoom meeting, and he was ready to go. Completely unfazed, he apologized for being late and explained that he had been on the way to the courthouse so he had pulled into a spare office there and would give the presentation from there.

My panic receded a bit as he launched into his presentation, telling the saga of Memphis Greenspace (http://memphisgreenspace.org/). It quickly returned, however, when Van referred to some slides that were not showing up on the screen. I texted Tammy, “I think we are supposed to be showing his PowerPoint for him?” I interrupted Van and told him that we could not see the slides he was talking about. He then tried to share his screen in the Zoom but that didn’t work. Cool as a cucumber, he calmly asked if we could just show the slides for him, and he would tell Tammy when to advance slides. Van continued on. I remained frazzled.

During my introduction I had mentioned that attendees could send in questions for Van using the chat function on Zoom. We planned to have a 5- to 10-minute Q&A session at the end of Van’s remarks before we broke into the small groups. As Van continued his presentation, I clicked on the chat button, and saw that Tammy had copied a question from Cathy Schuck for me to see. I wondered why I hadn’t seen Cathy’s original question, but Tammy had then typed, “Can you see the questions in chat now that I made you a co-host?” I didn’t see any yet but typed out a reply: “I should be able to now” and hit enter. My whole screen went white. When I clicked anywhere on the screen, I got the dreaded warning box that said “Zoom isn’t responding” and gave me the options to either close Zoom or wait for it to respond. Ummm…

Now I was full-on panicking. Through the white screen I could still see Van talking, and I could still hear him. But I was terrified that even touching my computer would crash the whole thing. I frantically texted Marsha and Tammy on my phone: “My screen is frozen!” followed by “I’m afraid to do anything that might crash Zoom!”

Van was just finishing up his presentation, so when there was an opportunity I told Marsha over the broadcast that I was unable to see anything, including audience questions. Marsha, just as calm as Van, read some of the audience questions to him, and he answered them just like nothing was wrong.

When the Q&A was over, it was time to break up into the small groups. I told Marsha and Van (and the entire audience) that I was going to use that opportunity to close and re-boot Zoom. As I did that, Marsha and Tammy separated everyone into our carefully selected small groups. We had arranged for each small group to have a pre-selected group leader to lead the discussion with scripted questions. We had also arranged for every attorney and law student matched up for the Buddy Match program to be in the same small group as well so there would be at least one familiar face.

When I logged back into Zoom, it sent me into a small group with a different leader from what I was expecting and my Buddy Match partner was nowhere to be seen. I figured that must have something to do with my technical issues and having to log out, so I just went with it, assuming everything else was going according to plan. My small group was skillfully led by Dave Yoder and contained a couple of other attorneys and a couple of law students. We had a great discussion of diversity and inclusion issues in our own lives.

When the small group session time ran out, we were moved back into the large group for closing thoughts. I called on my pre-arranged group leaders (Committee members Akram Faizer, Jamie Ballinger, and Johnelle Simpson), and they gave excellent reports of their group discussions. I apologized profusely for my technical issues and thanked Van and our attendees and closed out the program.

As soon as I closed Zoom, I immediately called Marsha to apologize for my many issues, not least of which was my somehow not being ready at 4 p.m.1 Marsha sounded a little frazzled herself and informed me that when Zoom sent everyone to the small groups it did so completely randomly, and not the groups we had chosen. So THAT was why I was in the wrong small group, not because of my technical issues. Marsha said some of the groups didn’t even have discussion leaders. But Marsha and Tammy both said they thought the event went well and the small group discussions were productive. The groups without leaders had simply taken it upon themselves to run the discussion. Crisis averted.

Hanging up with Marsha, I then called Van. We laughed about how chaotic the afternoon had been and I thanked him profusely and apologized again. Van of course seemed un-fazed, as always. While on the phone with Marsha and then Van, I began receiving texts and e-mails about what a great program it had been. Akram called me later to say the same. I thought to myself, “I guess we fooled ‘em!” While it seemed to be pure chaos on my side of the Zoom screen, the audience saw a moving program from an inspiring speaker.

As my heart finally stopped racing and I started to accept that the program had actually turned out well (despite my repeated inadvertent sabotage), I realized that my harrowing experience with the 2020 Diversity in the Profession CLE and Reception had basically been a microcosm of my year with the KBA. I had a plan and felt like I was prepared, but the plan quickly went out the window. And just like my frenetic day with the Diversity CLE, it has mostly looked like I knew what I was doing in this chaotic year thanks to the quick thinking of Marsha, Tammy, and the rest of the fantastic KBA staff (Tracy, Jonathan, Elisabeth, and Rebecca). 2020 has thrown us some curveballs, but I am proud of how adaptable the KBA has been. That starts with our tremendous staff, but our leaders (Board and Committee/Section Chairs), and members have really stepped up to these challenges as well. I thank you all.

1 It was mind-boggling to me that I had somehow had the wrong time on my calendar. After much soul-searching, I am pretty sure I have the answer: the original (in—person) event was scheduled for 4:30 p,m. When we moved the event online the time was changed to 4:00 p.m., and I never made the change on my calendar. Every Committee meeting agenda and every promotional e-mail I received had the new time, and it just never registered with me.

KNOX COUNTY JUDICIAL MAGISTRATE OPENING

FACT SHEET

Qualifications - Licensed attorney and are required to be a resident of Knox County, Tennessee

Term - Four-year term, January 31, 2021- January 31, 2025

Duties - Include, but are not necessarily limited to, issuance of arrest warrant s, search warrants and mittimus. The judicial magistrates also issue forfeiture warrants and conduct jail arraignments by means of real-time video conference. The judicial magistrates have the duty of determining whether or not probable cause exists to issue an arrest warrant when a crime is alleged to have been committed.

Contact Person - Please send resume by noon, Monday, November 30, 2020 at the address or e-mail listed below.

Donna Corbitt

Judicial Court Administrator Room M-70, City-County Building P.O. Box 2404 Knoxville, TN 37901 Telephone (865) 215-2370 FAX(865)215-2403 donna.corbitt@knoxcounty.org

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