Nashville Bar Journal
October 2013 - VOL 13, NO. 9
Changes Are Coming to our Nashville Bar Foundation Bob Mendes
Ideas to Save Money and Improve Tennessee Court Systems Everette Parrish
Tennessee after DOMA: What Now? Abby R. Rubenfeld
A Monthly Publication of the Nashville Bar Association
Articles 6
Departments 2
Changes Are Coming to our Nashville Bar Foundation Bob Mendes
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Ideas to Save Money and Improve Tennessee Court Systems
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16 Tennessee after DOMA: What Now? Everette Parrish
Abby R. Rubenfeld
From the President Communique • NBA Picnic Review • Health & Wellness Walk • Memorial Service • Tune Award • Golden Oldie Reveal • Upcoming Events
CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION CENTER SECTION
Columns 10 12 14
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Book Review: Coup by Keel Hunt
Reviwed by Eleanor Wetzel
Disclosure - Announcements • Kudos • People on the Move • Firm News • In Memory
Gadget of the Month
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Profile: Donald Capparella
Golden Oldie
Bill Ramsey, Neal & Harwell, PLC Phillip Hampton, LogicForce Consulting
Classified Listings
Tim Ishii
Identify the individuals in the photo. Be the first to email the correct answer to nikki. gray@nashvillebar.org and your name (along with your correct entry) will appear in next month’s issue.
NBA Calendar of Events October 8 - 11 AM CLE Committee Meeting
October 15 - 12 PM Ethics Committee Meeting
October 8 - 11:30 AM L.A.W. Meeting
October 15 - 12 PM Ethics Committee Meeting
October 8 - 5:30 PM Solo/Small Firm Committee Meeting @ Flying Saucer
October 22 - 11 AM Business Transactions/Corporate Counsel Committee Meeting
October 8 - 5:30 PM Solo/Small Firm Committee Meeting @ Flying Saucer
October 24 - 12 PM NBF Trustees Meeting
October 24 - 3:30 PM Finance Committee Meeting @ Sherrard & Roe October 24 - 4:30 PM Executive Committee Meeting @ Sherrard & Roe December 5 NBA Annual Meeting and Banquet @ Wildhorse Saloon 5:30 PM Reception with Dinner and Meeting following at 7 PM
Committee Meetings are held at the NBA Offices unless otherwise noted l o= Special Event l Full Calendar online at www.nashvillebar.org
' A Monthly Publication of the Nashville Bar Association
Tom Sherrard, Publisher William T. Ramsey, Editor-in-Chief ramseywt@nealharwell.com
Eleanor Wetzel, Managing Editor
From the President An Invitation to Make a Difference by:
Tom Sherrard
eleanorwetzel@jis.nashville.org
Journal Staff:
Nikki Gray, Director of Communications nikki.gray@nashvillebar.org
Tina Ashford, Communications Coordinator tina.ashford@nashvillebar.org
Editorial Committee: Kelly L. Frey Kathleen Pohlid Tim Ishii Tracy Kane Everette Parrish Bill Ramsey Rita Roberts-Turner Eleanor Wetzel David Winters Victoria Webb
Nashville Bar Association Staff Gigi Woodruff Executive Director ----------Tina R. Ashford Communications Coordinator Susan W. Blair Director, Continuing Legal Education Shirley Clay Finance Coordinator Wendy K. Cozby Lawyer Referral Service Coordinator Nikki R. Gray Director of Communications Traci L. Hollandsworth Programs & Events Coordinator Malinda Moseley CLE Coordinator Judy Phillips CLE Coordinator Vicki Shoulders Membership Coordinator/Office Manager The Nashville Bar Journal, ISSN 1548-7113, is published monthly by the Nashville Bar Association at 150 Fourth Avenue North, Suite 1050, Nashville, TN 37219, (615) 242-9272. Periodicals Postage Paid, Nashville, TN (USPS 021-962). Subscription price: $25 per year. Individual issues: $5 per copy. POSTMASTER: Send address corrections to Nashville Bar Journal, 150 Fourth Avenue North, Suite 1050, Nashville, TN 37219
No part of this publication may be reprinted without written permission of the Nashville Bar Journal Editorial Committee. The Nashville Bar Journal is not responsible for the return or loss of unsolicited manuscripts or for any damage or other injury to unsolicited manuscripts or artwork. All Articles and Letters contained in this publication represent the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Nashville Bar Association.
Nashville Bar Association 150 Fourth Avenue North Suite 1050 Nashville, TN 37219 615-242-9272 Fax 615-255-3026 www.nashvillebar.org
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Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
The topic of this President’s page offers up something a bit different from the norm. Mayor Karl Dean requested me to tell you about an extraordinary new educational program described in more detail below and extend an invitation for you to participate in the program in the role of a mentor. Five years ago the City of Knoxville initiated a program with the stated mission that every high school graduate deserves a chance to attend college. The program, called knoxvilleAchieves, created a pathway for all high school graduates to attend community colleges or technology institutes tuition-free. Moreover, attendance at these community colleges or institutes did not require a minimum score on the ACT or SAT. The program has been a runaway success, and the organization, now known as tnAchieves, with support from Governor Haslam and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, has now expanded into a total of 26 Tennessee counties. This fall, tnAchieves reports that nearly 3,800 students who graduated from high school in 2013 had entered a post‑secondary institution tuition-free and with mentor guidance.1 In August of this year, Mayor Dean announced the expansion of tnAchieves into Davidson County. All graduates from Nashville’s 20 high schools will be eligible for nashvilleAchieves scholarships, beginning in 2014, allowing them to attend community colleges or technical institutes on a tuition-free basis. Students will be expected to complete the FAFSA2 student aid application, complete 8 hours of community service each semester, and maintain a relationship with a volunteer mentor provided by nashvilleAchieves at least through the first semester of their college experience. Without question, the 100% tuition support provided by nashvilleAchieves to every high school graduate seeking entrance into a community college or technical institute, plays a crucial part in drawing high school graduates into the program. However, experience has indicated that the most important element in the ultimate success of this program is the mentoring component. Without mentor guidance, many of the students would slip through the proverbial cracks associated with the transition from high school to a post-secondary institution. Even though the contacts between mentors and students are relatively brief, it has been found that these mentors positively influence a student’s perception about post-secondary life and ultimately about themselves. Mentors for nashvilleAchieves would be expected to offer guidance to high school seniors as they navigate through the college application process and their first semester of college. These volunteers will be provided with an hour of training in October or November, and will receive a handbook outlining all of the important steps in the college access process. Specific college access knowledge is not required of the mentors. They would be expected to be available to encourage students to pursue a post-secondary education, and to help them find the answers they need to succeed in their quest. Mentors are asked to commit for a one-year period starting in December 2013. The time commitment over the course of a year is typically no more than 1215 hours. Each mentor is assigned students from a high school of his or her choice. It is the hope of Mayor Dean, and mine as well, that a number of members of the Nashville Bar Association will respond to this call to become mentors in what has been an extraordinarily successful program. The time commitment is negligible, but the value you can bring to the program in advising and counseling these students for one year is significant. Helping our high school graduates achieve a college education is a goal which we all support, even if it is not specifically a law-related objective.
2013 NBA BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Given the need for skilled workers in Nashville and throughout the state, the state has committed to seeing that 55% of our high school students attain a post-secondary degree by 2025. It is expected that this program will play a major role in obtaining that objective. It is estimated that there could be as many as 1,600 new applicants for the nashvilleAchieves program in its first year, and that will require approximately 325 volunteer mentors for those students. I invite you to address any questions to Jackie Hartmann, the Director of Programs for tnAchieves. Jackie has now moved her offices to Nashville this year to implement the program in Davidson County. I encourage all of you who may be interested in serving as a mentor to contact Jackie at jackie@tnachieves.org, 865-405-9745. Alternatively, you may choose to complete the mentor application at https://www. tnachieves.org/mentor‑application. The Nashville Bar Association has been known for its commitment to volunteerism for important causes. In my opinion this project fits that bill, and I urge you to respond to the Mayor’s request. n
Thomas J. Sherrard, President Charles K. Grant, President-Elect Patricia Head Moskal, First Vice President John R. Tarpley, Second Vice President John D. Kitch, Immediate Past President Cornell Kennedy, Secretary Trace Blankenship, Treasurer Gareth Aden, General Counsel Robert E. Boston Dewey Branstetter Kay Caudle C. Dawn Deaner Michele M. Johnson Edward D. Lanquist, Jr. Hon. Randal S. Mashburn John C. McLemore Jeffrey Mobley Andrea P. Perry Matt Potempa Maria M. Salas Saul A. Solomon Jocelyn A. Stevenson Overton Thompson, III
Got an Idea for an NBJ Article? (Endnotes) 1 Additional information is available at the tnAchieves website, www.tnachieves.org. 2 The acronym stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
We want to hear about the topics and issues readers think should be covered in the magazine. Send it to nikki.gray@nashvillebar.org
Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
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communiqué
NBA NEWS
Health and Wellness Committee Walk The Nashville Bar Association’s Health and Wellness Committee will host a walk on Saturday, November 9 at 7:30 a.m. at the Richland Creek Greenway in west Nashville to show support for attorney wellness. The group will gather behind the Nashville State/Tennessee Technology Center close to the Lion’s Head Trailhead. The committee ask that you wear blue so that they may identify everyone with NBA. While there will be no cost to participate, they will be accepting donations to the Fund. There will be a post-event gathering at Starbucks in the Belle Meade Plaza Shopping Center to cool off, relax and catch up. Family and friends are welcome. This year’s Walk is an informal event with friends. However, it is our hope that this will become an annual event, one at which we can continue to show our support for TLAP and its mission to provide assistance to lawyers in times of acute stress and trauma.
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NBA Annual Picnic The 16th Annual Nashville Bar Association Member Picnic, co-sponsored by Metro Law Department, was held on September 19, 2013, at Hall of Fame Park. Copper Kettle provided a southern dinner of BBQ beef brisket and blackened chicken that accompanied an open bar. If you missed this opportunity to mingle with other local attorneys and judges then you don’t want to miss the Annual Meeting & Banquet! Mark your calendars now – this year’s event will be held on December 5, 2013 at the Wildhorse Salon. Dinner Sponsored By: Copper Kettle Picnic Co-Sponsored By: Metro Law Department Event Sponsors: ABA Retirement Funds Program Document Solutions Grumpy’s Bail Bonds IPSCO LogicForce Professional Design & Printing SunTrust Thomson Reuters Vocational Economics
If you are interested in joining the walk or have any questions, please contact Crystal Cole at 615-579-3008 or crc@ gammonslaw.com.
UPCOMING EVENTS: Nominations are being sought for the John C. Tune Public Service Award until October 25th. Nominations should be directed to Traci Hollandsworth at 615-242-9272 or traci.hollandsworth@nashvillebar.org. ---------------------------------Health & Wellness Walk Richland Creek Greenway Saturday, November 9, 2013 ---------------------------------4
Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
NBA Swearing-In Ceremony Justice AA Birch Building Tuesday, November 12, 2013 -------------------------------------Roast to Honor Gordon Bonnyman Hutton Hotel, Ballroom 6 -8:30 PM. November 19, 2013 For additional details, please contact Kristin Ware at kware@tnjustice.org. --------------------------------------
Memorial Service Downtown Presbyterian Church Thursday, November 21, 2013 -------------------------------------Annual Banquet Wildhorse Saloon Thursday, December 5, 2013 --------------------------------------
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NBA Annual Memorial Service The Nashville Bar Association's annual Memorial Service will be conducting the service on Thursday, November 21, 2013 at the Downtown Presbyterian Church. The service begins at 11 a.m. with a reception immediately following in Fellowship Hall.
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NBA NEWS
-Golden Oldies
A project of the NBA's Historical Committee, the Memorial Service honors the memory of those Nashville lawyers and judges who passed away during the preceding six-month period. Memorial resolutions, recounting the lives and legal careers of the deceased individuals, are prepared and then read at the service by friends and colleagues of the bench and bar. Family members and friends of the deceased are invited to attend.
Attorneys to be HONORED: Alfred Adams, Jr. Samuel Baron Betty Boner Ovid Collins Richard Dance Tom Harris, Jr.
Judge James Swiggart, Sr. Carrol Kilgore David Lyons William Wommack
NBA Annual Meeting & Banquet December 5, 2013 Wildhorse Saloon The NBA Annual Meeting and Banquet will take place on Thursday, December 5, 2013 at Wildhorse Saloon. As in past years, a reception for the general membership is set to begin at 5:30 p.m., with dinner and the program to begin at 7 p.m. The passing of the gavel from President Tom Sherrard, to President-Elect Charles Grant, introduction of the NBA officers for 2014, and Award presentations are just a few of the events on the agenda for the evening.
RSVP @ www.nashvillebar.org
Judge Michael Mondelli correctly identified the individuals in the September 2013 Golden Oldies photo. Pictured are: John Nixon and Tom Corts
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP Required by 39 U.S.C. 3685 1. Publication title: Nashville Bar Journal. 2. Publication No. 21962 3. Filed 9/24/13. 4. Frequency: Monthly except January. 5. No. published annually: 11 (eleven). 6. Annual subscription price: $25. 7. Mailing address of office of publication: Nashville Bar Association, 150 Fourth Avenue North, Suite 150, Nashville, TN 37219-2419. 8. Mailing address of headquarters of publisher: same as above. 9. Publisher: Nashville Bar Association. Editor: Bill Ramsey, 150 4th Ave. N. Ste. 2000, Nashville, TN 37219. Managing Editor: Eleanor Wetzel, 408 2nd Ave. North, Ste 6110, Nashville, TN 37201-1201. 10. Owner: Nashville Bar Association. 11. Known bondholders, mortgagees and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities: None. 12. The purpose, function and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes has not changed during preceding 12 months. 13. Publication title: Nashville Bar Journal. 14. Issue date for circulation data: 09/14/13.Actual No. 15. Extent & Nature of Circulation
Avg. No. Copies Ea. Issue During Preceding
Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date
a. Total no. copies (net press run) 2882 2850 b. (1) Paid/requested outside county mail subscriptions 376 386 (2) Paid in-county subscriptions 2384 2396 (3) Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, counter sales, etc. 0 0 (4) Other classes mailed through the USPS 0 0 c. Total paid and/or requested circulation 2760 2782 d. Free distribution by mail (samples, comps & other free) (1) Free distribution outside the mail 4 4 (2) Free In-County 51 51 (3) Free - Other Classes 0 0 (4) Free - Outside Mail 0 0 e. Total free distribution 55 55 f. Total distribution 2815 2837 g. Copies not distributed 67 13 h. Total 2882 2850 i. Percent paid and/or requested 98% 98% 16. This statement of ownership will be printed in the October 2013 issue. 17. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including multiple damages and civil penalties). — Nikki Gray, Communications Director, Nashville Bar Association, September 23, 2013
Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
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Feature
Changes Are Coming to our Nashville Bar Foundation by:
For the last year, the Trustees of the Nashville Bar Foundation have been working on a plan to recast the Foundation as a more active participant in our legal community. Let me start with where we have been, walk you through our thought process, and describe where we are headed. What does the Foundation do? I've heard this question many times. It sometimes comes right before a punch line. The reality is that the Foundation has done a poor job of making the community aware of who we are and what we do. As a result, the Foundation is most frequently thought of as an organization that offers lawyers the "opportunity" to donate $1,500 and put on formal attire once a year for an annual banquet. Beyond this, the Foundation currently does not enjoy much of a reputation. This is a shame. The Foundation provides a significant benefit to our legal community. To understand that benefit requires some history. Nashville legend David Rutherford originally suggested the Foundation in the early 1980s. (I am just young enough to have never met David Rutherford; if you don't know who he is, please find a lawyer over 50 years old and ask; also track down a copy of David's book Bench and Bar II, which will give you a sense of his deep connection to our legal community.) David's original idea was to raise money to provide affordable loans to law students in need. Over time, the mission has morphed. Understanding the Foundation’s role also requires knowing about its financial activities today. The Foundation is 501(c)(3) that can accept charitable contributions. In contrast, the Nashville Bar Association is a 501(c)(6), which I understand is essentially a non-profit trade organization and cannot accept charitable contributions. In
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this way, the Foundation is the arm of our bar that facilitates purely charitable activities. About two-thirds of the money that comes into the Foundation is charitable contributions that are raised by our Young Lawyer's Division (YLD) at their events like Race Judicata and the Carbolic Smoke Ball. Nearly all of the remaining Foundation revenue comes from the contributions of new Fellows. Finally, there are occasional special projects (like a portrait for a retiring judge) where the Foundation collects contributions from interested lawyers. For two of these three typical revenue sources, the Foundation spends 100% of the funds received for the charitable purpose while retaining nothing for the Foundation. For example, all of the money received through the YLD's efforts is given to the charities designated by the YLD. Also, for the occasional special projects, all of the donated funds are used for the specific charitable purpose. In addition to these, the Foundation has typically made an annual contribution to the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee. The Foundation sometimes has also supported Bar Association initiatives that need help getting off the ground (like when the Association needed seed money to explore the feasibility of buying or building new office space several years ago). My bet is that most of you are largely unaware of the facts in the last four paragraphs. The Foundation Trustees have concluded that this is because of two problems – the Foundation historically has been more reactive to need in the legal community (as opposed to actively
seeking out and performing a mission) and, more importantly, the Foundation has not done a good job of telling its own story. What is the plan? With lawyers, you can always count on a follow-up question, or two. Here, the first follow-up should be, “So, you’re going to be ‘more proactive than reactive’ with your mission; what does that mean?” Here is what we have in mind. Focus Once we decided to more narrowly describe the Foundation’s core mission, we readily found clues about how to do this. The first hint was in the original mission of the Foundation: to support legal education. The next clue was in YLD’s work. The reality is that the money raised by YLD is currently the majority of the Foundation’s economic activity. The charities that YLD is supporting this year are typical; they are Boys and Girls Club of Middle Tennessee, CASA Nashville, and the Nashville Children's Alliance. Whether the Foundation has said so directly or not, the evidence is that the major thrust of the Foundation’s efforts is centered on education, mentoring, children, and civics. Admittedly, this is still is a pretty broad range, and the Foundation will likely always be a place for special projects (like facilitating a Bar Association program, or a judicial portrait). But, we at least can answer the question about the Foundation does. Primarily, the Foundation’s mission it to support and expand law-related educational and charitable programs, and also services that promote the knowledge, understanding, and respect for the law among students, the general public, and the legal community. Clearly stating the Foundation’s purpose – its reason to exist – is an important first step toward being better able to satisfy that
mission. In truth, our Fellows and our YLD colleagues largely have been motivated by this mission already. By identifying it, and pursuing it purposefully, we believe the Foundation will grow stronger and be more effective. Mentoring In September 2014, the Foundation is going to launch a lawyer leadership program that will provide Nashville attorneys with innovative opportunities to learn, collaborate, network, and serve the community. The target audience will be lawyers with 3-8 years of experience. The program is expected to include an initial day-long retreat coinciding with the annual NBA member picnic, and a final program concluding with the NBA Law Day event the following April or May. Class members will be matched with mentors, and we anticipate that Foundation Fellows will be the mentors. There are many more details to be decided. We are just forming the program’s steering committee now. Please look for more information in the coming months. More active ties with YLD The leaders of the Foundation and YLD have determined to coordinate more intentionally. For many years, the YLD has raised money, and the Foundation has written checks to deliver that money to charities. But the two groups have had little interaction beyond that. This is changing. For the new lawyer leadership program, YLD representatives will be actively involved on the steering committee. For the Foundation’s annual banquet, we will invite YLD’s leadership team and also representatives of the charities that receive gifts through the course of the year. The Foundation and YLD are also working together to improve how the two organizations use the Bar Association’s website.
Taken together, these steps will allow the Foundation and YLD to have a working relationship that properly represents their existing level of financial interactions. We hope that the tighter relationship will provide additional informal mentoring relationships between the leadership of the two groups. GavelNotes App The Foundation has developed an app called GavelNotes for the iPad and iPhone. An Android version is expected to be released in the next month. Using the app, you can access the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, and Evidence, as well as the analogous state rules. The text of all rules is fully searchable. You can tag favorites and bookmarks, and create your own personal annotations for any rule. In addition, the app allows you to conduct your own legal document search using Google Scholar and save the results of your search, all within the app itself. There was an article about the app in the September 2013 issue of the Nashville Bar Journal: http://www.nashvillebar. org/NBF/GavelNotesApp.html. More information is available at: https:// itunes.apple.com/us/app/gavelnotes/ id667399603?mt=8. Or you can just download the app from iTunes. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the app are retained by the Foundation to be used for our charitable purposes. Banquet We are going to move the annual NBF banquet from early November to late February or early March. While we recognize that there is no perfect weekend for any event, the Foundation believes that late winter would be better for us. We will be able to celebrate the organizations Continued on Page 18
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Ideas to Save Money and Improve Tennessee Court Systems by:
Everette Parrish
“A penny saved is a penny earned.” Put another way, being efficient with time and money is like being paid all over again for the same work. With 17,000 attorneys in Tennessee, if each practitioner could save just one Ben-Franklin ($100), nearly $2 million dollars could be earned.
Yes, and here are some simple ideas to save money and improve Tennessee court systems, saving (earning) pennies on the dollar.
The juvenile courts recently indicated their need for standardization. In the 2012 Annual Report of the Tennessee Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, committee members concurred that, “Tennessee has a non-unified court system which means that each court has its own methods of conducting court business. Collecting the same categories of juvenile data across all courts is a challenge.”1 With standardization across each county, important datum could more easily be received in a timely and accurate manner.
1. Standardization Saves Ninety-five different counties doing the same legal processes 95 different ways would certainly be a waste of time and money. Statewide, the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) applies resources and tax dollars to provide forms to the public, clerks, and the Bar. These templates are intended to help provide a consistent look and feel, and their content is often a standard of measure in many legal areas. Training on the use of each form is usually available via downloadable PDF manuals, regional in-person CLEs, and online videos.
Attorneys working daily in court systems where paper forms are old, almost unreadable mimeographs of days gone by, should take the time to send a copy of the antiquated form to the clerks or the AOC with illustrated suggestions on how standardizing, simplifying, or cleaning up a form could help improve efficiency and comprehension of the form’s look and purpose. Don’t assume judicial system employee is going to catch and understand every form used by lawyers daily; give them help in respectfully offering suggestions of improvement.
Individual counties also have created online forms and instructions, addressing specialized standards in certain sections of the law. County clerk websites are invaluable in providing these forms. At the county level, each initiative helps standardize (and hopefully simplify) routine processes, reducing the time (money) required by the attorney or the paralegal to generate, populate, and file completed legal documents.
2. e-File Ease The immediate convenience of filing pleadings and motions at the federal level is the goal of every state court clerk as well as their IT administrators and programmers. For a state like Tennessee, all that is missing to make online filing ubiquitous is federal-sized budgets and national resources to generate current online filing systems like PACER for federal court,2 iAppeals for Social Security Claims,3 and e-Appeal for the Merit Systems Protection Board,4 just to name a few.
Is this possible?
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Presently there is no way to electronically file, or e-file, in Tennessee. There is, however, Rule 46— proposed in 20065 — and Rule 5B of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure, both of which allow electronic filings.) Alabama has implemented e-filing for civil cases,6 as has Mississippi.7 Ohio has authorized online filing civil cases, and Montgomery County (Dayton) further offers e-filing in criminal cases.8 Another Ohio County, Hamilton County9 (not to be confused with Chattanooga, Tennessee), has online filing for civil and criminal common pleas, and impressively has had e-filing since March 7, 2001.10 Nationwide there is a boon in online court access.11 At the Tennessee county level (in contrast to the state level), initiatives are emerging as exemplified by the electronic filing service available in Shelby County’s Civil Circuit and Chancery Courts.12 To be fair, the State is discussing the need for an electronic court filing system and more about this can be researched by reviewing Tennessee General Assembly bills HB0418 / SB1050 and HB1226 / SB1057, which were introduced, but not passed, in 2013.13 The power to save (earn) money is great in the area of e-filing. The time necessary to drive to the courthouse to file in person or print multiple pages, prepare envelopes and mail copies to all parties involved could be eliminated by a tenminute procedure of logging in to e-file, creating a PDF, uploading, and logging off. Firms and attorneys who generate dollars by alternate fee arrangements already know the value in shortening the time for mundane tasks.14 3. Virtual Clerk Files Although documents cannot be filed electronically statewide, many courts across the state offer the ability to view court documents online in what could be considered a virtual clerk’s office. As of August 26, the Tennessee Appellate
Court Clerk’s Office enabled an online system called “C-Track” to view motions, orders, opinions, and judgments for both the Tennessee Court of Appeals and the Criminal Court of Appeals.15 Per the press release, the “installation of C-Track is just the first step in a series of projects designed to take advantage of technology in the court’s case filing system.”16 Davidson County has many excellent resources for online viewing of cases in a limited number of county courts. CaseLink is available for viewing dockets and filings for General Sessions Civil, Circuit, and Probate courts.17 Chancery has its own system called “CIA” for attorneys and a simpler public site.18 The Register of Deeds office also provides paid access19, and the Metro Criminal Court even has an award-winning site containing not only affidavits, attorney calendar queries, and general case information (sans pleadings), but an interactive graphical map pinpointing the accused by address and updated daily.20 Online viewing of dockets saves time for the attorney who needs to confirm that a document was received by the court, to review an earlier-filed document or research prior pleadings for facts and issues, and/or to confirm filing dates and times. The hourly-biller may prefer the slower way to review a docket, but today’s sophisticated client knows the time it takes to access something, and if billing reflects no savvy skills with the online world, an offline attorney’s business may soon go to more efficient counsel or the customer may demand an alternate fee arrangement. Guardian Ad Litems and Attorney Ad Litems in Davidson County Probate Court benefit greatly in their civil practice with online access to CaseLink when viewing pleadings, responses, orders, and more. The bills each appointed attorney submits to the Court and to the public is less because of this time-saver.
Court-appointed attorneys in criminal cases, however, enjoy no such system at any county level in Tennessee. For $40 an hour with a 37.5 hour cap per felony case21, appointed criminal defense attorneys are expected to zealously represent a client through a jury trial, if needed, which requires physically going to the clerk’s office, sometimes without compensation,22 as often as needed to review the paper file. Imagine the savings in time and dollars if the clerk’s paper file was available on an attorney’s desktop as needed 24/7. Where would the funding come to enable this online access, though? Public tax dollars, of course, and perhaps even from the defendants themselves. For example, the AOC’s 2011 report indicated that counsel was appointed to 228,932 defendants and since the first enactment of fee-charging legislation $15,422,829.59 has been collected.23 If the $40hourly rate from 1994 is not going to be raised to compensate for the 50% cost of living increase from 1994 to 2013, perhaps efficient timesavers like online county systems to view criminal dockets and pleadings could be developed and paid for by the State to benefit indigent counsel (no pun intended), as the State has dutifully provided now with the advent of C-Track at the appellate level. 4. Shorter Court Time Judges know their dockets, and they experiment regularly with scheduling changes designed to improve service to the public and to “speed things up” while at simultaneously administering reasoned justice. Still, picture a dozen or so attorneys sitting in court while “roll is called” at each attorney’s hourly rate, and it is Continued on Page 19
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Book Review
Reviewed by:
Eleanor Wetzel
Impeachment, Tennessee Style Book Review of COUP: The Day the Democrats Ousted Their Governor, Put Republican Lama Alexander in Office Early, and Stopped a Pardon Scandal Author: Keel Hunt with forward by John L. Seigenthaler Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press Publication Date: August 2, 2013 ISBN: 978-0-8265-1932-0 (hardcover) 978-0-8265-1934-4 (ebook)
In the last few days of Governor Ray Blanton’s term, Tennesseans experienced a constitutional crisis unprecedented in state history. Never before in Tennessee, or any state, had a governor been sworn in early expressly to cut off the authority of his predecessor. Keel Hunt’s Coup provides a detailed account of this historical day and the events leading up to it. The basic story has been retold in a variety of forms since 1979. That is, Governor Blanton was at the center of a cashfor-clemency pardon scandal, having announced his intent to pardon recently convicted murderer Roger Humphreys at the beginning of his term. Although Blanton recanted this promise shortly thereafter due to public outrage, he ultimately pardoned Humphreys along with 51 others on January 15, 1979. Lamar Alexander’s inauguration was scheduled less than a week away for Saturday, January 20, 1979; however, driven by new information uncovered through the FBI investigation that more pardons would issue (including inmates involved in the pardons-for-sale investigation and talk of James Earl Ray), U.S. Attorney Hal Hardin initiated a secret bipartisan group on January 17, 1979. Within a four to six hour period, senior Democratic leaders, including friends of the sitting governor, together with Republican governor-elect Alexander, agreed to oust Blanton from office by swearing in Alexander that Wednesday evening. What makes Hunt’s book unique is it synthesizes more than 160 firsthand accounts of the events leading up to the early swearing-in. Even Hunt himself was an eye-witness: he served as a reporter for the Tennessean during the Blanton administration before he joined Alexander’s successful campaign for governor. Then after the 1978 gubernatorial election he was appointed Special Assistant to Governor Alexander, serving as a speechwriter and coordinator of the
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Governor’s Policy Group (although he, like many others, was unaware of the early swearing-in until viewing the news coverage). Though his portrait of the key players is broadly sympathetic, his close connections to many of the principals involved affords Hunt a view an outside historian may not have uncovered. Although many of the Blanton family members declined to be interviewed, Hunt was able to speak with Gene Blanton (brother of the late Ray Blanton) and Eddie Sisk (former legal counsel to Blanton), both of whom had served prison sentences, as well as members of the Blanton administration, incorporating their views of what happened leading up to the ouster. Due to the swift action and lack of modern electronic forms of communication, every individual involved only observed a snippet of the “coup,” but Hunt notes in the Postscript that regardless of whether the individuals were “Democrats or
Republicans, elected officials or staff members, politicians or journalists, their common recollections dovetailed to a surprising degree.” Interestingly, several of the main players in the ouster did not know the overreaching sequence of events—only his individual part—until reading Hunt’s book. John Seigenthaler summarizes in the Foreword: The individual stories of those government officials involved in the coup—each account unique, but all of them intersecting—were scattered like disconnected pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on the table of history until the author conceived of this book. Perhaps because it happened so quickly, and without major disagreement, protect, or dissent, this truly historic moment has been buried in the public mind. In unearthing the drama in gripping detail, Keel Hunt assures that the “dark day” will be remembered as a bright one in which conflicted politicians came together in public interest. To give insight on the internal conflict felt by the key players, short biographies comprise several of the initial chapters, demonstrating the complexity and the interwoven nature of their professional relationships. As such, the book is not presented in chronological order (although a detailed timeline is provided after the Epilogue). Given the number of participants involved, the story can be hard to follow, jumping back and forth between decades to provide context for the parties’ actions.1 However, these meticulous details will be greatly appreciated by
anyone wanting to know more about the history of the Tennessee bar since all the major participants are lawyers—e.g., Lamar Alexander, Victor Ashe II, Hal Hardin, Justice Joe Henry, William Leech, and John Wilder—with the exception of then-Speaker of the House (and former Tennessee Governor) Ned McWherter and Alexander’s Chief of Staff, Tom Ingram. Many other recognizable names in the profession—such as Judge Joe Brown, Judge Frank Clement, Hayes Cooney, Lewis Donelson, Bill Farmer, Aubrey Harwell, John Hay Hooker, Trip Hunt, Judge William Koch, Judge Walter Kurtz, Judge Seth Norman, David Pack, Tom, Shriver, Fred Thompson, Ed Yarbrough, Judge Tom Wiseman, among others—make
Due to generous donations by a group of 26 bipartisan individual and family donors, every library in Tennessee— totaling over 2000 libraries, including libraries at high schools and law schools along with all public libraries—received a copy of Coup in late September.
Eleanor (Ellie) Wetzel is licensed to practice in Tennessee (since 2002) and Indiana (since 2000). Her career has been devoted to research, having served more than thirteen years as a judicial clerk for state and federal courts. (Endnotes) 1 A primer on the ousting of Governor Blanton is available through the Harry Phillips American Inn of Court website. The presentation Three Days Early: The Last Days of Governor Ray Blanton includes a PDF that provides a summary of the cast of characters and detailed timeline along with other resources as well as a PowerPoint presentation consisting of historic photographs and newspaper articles. Both are available at http://harryphillipsaic.com/programs-2004-2005/ (scroll to Jan. 2005 materials). A video of the September 20, 2013 Chancellor’s Lecture titled “A Leadership Lesson for an Angry Age” with Keel Hunt and Senator Lamar Alexander soon will be available for viewing online at http:// www.vanderbilt.edu/chancellor/lecture-series/ (click link to video archive). Additionally, the summer book discussion with Keel Hunt, Hal Hardin, and Lamar Alexander, moderated by John Seigenthaler at Vanderbilt University’s First Amendment Center, is available through the C-SPAN video library at http:// www.c-spanvideo.org/program/314184-1.
2
Political History buffs also will appreciate that the long hard-to-find Secrets of the Hopewell Box: Stolen Elections, Southern Politics, and a City's Coming of Age by James Squires is now readily available since it was republished by the Vanderbilt University Press this year.
appearances throughout the story. Coup provides an opportunity for attorneys to learn more about these legends of the bar while enjoying a compelling story about a unique piece of state and national political history. While the impetus for the book was “simply to tell the story”, Hunt stated at a recent Vanderbilt University Chancellor’s Lecture2 that the book is especially timely given the ethos of current politics. Per Hunt, the book provides a “leadership lesson for an angry age….we are living in a contentious time when agreement is not easy.” He hopes the book provides a case study on how different political leaders can work together in times of crisis. n
Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
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iPhone 5s and 5c, and iOS 7
One Small Step for the Smartphone, One Giant Stop for the Operating System
As you all must know (unless you have been living under a rock), Apple just released a new iPhone (actually two new iPhones)–the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c. Apple also has released a new operating system for iPhones and iPads, iOS 7. The recordbreaking sales of these phones were a surprise to us. Silly us, we thought that the new phones would not be big sellers because there aren’t any dramatic changes in the 5s and 5c iPhones over the features of the iPhone 5. Boy, were we wrong. Apple sold nine million 5s and 5c iPhones on the first weekend of sales. That is the biggest opening weekend for iPhones in history. In addition, Apple says that now 200 million people are using iOS 7. The operating system, unlike the new iPhones, is a huge change for Apple’s mobile operating system. Given the staggering number of sales of the iPhone 5s and 5c and the massive installation of the new operating system, we thought this would be a perfect chance for us to go out and spend some more gadget money and buy a new iPhone. 1. The iPhone 5s vs. the 5c. Let’s talk about the 5s vs. the 5c first. As you may know, the 5s is the “Cadillac” of the two, and the 5c is the “VW Bug” version. There are substantial differences between the two. Both come in colors. The 5s comes in three colors: silver, grey, and gold (which color is proving to be very popular). The 5c comes in a range of pastel-colored casings in addition to regular white– (blue, green, yellow, or pink). There is no black 5c. The 5c is much cheaper. It starts at $99 for the 16-gigabyte model, while the 5s starts at $199 for the 16-gigabyte model. Given the fact that the 5c is cheaper than the 5s and comes in more colors, we are not sure whether the “c” stands for “cheap” or “color.” We understand that the 5c was designed primarily for “emerging” Smartphone markets because the price is cheaper. Still, we are informed that the 5s is outselling the 5c by about 3-to-1.
2. The iPhone 5s vs. the iPhone 5. There are not any dramatic changes in either phone over the iPhone 5. Here are the big differences between the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5. First, the 5s is a much faster telephone; it has a full 64-bit operating system. Second, it has a much better camera. While the camera is still an 8-megapixel camera like the iPhone 5 camera, the lens of the camera is far superior, and the camera has a bunch of neat features like a better burst mode, a “true tone” flash, and an image stabilization, just to name a few. The pictures you can make with the 5s are stunning. The big change in the 5s is its ID fingerprint sensor, which is built into the home button. You can unlock your phone without a PIN or make iTune purchases without entering a password. (Apple has confirmed that your fingerprint will not be stored in the Cloud on Apple’s servers, making it easy picking for the NSA. It should be noted, however, that someone has already “hacked” the fingerprint sensor feature of the iPhone 5s, thereby allowing folks to bypass the fingerprint recognition and unlock the phone and make purchases, even though they don’t have your finger.) Finally, the 5s has an M7 motion co-processor, which tracks the accelerometer, the gyroscope, and the compass on the phone. Apple claims this will open up a wide variety of health and fitness apps. Almost all of the other changes in the iPhone 5s are related to the new operating system, iOS 7, discussed below. You can install iOS 7 on every iPhone released after the iPhone. 3. The iPhone 5c vs. the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5c is basically a plastic version of the iPhone 5 (not the 5s). It uses the same A6 processor. It has the same camera, the same four-inch retina screen, and is exactly the same size. It does boast a better battery life than the iPhone 5, and it comes with iOS 7 pre-installed. It is a pretty good little phone for the money, but apparently the public has voted 3-to1 for the 5s. Continued on Page 13
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Ideas to Save Money and Improve Tennessee Court Systems Continued from page 12
4. The iOS 7. The big change here, however, is iOS 7. That change is not just restricted to the 5s and the 5c. That upgrade is non-exclusive to these new iPhones. The iOS 7 can be downloaded for installation on any iPhone 4 or later, iPad 2 or later, or the 5th Generation iPod Touch or later. Some people love iOS 7; some people hate it. There is no doubt that it takes some getting used to. (We love it because we get to play with a new operating system.) First of all, iOS 7 has completely made over the looks; the colors are pastel. The corners of the icons are rounded. The text is harder to read for old folks like Bill. The background is white, and the text on the screen is a dark grey color. The fonts are thinner, and there are no “textures” on the screen. For example, there are no fake wooden shelves in iBookstore. In addition to the new, more hip look, there are a bunch of new features. You can swipe up from the bottom of the screen, which allows you access to controls such as Wi-Fi settings, Bluetooth settings, the camera, calculator, and timer. You can even use the camera’s LED flash as a flashlight just by using the “swipe-up” settings area. When you double tap the home screen, you can see everything that is running and sweep anything upwards off the screen to close it. One of the most radical redesigns is the web browser, Safari. It is obviously a very important app, and the change in its look and operation is almost “radical” in iOS 7. First, the browser is very fast (especially fast on the iPhone 5s). You navigate on the pages by gesture. To go forward and backward in page history, you swipe either to the left or to the right. There is a unified Smart Search Field; you can look up a URL address or search from the same box. If you tap in that field, you can get a grid of your favorite sites or bookmark folders. When you start typing in that field, you get the top hits for that term as provided
by Google or whatever your default search page is. Safari is so new and changed that it is a bit “buggy.” There are still some glitches when you use it. Apple’s Facetime (the video-calling feature) is vastly improved. It is really easy to make video calls now. There is also a feature called Facetime Audio, which allows you to do voice calls by simply turning off the camera. These calls can only be made on Wi-Fi, and the sound quality is excellent. Thus, everyone that has an iPhone with iOS 7, now has a VoIP phone. There is also a block list on iPhone that prevents persons you select from being able to reach you by phone or Facetime or iMessage. You can always edit the list and remove or add any telephone numbers or email addresses you choose. (If people are stalking you, this is a very handy feature.) Perhaps the most important improvement in iOS 7 is security, or so we thought (see below). First, Apple has really improved its enterprise support for the iPhone and the iPad on iOS 7. In a corporate environment, management IT can control the applications that can be installed, it can control the documents that can be opened, and it can control all access to apps and data. For those of us outside the corporate environment, there is supposedly (see below) a monumental improvement in security. If you turn on “find my iPhone” in iOS 7 on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad, you can, of course, locate your lost device no matter where it is. Prior to iOS 7, however, if someone stole your device, they could just turn off “find my iPhone” and be comfortable with the knowledge that they have successfully stolen your device. With iOS 7, there is now something called “activation lock.” There is now a “lost mode” that will track down your device and show its location on a map just as before. But now, there are easy buttons to enter lost mode as well as to play a sound
and to remotely wipe the device. If a thief wants to try to disable “find my iPhone” or wipe the phone to disable tracking, the activation lock will force them to enter an Apple ID and password. If they cannot enter your Apple ID and password, they cannot change the software or disable the phone; they cannot wipe the phone. If you plug your iPhone into a computer and try to restore it, you will have to turn off the “find my iPhone,” which requires you to enter your Apple ID and password. If you cannot do so, you cannot proceed. So, from now on, if you have iOS 7 installed, it will be very difficult for thieves to steal your device and try to resell it if you have enabled “find my iPhone.” Here is the “see below” part. As of the writing of this article, someone has already “hacked” the fingerprint security on the 5s. Just yesterday, however, Apple released a “patch” for one of the flaws. (There is apparently another one in the Siri voice command.) The iOS 7 is a complete redesign of the multi-touch interface used by Apple devices. It is a radical change, and it will take you a little while to get used to it. At first, we were put off by the change, but, as we have used it more and more, we have grown to really like it. We were irritated with some features at first, such as the fact that there is no “agenda” view in the calendar, but we later learned a neat way to create an agenda view. (Send us a tweet @billandphil if you want to learn the work around.) Now, however, we really like it. It is always fun to learn something new, and, just when you thought you knew everything about your iPhone or iPad, just install iOS 7; you will have to go back to “Apple school” and relearn a lot of the things you thought you knew about using your iPhone or iPad. Happy learning! See you next month, —Bill & Phil @billandphil Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
13
Profile
Donald Capparella by:
Tim Ishii
One of the more attractive aspects of living in Nashville is that many of the preeminent people in the various professions are as interesting and nice as they are distinguished in their careers. Donald Capparella of Dodson, Parker, Behm and Capparella falls into this category. After graduating from the University of North Carolina law school and passing the bar here in Nashville, he commenced practicing of law in 1985. In his career Mr. Capparella has tried over hundred cases at the trial level and perfected and argued 170 appeals. Mr. Capparella came to the attention of most of us when he was asked to co-write the amici brief while at Manier, Herod, Hollabaugh & Smith in the landmark case of McIntyre v. Ballentine, 833 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn. 1992), which modified our negligence law. The McIntyre case changed Tennessee to a comparative fault state, abrogating the principles of contributory negligence as an absolute bar to recovery. Mr. Capparella also has taught legal writing at Vanderbilt School of Law as well as Nashville School of Law, and is a frequent speaker at continuing legal education classes on the issues of comparative fault, and appellate writing, and legal ethics.
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Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
Donald frequently is heard to say, “I like attorneys, I especially like getting calls from them.� His collegial attitude extends to inexperienced attorneys perfecting their first appeal. I know--I was one of those inexperienced attorneys whom he helped. Donald’s friendly professionalism has helped to magnify his professional reputation and thus his workload to such that to date he is prosecuted over 170 appeals of all types, both civil and criminal. His professionalism is not the only thing that sets Donald Capparella apart. This year is the 25th anniversary of his establishing the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, which performs in Centennial Park in its summer festival, and at Belmont University in the winter, and tours other programs throughout the year. This is no small accomplishment, as over 12,000 people will see the summer Shakespeare in the Park each year, and another 4,000 will see the winter show, including over 50 schools. His nonprofit Shakespeare company has not only survived, but has flourished longer than many professional companies in larger venues. Not merely a promoter, Donald is an active participant in the Shakespeare Festival and has been since he founded the company in 1988. Three times during his life, once in law school, and twice after entering the practice of law, Donald
has taken extended sabbaticals of up to a year at a time to play various parts in Shakespearean plays such as the Merchant of Venice with the Horse Cave Theater in Kentucky, and the Orlando Shakespeare Festival in production of The Tempest and Taming of the Shrew.. One of the outgrowths of his interest in Shakespeare is a rather unique service provided by the Shakespeare Festival. In 2000 Donald was trying a case which require the reading of more than a dozen depositions. Not wanting to bore the jury with droning attorneys reading depositions, Donald conceived the idea of having Shakespearean actors do the reading at trial. The actors’ rendition was so successful that the Shakespeare Festival maintains a fee-based service for trial attorneys that hires out actors as readers to do the same thing. He also regularly uses Shakespeare Festival actors in his CLE ethics seminars to aid in the teaching of ethics to lawyers, and created the well-received CLE featuring a mock trial between the Earl of Oxford and Mr. Shakespeare himself over the issue of who really wrote the complete works attributed to Shakespeare. Several members of the Tennessee Supreme Court and several trial and appellate judges have judged this mock trial. Integrating the arts into his law practice has helped to distinguish Mr. Capparella’s career. Together with his wife, the well-known classical pianist Amy Dorfman, he has been lucky to be around some of the best artists and trial lawyers in Nashville. Perhaps there is not that much difference between them after all.
Timothy Ishii practices in the firm
of Cynthia J. Bohn and Associates concentrating in appellate practice and probate matters.
Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
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Feature
Tennessee after DOMA: What Now? by:
Abby R. Rubenfeld
In 1967—more than a hundred years after the Civil War and just short of a hundred years after the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing equal treatment to all Americans— the United States Supreme Court finally and unanimously held unconstitutional the blatantly discriminatory anti-miscegenation laws that prohibited interracial marriages throughout this country.1 Following that ruling, the sky did not fall in, of course, and America did not lose its place as leader of the free world. Nonetheless, it was not until 2001—34 years later—that the last state (Alabama) finally repealed and corrected its state law.2 Justice is sometimes not so swift. On June 26, 2013, the United States Supreme Court again held unconstitutional a federal law that sought to limit civil marriage—traditionally an area of state rather than federal jurisdiction–in a discriminatory way.3 The Court struck down Section 3 of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA),4 the 1996 law imposing a federal definition of marriage to exclude samesex couples. United States v. Windsor, ___ U.S. ___, 133 S.Ct. 2675 (2013). The 5-4 opinion held that DOMA’s definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman was an unconstitutional deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. The Court held that DOMA violates “basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government” and that the guarantee of equality in the Constitution “must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot” justify disparate treatment of that group. Windsor, 133 S.Ct. at 2693 (quoting Dep’t of Ag. v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 534–35 (1973)). The Court further held that
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Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
DOMA's principal effect is to identify a subset of state-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal. The principal purpose is to impose inequality, not for other reasons like governmental efficiency. Responsibilities, as well as rights, enhance the dignity and integrity of the person. And DOMA contrives to deprive some couples married under the laws of their State, but not other couples, of both rights and responsibilities. By creating two contradictory marriage regimes within the same State, DOMA forces same-sex couples to live as married for the purpose of state law but unmarried for the purpose of federal law, thus diminishing the stability and predictability of basic personal relations the State has found it proper to acknowledge and protect. By this dynamic DOMA undermines both the public and private significance of state-sanctioned same-sex marriages; for it tells those couples, and all the world, that their otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of federal recognition. This places same-sex couples in an unstable position of being in a second-tier marriage. Windsor, 133 S.Ct. at 2694.
While Windsor addressed only the federal law, the decision sounds the death knell for all mini-DOMAs adopted in 35 states, based on either statute, constitutional amendment, or both.5 As Justice Scalia said in dissent, “[h]ow easy it is, indeed how inevitable, to reach the same conclusion with regard to state laws denying same-sex couples marital status.” Id. at 2709. Based on Windsor and long-established constitutional law, he is correct, but for now, Tennessee and many other states still have mini-DOMAs6—leaving the country, at least for the present, with a confusing mess of which marriages are legal and which are not, at which times and in which places. Following Windsor, the federal government acted quickly and in many cases decisively to clear up some of the confusion and to make equality a reality for all married couples. Various agencies issued statements within weeks of the ruling that they would enforce the decision and recognize all marriages valid in the State of celebration. The State Department immediately announced that it would recognize all marriages valid in the state of celebration, such that married same-sex couples would be treated the same as other married couples, including for visa applications and citizenship.7 At least one immigration judge in New York even halted deportation of a Columbian national married to an American citizen within 30 minutes of the decision being issued.8 On August 13, 2013, the Department of Defense issued a memorandum that same-sex spouses of military personnel and other employees could begin receiving benefits retroactively to the date of the decision, including health care coverage, base housing and allowances, burial rights with spouses in military cemeteries, survivor benefits, and many other spousal support and veterans benefits.9 On August 29, 2013, the Department of the Treasury and the IRS issued a ruling that all marriages of samesex couples valid in the State of celebration would be recognized for federal tax purposes, regardless of whether their States of residence recognize the marriage.10
Despite these quick and clear responses, confusion and inconsistency remain, even as to some federal benefits. Medicare, for example, continues to define “spouse” based on the law of the state of residence, rather than the state of celebration. The confusion will continue until all civil marriages are treated equally in all states for all purposes. Here in Tennessee, the effects of having a two-tiered marriage scheme, with some marriages recognized and some not, are profound. Validly married same-sex spouses are not eligible for health insurance through their spouse’s employment. They cannot have their names changed on their driver licenses without paying for a formal name change. Children born into the marriage are not automatically considered the legal children of both parents. And, significantly, if the marriage does not work out, which happens approximately 50% of the time in opposite sex marriages, same-sex spouses in Tennessee are wedlocked–many judges believe that if the State does not recognize the marriage, then they cannot give the couple a divorce.11 The inequality, and indeed absurdity, of the present situation is demonstrated by legally married same-sex couples stationed at Ft. Campbell. Such couples, each with at least one member voluntarily serving his or her country, including perhaps risking his or her life in combat overseas, know that on base, their marriage is valid and that they are entitled to all the benefits, and responsibilities, of any other married couple. But as soon as either member of the couple steps foot off the base into Tennessee, they are suddenly and magically no longer considered married. Such a scenario does not represent what this country and the American constitutional system, based on justice and equality for all, are supposed to be. The promise of the United States Constitution will not be real or complete until this blatantly discriminatory dual system is corrected. And this time around, it seems that justice will be swifter.
Abby R. Rubenfeld is an attorney in Nashville, Tennessee. Her general practice includes an emphasis on family law, sexual orientation issues, and AIDS-related issues. Rubenfeld also was an Adjunct Professor at the Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville for seven years, teaching a course on Sexual Orientation and the Law. She served for seven years on the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign, a national civil rights organization and the largest lesbian and gay political organization in the world, and for many years on the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Tennessee. She has also served as Chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities (IRR) and as Chair of the Nashville Bar Association Family Law Committee. (Endnotes) 1 Loving v. Virginia, 399 U.S. 1 (1967). This happened after a statewide vote in November 2000, where 40% of Alabama voters still voted to continue discrimination. See, e.g., Suzy Hansen, Mixing it up, Salon.com, http://www.salon.com/2001/03/08/sollors/ (Mar. 8, 2001).
2
It is important to remember that the issue in this debate is civil, and not religious, marriage. Regardless of the result in the Windsor case discussed in this article, the First Amendment continues to protect the absolute right of religious entities to define religious marriages as they choose.
3
4
See 1 U.S.C. §7, 28 U.S.C. 1738C.
5 Tennessee chose to do both. See Tenn. Const., art. XI, §18; Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-3-113.
Constitutional challenges have been or are about to be filed in more than a dozen states with mini-DOMAs, including Tennessee.
6
Dep’t of State, U.S. Visas for Same Sex Spouses: FAQs for Post-Defense of Marriage Act, http://travel.state.gov/visa/ frvi/frvi_6036.html.
7
8
See, e.g., The DOMA Project, www.domaproject.org.
See Secretary of Defense, Memorandum for Secretaries of the Military Departments Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Extending Benefits to the Same-Sex Spouses of Military Members (Aug. 13, 2013), available at http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2013/ docs/Further-Guidance-on-Extending-Benefits-to-SameSex-Spouses-of-Military-M.pdf.
9
10
Rev. Rul. 2013-17, 2013-38, IRB 1.
11 All of the 13 states and the District of Columbia that allow same sex marriages do so without a residency requirement. All but three of those jurisdictions, however, do have a residency requirement to obtain a divorce; Delaware, California, and the District of Columbia have included in their marriage equality statutes provisions that retain jurisdiction to grant divorces to non-residents who married in the State. Hopefully, more Tennessee judges will follow the lead of the Wyoming Supreme Court, which unanimously allowed such a divorce in Christiansen v. Christiansen, 253 P.3d 153 (Wyo. 2011), since Tennessee has established common law principles comparable to the statute on which that court relied.
Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
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Changes Are Coming to our Nashville Bar Foundation Continued from page 7
that received gifts from the Foundation in the previous year. We also will be able to celebrate the lawyers who led the fundraising efforts. We hope to turn the banquet into a celebration of the purposes of the Foundation, in addition to a welcome for our new Fellows. Involvement from more Fellows The Foundation has 604 Fellows. Thirteen of them are the Trustees. We plan to materially increase the number of Fellows that are involved in the Foundation. This year, we have had a group of five nonTrustees participate in a committee that generated the ideas that led to our current initiatives. We also had approximately 60 Fellows attend the several lunch meetings we held last May to discuss the future of the Foundation. Going forward, we will need help from many more Fellows to build the lawyer leadership program. The Foundation also is proposing that its corporate member (the Bar Association) revise the Foundation’s bylaws to include Foundation Trustee term limits and officer succession planning. That will allow the Foundation to regularly pull in new ideas and talent from our 604 Fellows.
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Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
What are the next steps? Our Nashville Bar Foundation always has been about more than just handing over $1,500 to be a Fellow. But the story of what the Foundation is, and what it stands for, has not been apparent. The Foundation, through its Trustees and its Fellows, must guide the Foundation to a more purposeful mission. Once that happens, I believe our Fellows and the broader legal community will respond strongly. If you would like to help with any of this, please let me know.
Bob Mendes is President of the Nashville Bar Foundation. He practices at Frost Brown Todd LLC. You can email him at bmendes@fbtlaw.com, or follow him @mendesbob.
Ideas to Save Money and Improve Tennessee Court Systems Continued from page 9
apparent that efficiencies by just minutes at the individual courtroom level must yield significant dollars of savings for the paying customer, corporate or consumer. Attorneys often arrive at court at 8:45 a.m. hoping to be out by noon – a three-plus hour window. Imagine the dollar savings if every one of those attorneys knew within a given one-hour window that a matter might be taken up. Many dollars (and hours) would be saved to the benefit of the paying public and the billing counsel. Anytime a judge makes a change to improve the efficiency and flow of cases, attorneys should be quick to give positive feedback to the court and to diplomatically let other courtrooms know of successful time and money savers as each happens throughout the state. Time is money. Shortening the time it takes to do a task lengthens the bottom line. As a middle-Tennessee attorney, be mindful of the time it takes to do a task. Be quick to offer suggestions on improving processes and thus enable more to be served faster with less. Upon the circular face of the proverbial “penny earned” is Abraham Lincoln, who, parenthetically declared on the topic of time efficiency, “Perform the labor [of law] out of court when you have leisure, rather than in court, when you have not.24”
(Endnotes) 1 Tennessee Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, 2012 Annual Juvenile Court Statistical Report (pub. May 2013), available at http://www.tncourts. gov/docs/statistics/juvenile-family-courts/2012-annualjuvenile-court-statistical-report. 2 United States Courts, Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), http://www.pacer.gov/cmecf.
U.S. Social Security Administration, Requiring electronic filing of select disability appeals by certain appointed representatives, http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/ app/answers/detail/a_id/1836/~/requiring-electronicfiling-of-select-disability-appeals-by-certain-appointed (updated Apr. 15, 2013)(providing instructions of the Internet Disability Appeals portal, iAppeals).
3
U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, e-Appeal Online, https://e-appeal.mspb.gov.
4
In re: Proposed Provisional Rule 46, Rules of the Tennessee Supreme Court (Tenn. Feb. 13, 2006), available at http://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/ rule_46_e-filing-02-13-06.pdf.
5
6 Alabama Judicial System’s E-Filing Website, http://efile. alacourt.gov.
Administrative Office of Courts, State of Mississippi Judiciary, Mississippi Electronic Courts (MEC), courts. ms.gov/mec/mec.html.
7
Montgomery County of Ohio Clerk of Courts/Common Pleas Courts, http://efiling.mcohio.org/.
8
Clerk of Courts, Hamilton County, Ohio, Electronic Filing, http://www.courtclerk.org/efiling.asp.
9
Lynn Streck, Clerk of Courts Office, Hamilton County, Ohio, Why E-File? A Powerpoint Presentation, at slide 15, available at http://www.courtclerk.org/ forms/E-FilingInfo.TWnet.ppt. 10
11 An interesting site attempting to aggregate statistics on state online efforts is the National Center for State Courts at http://www.ncsc.org/topics/technology/ electronic-filing/state-links.aspx.
Shelby County, Tennessee, Electronic Filing (eFlex), https://efile.shelbycountytn.gov. 12
13 More information regarding these bills may be found in the Tennessee Legislative Record, which may be accessed at http://www.capitol.tn.gov/legislation/ publications/.
Fresh from the ABA’s 2013 Annual Meeting comes this timely article on Alternate Fee Arrangements: ABA Section of Litigation, 2013 ABA Annual Meeting, Has the News of the Death of the Billable Hour Been 14
May we all improve within the leisure of this craft our daily practice of law. n
Greatly Exaggerated? (Aug. 2013), available at http:// www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/litigation/materials/aba-annual-2013/written_materials/1_1_has_the_news.authcheckdam.pdf. 15 Administrative Office of Courts, Press Release, Appellate Court Clerk’s Office Installing New System to Track Appeals, Provide Online Access (Aug. 6, 2013), available at http://www. tncourts.gov/press/2013/08/06/appellate-courtclerk%E2%80%99s-office-installing-new-system%E2%80%A8-track-appeals-provide-online. 16
Id.
Davidson County Circuit Court Clerk, CaseLink, http://caselink.nashville.gov. 17
18 The Davidson County Chancery Court’s “CIA” system may be accessed by the public at www. nashvillechanceryinfo.org. Attorneys with a paid subscription may access the system at http://www. nashvillechancerycia.org.. 19 Davidson County Register of Deeds, Internet Services, http://www.nashville.gov/Register-of-Deeds/ Internet-Services-.aspx. 20 Criminal Court Clerk of Metropolitan & Davidson County, http://ccc.nashville.gov/portal/page/portal/ccc/ home. This website received the Top Ten Website Award from the Forum on Advanced Court Technology (FACT). FACT, Announcing the 2013 Top Ten Website Award Winners (July 24, 2013), http://courtfact.org/announcing-the-2013-top-ten-websitesaward-winners. 21 In Re: Petition to Amend Rule 13 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Tennessee to Increase Hourly Rate Paid Appointed Counsel of Indigent Defendants, No. M2010-00502-SC-RL1-RL (Tenn. May 5, 2010), available at http://www.tsc.state.tn.us/sites/default/files/ ordersolicitingcommenttscrule13_0.pdf. 22 Tenn. R. Sup. Ct. 13, §§ 2(f) and 3(m) (2013)(disallowing compensation for travel to other counties). 23 Administrative Office of Courts Information Systems Division, Status Report to General Assembly: Administrative Fee for Appointed Counsel (2011), available at www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/docs/administrative_fee_for_appointed_counsel_2011_status_report. pdf.
See, e.g., Fragment: Notes for Law Lecture, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln vol. 2, at 81, available at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:134.1?rg n=div2;view=fulltext.
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Everette Parrish (attorney@law4tn. com) is an attorney and regular contributing committee member of the Nashville Bar Journal who maintains a juvenile, family and criminal defense practice in middle Tennessee.
Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
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The Nashville Bar Association 100% Club is a special category of membership that demonstrates a commitment to the legal profession and our community from legal organizations with more than three attorneys that have 100% of their Nashville attorneys as members of the NBA. Members will be listed monthly in the Nashville Bar Journal and will appear in our annual directory. Contact Vicki Shoulders at 615-242-9272 or vicki.shoulders@nashvillebar.org if you have any questions. Thank you for supporting your local bar association!
Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP (160) Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP (95) Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC (80) Stites & Harbison, PLLC (46) Butler, Snow, O'Mara, Stevens & Cannada, PLLC (45) Adams and Reese LLP (33) Harwell Howard Hyne Gabbert & Manner, P.C. (32) Bone McAllester Norton PLLC (32) Lewis, King, Krieg & Waldrop , P.C. (30) Sherrard & Roe, PLC (30) Neal & Harwell, PLC (30) Dickinson Wright PLLC (28) Gullett, Sanford, Robinson & Martin, PLLC (27) Frost Brown Todd LLC (23) Ortale, Kelley, Herbert & Crawford (20) Riley Warnock & Jacobson, PLC (18) Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan, PLLC (18) Waddey & Patterson, P.C. (17) Cornelius & Collins, LLP (16) Burr & Forman LLP (15) Walker, Tipps & Malone, PLC (15) Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. (14) Brewer, Krause, Brooks, Chastain and Burrow, PLLC (15) Tune, Entrekin & White, P.C. (14) Smith Cashion & Orr, PLC (13) Branstetter, Stranch & Jennings, PLLC (13) Watkins & McNeilly, PLLC (11) Parker, Lawrence, Cantrell & Smith (11) Hughes & Coleman (11) Spicer Rudstrom, PLLC (10) White & Reasor, PLC (9) Morgan & Akins, PLLC (9) Hall, Booth, Smith, P.C. (9) Dollar General Corporation (10) Dodson Parker Behm & Capparella, P.C. (9) Schulman, LeRoy & Bennett, P.C. (9) Levine, Orr & Geracioti, PLLC (8) Jones Hawkins & Farmer, PLC (8) Littler Mendelson, P.C. (7) Lassiter, Tidwell & Davis, PLLC (7) Howard Mobley Hayes & Gontarek, PLLC (7) Evans, Jones & Reynolds, P.C. (7) Buffaloe & Associates, PLC (7) Barrett Johnston, LLC (6) Taylor, Pigue, Marchetti & Blair PLLC (6) Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough (6) Leader, Bulso & Nolan, PLC (6) Keller, Turner, Ruth, Andrews, Ghanem & Heller, PLLC (6) Holton Blackstone & Mayberry, P.C. (6) Hollins, Raybin & Weissman, P.C. (6) Garfinkle, McLemore & Young, PLLC (5) 20
Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
American General Life Insurance Company (6) Vanderbilt University Law School (5) Trauger & Tuke (5) Rocky McElhaney Law Firm, PC (5) Prochaska Thompson Quinn & Ferraro, P.C. (5) Loeb & Loeb, LLP (5) Kinnard, Clayton & Beveridge (5) Haynes, Freeman & Bracey, PLC (5) Farris Bobango, PLC (5) Direct General Corporation (5) Chaffin & Burnsed, PLLC (5) Thrailkill, Harris, Wood & Boswell, PLC (4) Tennessee Justice Center (4) Shackelford, Zumwalt & Hayes, LLP (4) Rutherford & DeMarco (4) Rogers, Kamm & Shea (4) Papa & Roberts, PLLC (4) Mudter & Patterson (4) MTR Family Law, PLLC (4) Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein (4) Law Offices of John Day, P.C. (4) Law Office of Julie Bhattacharya Peak (4) Hale & Hale, PLC (4) Dobbins, Venick, Kuhn & Byassee, PLLC (4) Cheatham, Palermo & Garrett (4) Weatherly, McNally & Dixon, PLC (3) Video Gaming Technologies, Inc. (3) The Jones Law Group, PLLC (3) Southland Title & Escrow Co., Inc. (3) Smythe & Huff (3) Puryear Law Group (3) Norris & Norris, PLC (3) Nashville Electric Service (3) McKenzie Laird, PLLC (3) McKenzie Jackson, PLC (3) McCarter & Beauchamp, PLLC (3) May & Ryan, PLC (3) Marlowe Law Offices, PLLC (3) Luna Law Group, PLLC (3) Larry R. Williams, PLLC (3) Hix & Gray, PLC (3) Hall & Sitler (3) Grissim & Hodges (3) Glasgow & Veazey (3) Ernst & Young, LLP (4) Cheadle Law (3) Cameron Worley, P.C. (3) Barry Gammons, Attorney at Law (4) Baker, Campbell & Parsons (3) Affinion Benefits Group, LLC (3)
I work to protect our clients’ interests. Now I know a bank that does the same for my firm.
Private Wealth Management Legal Specialty Group. You’re always focused on what’s best for your clients. With SunTrust’s dedicated Legal Specialty Group, you’ll get that very same treatment. Our knowledgeable financial advisors provide firms like yours with valuable strategies on everything from cash flow to expense management to insurance. Simply put, your interests are our passion. Visit us at suntrust.com/law or contact an advisor and get to know all the benefits of working with SunTrust. Bob Lawhon, Client Advisor, SunTrust Investment Services, Inc. 615.748.5803 or bob.lawhon@suntrust.com
Deposit products and services are offered through SunTrust Bank, Member FDIC. Investment and Insurance Products: Are not FDIC or any other Government Agency Insured • Are not Bank Guaranteed • May Lose Value SunTrust Private Wealth Management is a marketing name used by SunTrust Banks, Inc. and the following affiliates: Banking and trust products and services, including investment advisory products and services, are provided by SunTrust Bank. Securities, insurance (including annuities) and other investment products and services are offered by SunTrust Investment Services, Inc., an SEC registered broker-dealer and a member of the FINRA and SIPC, and a licensed insurance agency. Investment advisory products and services are offered by SunTrust Investment Services, Inc., RidgeWorth Capital Management, Inc., and GenSpring Family Offices, LLC, investment advisers registered with the SEC. © 2012 SunTrust Banks, Inc. SunTrust is a federally registered service mark of SunTrust Banks, Inc.
Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
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Disclosure Judge Mark J. Fishburn has joined the faculty of Nashville School of Law. He will be teaching Moot Court II to fourth-year students beginning in February. He brings more than 30 years of legal expertise to the classroom. Fishburn has served as a judge in the Criminal Court, Division VI since 2003. Previously, he was a General Sessions Court judge and initiated a mental health court program in 2000. Prior to his service in the courts, he worked in private practice for 18 years specializing in criminal law, personal injury and worker’s compensation cases. Fishburn earned his law degree from Nashville School of Law in 1979 and his undergraduate degree from University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1972. W. Kenneth “Ken” Marlow has been appointed chair of the Waller’s healthcare department, a multi-disciplinary team of more than 100 attorneys. In his new role, Marlow will lead initiatives to further strengthen Waller’s position as one of the nation's preeminent healthcare law firms. Marlow has spent his entire legal career with Waller where his practice centers on healthcare mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and the development of innovative business models. He earned his J.D. from University of Tennessee College of Law and his B.A., cum laude, from Vanderbilt University. Trenton J. Poynter, an associate at Waller, has been appointed to the Advisory Council on Diversity for the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA). The Advisory Council on Diversity seeks to cultivate more diversity among attorneys practicing health law. The council members celebrate diversity among leadership and membership, develop programs that serve a broad cross-section of the organization, collaborate with specialty bars and collect and benchmark demographic data from the
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Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
\Dis*clo”sure\ (n) The act of revealing, releasing or bringing to light relevant information concerning NBA Members & Staff. n Announcements n Kudos n People on the Move n Firm News
membership. At Waller, Poynter helps to ensure healthcare companies and providers including hospitals, home health agencies, hospice care providers and assisted living facilities comply with federal and state health regulations. He earned his J.D. from University of Tennessee College of Law and his B.S. in political science from Middle Tennessee State University Steven E. Blumenthal, former General Counsel for Carfax, Inc., has joined the law firm of Bone McAllester Norton PLLC. He practices in the areas of Business and Corporate Law, Banking and Financial Services, Commercial Lending and Creditors’ Rights and Entrepreneurial and Emerging Business Law. Blumenthal’s practice includes both traditional and commercial transactional work and innovative Internet, technology and data privacy work. He has authored articles for the Wall Street Journal and ACC Docket and other publications, covering topics such as software licensing, television advertising and consumer lending. He is a native of Memphis. He received his bachelor's degree from Tulane University and his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia Law School. Emily Dennis has joined Burr & Forman. She will be practicing in their General Commercial Litigation practice group. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Law. Tim Kappel has become Of Counsel to the law firm, Lassiter Tidwell & Davis, PLLC, where he will continue to focus primarily in the areas of entertainment and intellectual property law. He brings a diverse set of music industry clients, including artists, songwriters, musicians, producers, managers, publishers, and independent record labels. In addition
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to his entertainment practice, Tim represents technology startups and other small businesses in connection with their intellectual property and branding needs. Tim is also frequently consulted on legal issues involved with crowdfunding in the creative industries. Nashville mediator Marnie Huff was appointed by the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution to a national ethics position. She will serve as Section representative on the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility/ Section Officers Conference (CPR/SOC) Joint Committee on Ethics and Professionalism. Huff is also an elected member of the Section of Dispute Resolution Council and co-chair of the Section’s Advanced Mediation and Advocacy Skills Institute. Phil Kirkpatrick has joined Adams and Reese LLP. Practicing his entire career in Nashville, Kirkpatrick has been a Federal Court litigator since 1979. He also handles products liability litigation and commercial litigation, and is a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel and the Federal Bar Association. Kirkpatrick obtained both his undergraduate and law degrees from The University of Tennessee, graduating from law school in 1978, and earning his bachelor of science, with honors, in 1975.
Nashville Bar Association members may send Disclosure announcements via email to nikki.gray@nashvillebar.org Submissions are subject to editing.
Welcome New NBA Members! Tracy Alcock Tennessee Attorney General Courtney Bates Jonathan Bobbitt Gilbert Russell McWherter PLC Emily J. Cole John Cordwell John Cordwell II Attorney at Law Dustin Daniel Schulman, LeRoy & Bennett, P.C.* Carolyn King Dupuis Jordan Felts Curtis Fockele Rebecca J. Gailmard Tian Grace Gao Raymond D. Jones Paul R. Kraft Kristen Kyle-Castelli Bradley Larsen William H. Leslie Corletra Mance CM Legal Service Robert D. Martin Casey N. Miley Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP* Patrick Ober Erick Robin Pope Kaitlyn Potzick Alex Scarbrough Thompson Burton PLLC Rachel M. Sellers William E. Sellers Betsy A. Shirley Mollie A. Wakefield Denis Graham Waldron Lauren Walker
2013 NBA Premier Members INCLUDE: Frank G. Abernathy Elizabeth A. Alexander Gail Vaughn Ashworth Kathryn E. Barnett Rachel L. Bell Barbara Bennett Michael Weimar Binkley Charles W. Bone Robert E. Boston Jay S. Bowen C. Dewey Branstetter Jr. Joe B. Brown Linda F. Burnsed Kenneth Sherman Byrd C. Mark Carver Kathryn Caudle Robert Garry Chaffin Mark P. Chalos William T. Cheek III John Ray Clemmons James Michael Clemons Dixie W. Cooper John A. Day Karl F. Dean David Clyde Downard John Franklin Floyd Samuel P. Funk Grant C. Glassford Charles K. Grant John J. Griffin Jr. William L. Harbison Trey Harwell G. Miller Hogan II Paul T. Housch Jennifer Hunter
Lynda F. Jones David Randall Kennedy John D. Kitch William C. Koch Jr. Thomas W. Lawless Richard Wesley Littlehale Randal S. Mashburn Rob McKinney John C. McLemore Robert J. Mendes Jeffrey Mobley Marlene Eskind Moses Patricia Head Moskal Michael I. Mossman Phillip L. North Stephen W. Pate Edgar M. Rothschild III Maria M. Salas Thomas J. Sherrard III Marietta M. Shipley Emily A. Shouse James Gerard Stranch IV Irwin Bruce Venick Howard H. Vogel Karl D. Warden James L. Weatherly Jr. Peter Weiss Francis M. Wentworth Jr. Thomas V. White Larry R. Williams Thomas A. Wiseman III Heather D. Wood Amanda Haynes Young Nicholas S. Zeppos
NBA Premier Membership is a special category that recognizes our members who desire to demonstrate the utmost in commitment and support to the NBA Programs & Services. Contact Vicki Shoulders (615.242.9272, vicki.shoulders@nashvillebar.org) for details.
Megan Williams Liberty Law Firm, PLLC Joshua D. Wilson Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis Michael A. Wrenn * Belongs to a 100% Club firm
Dial-A-Lawyer is held the first Tuesday of each month. The public is invited to call in with basic legal questions.
September Volunteers:
David Cooper Helen Cornell Tom Lawless
Jamie Machamer
To volunteer your time, please contact Wendy Cozby, LRIS Coordinator at wendy.cozby@ nashvillebar.org or 242-9272. Pro Bono credit does apply and dinner will be provided. Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
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Classifieds
Office Space
Office Space BRENTWOOD AREA LAW FIRM Established Brentwood Law Firm has one office space immediately available. Includes receptionist services, internet, fax, use of conference room, copiers, and free and convenient parking. Professional work environment. Call 615-376-8857 for details or schedule a showing. Downtown Office Space to share with three established attorneys - Scan, Fax, Phone, Copy. Parkway Towers. For more information please contact nlemaster@wdtlaw.net. Downtown Office condos for Lease or Sale. 500 to 2500 sq. feet. 501 Union Street, 5th floor. Near Legislative Plaza. Call Lynne at (615) 259-1550.
Downtown Office Space-Court Square Bldg. 2nd FL. One to three offices. $1,000 to $1,500 depending on need. Shared expenses. Contact: kohllaw@bellsouth.net. Downtown Office space to share with two established attorneys. High speed internet, telephone, fax, copy, storage and parking. Location: 201 Fourth Avenue, North, 14th Floor. For more information contact mbarnes@hubbardberry.com.
Expert Witness Office Space Legal Nurse Consulting Handling cases with medically related aspects? Best Practice Legal Nurse Consulting can help you with superior case preparation. Best Practice can screen cases for merit, find expert witnesses, write summaries and chronologies of medical records, along with other services. Contact Lisa at 615-481-5047 or visit bplnc.com for more information.
NBJ Classifieds Online: www.nashvillebar.org
Advertising: Contact Tina Ashford at (615) 242-9272 or tina.ashford@nashvillebar.org
HILLSBORO VILLAGE Established Nashville law association with four experienced lawyers has shared office space available for the right attorney in a large private building (with front lawn and large porch) and plenty of on site parking (and free client parking.) Package includes receptionist services, cable & wireless Internet, telephones and fax, state of the art copier and postage machine, DISH TV, kitchen, all utilities, janitorial service, plus tastefully decorated reception area & conference room, on and off-premise storage, professional liability insurance, website advertising, and all office equipment (including personal computer and all private office furniture.) All inclusive. Added bonus...walk to banks and some of the city’s finest restaurants. Contact adam@durhamanddread.com or call 615-252-9937. Metrocenter Area Law Firm Established Nashville law firm has three office spaces immediately available. Includes receptionist servicces, cable internet, telephones and fax, conference room, kitchen, copiers, some LexisNexis subscription services, website advertising and more. Professional work environment. Free and conveninet parking. Call (615) 252-8866 for details. Music Row Established Bankruptcy law firm located on historic Music Row (16th Avenue) has a large office space, with adjoining secretarial space immediately available. Includes limited receptionist services, copier, scanner, fax, high speed internet access, digital phone system, free and convenient parking. $1,250.00 per month. Contact Kim Lyons (615) 690-3120 or kimberly@rothschildbklaw.com.
Classified Advertising: Rates: $75 for the first 50 words and $1 for each additional word. Available Sections: Expert Witness, For Sale, Positions Wanted, Forensic Document Examiner, Technical Support Services, Office Space, Litigation Services, Office Sharing, and Accounting.
Visit the NBA's Career Center & Get Started Today: http://jobs.nashvillebar.org/home
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Create an anonymous job seeker profile or upload your anonymous resume so employers can find you
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Nashville Bar Journal - October 2013
Employers:
Job Seekers:
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Who will care for him when I’m no longer able to? Elder Law Practice of Timothy L. Takacs offers the services your clients need to respond to the legal, financial and caregiving challenges created by a loved one’s disability.
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