For at least the last year, everyone has been asking me what I was going to do “my year” as Tennessee Bar Association President. TBA presidents and presidents of all bar associations have a habit of standing up in their acceptance speech and making all kinds of podium pronouncements that are often new to the staff and to the other members of the Board of Governors. Instead, I intend to be a very boring president. I realize for those of you who know me, that seems to be impossible.

Lanquist takes the Oath of Office, adminstered by Chief Justice Holly Kirby, as the 144th president of the TBA.

Two years ago, I had the privilege of being elected as vice president of the TBA. Six years before that, I was selected by the great Jason Long to be his general counsel. I had the privilege of serving as general counsel of the TBA for about six years. During that time, I learned about the inner workings of the association and had an opportunity to provide input as to the direction of the TBA and its programming and future plans. Therefore, any ideas that I have had along the way, I have already provided to TBA leadership and the Board of Governors and have helped to a small extent to guide the association.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve served on somewhere around 70 nonprofit boards. I have chaired several of those organizations. I have run a law firm. I was president of the Nashville Bar Association. Consequently, I have spent a lot of time on nonprofit board management and in leadership roles. As a result, I feel I understand very well the need to analyze each program from the point of view of how it will improve the organization, as well as the cost and money and manpower needed to execute the program. I also know that any program that is stood up is difficult to stand down. I appreciate the need to make sure that whatever new programs that any nonprofit organization starts up are programs that provide long term value to the organization and its members.

Therefore, when people ask me what I will be doing, I tell people that we will continue to do the great things that we are already doing and continue to improve. We are a great organization that has been well run. Like any membership organization, we need to continue to adapt and to serve our valuable members.

In the eight years that I have had the privilege of serving the TBA, we have transitioned through two executive directors, sold a building, survived COVID and grown membership, among other things. The most important thing that we have done, and the most important thing that we will continue to do, is to advocate for our members across the state. While it will remain a challenge, we will continue to look at opportunities to roll back the professional privilege tax. But more importantly, we are going to continue to increase the state’s investment in indigent representation.

Those lawyers across the state who provide this indigent representation work are doing so at a loss in many cases. We need to make sure that those people who are doing that important work are adequately compensated. This year while working with the legislature, the state provided an $8.6 million increase in indigent representation funding. If we can continue to increase that amount, then we will come closer to a point that an indigent representation practice is viable.

We will be working with the Administrative Office of the Courts and the legislature to provide pilot programs that look at indigent representation in ways similar to programs being done in Indiana and Florida.

To achieve these goals and others on behalf of our members, we need to make the voices of our members be heard. There are fewer lawyers in the legislature than ever. Further, our members are not as politically active as they used to be. We need to maintain the grass roots effort developed for indigent representation and leverage it for other purposes that benefit our members. That means we need to educate our members on the issues and encourage them to educate others and our legislators.

In the meantime, we will continue to work to provide services to our valuable members of the Tennessee Bar Association to help them continue to engage in the practice of law which is, in my opinion, a most sacred profession.  |||

ED LANQUIST JR. is a shareholder in the Nashville office of Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz and has practiced intellectual property (IP) law for more than 30 years. Prior to joining Baker Donelson, he co-founded a full-service IP and technology law firm. Over the course of his career, he has advised companies of all sizes on the protection of their IP. He graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1988 and is a past president of the Nashville Bar Association and the Tennessee Intellectual Property Law Association. Lanquist has served on over 50 nonprofit boards.