TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Aug 3, 2016

Nashville lawyer Robert Jay “Bob” Warner Jr. died July 29 at his family’s summer home in North Carolina. He was 89. Warner attended the University of the South and earned his law degree in 1951 from Yale University Law School. After serving as a special agent in the Army’s Counter-Intelligence Corps, he returned to Nashville to work on Estes Kefauver’s U.S. Senate campaign. Warner worked as an assistant district attorney in Davidson County and formed several law firms, including Dearborn, Berry & Warner, which later merged with Bailey, Ewing, Dale & Conner to form Dearborn & Ewing. In 1992, most of that firm merged into Boult, Cummings, Conners & Berry. During the Nashville sit-ins, Warner served on the mayor’s ad hoc Human Relations Committee, which was instrumental in desegregating the city's lunch counters. A memorial service will be held tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. at All Saints Chapel in Linville, North Carolina. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Canon Memorial Hospital in Linville or Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville. The Tennessean has more on his life.