Kathryn “Katie” Reed Edge will retire from the practice of law on Dec. 31, leaving Butler Snow’s Nashville office to assume the role of full-time grandmother to her triplet grandchildren in Austin, Texas. Her practice has centered on representing the organizers of new banks and other regulated financial institutions and serving as corporate and regulatory counsel for financial services companies. Edge is a past president of the Tennessee Bar Association and the Tennessee Bar Foundation. She also served as president of the Tennessee Lawyers’ Association for Women and the Marion Griffin Lawyers’ Association for Women Chapter in Nashville. Edge has written the BANK ON IT column for the Tennessee Bar Journal for the last 10 years. Read her last column and more about her in her Bank On It column in this issue.

Katie Edge with her grandchildren, Sparrow, Lincoln and Dexter. Photo by Beth Sims.

Birmingham-based law firm Maynard Cooper & Gale has acquired the Nashville-based firm of McKenzie Laird and re-opened the office under its own moniker. Maynard Cooper’s national practice focuses on corporate law and litigation for a range of industries, including health care, technology, finance and government contracting. The Nashville office also will handle commercial real estate matters. McKenzie Laird attorneys joining Maynard Cooper include Robert Laird, Talbott Ottinger and Donald McKenzie as shareholders, and Jennifer Johnson and Brandi Maiorino as associate attorneys.

Nashville lawyer Will Brown has been named a new associate attorney at Gullett Sanford Robinson & Martin. He will practice in the Real Estate Section with a focus on commercial lending and real estate transactions. He also has experience advising on bank regulation, collateral issues and the formation and governance of business entities. Brown previously practiced in the Franklin office of Stites & Harbison.

Franklin attorney and community leader Julian Bibb and Nashville lawyer Bill Norton were recently honored with a Sage Award from the Council on Aging. Bibb, who worked for more than 40 years for the law firm of Stites & Harbison, is now legal counsel for Franklin Synergy Bank. Norton, who received the award jointly with his wife Sallie, is a partner in the Nashville office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings. He is a certified bankruptcy specialist and an adjunct professor on bankruptcy law at Vanderbilt University Law School. The Sage Awards Luncheon is the council’s signature annual event and fundraiser.

Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan has hired two new associate attorneys. Ethan D. Lavelle joins the firm’s Knoxville office where he will focus on general civil defense litigation and family law. He also has experience with civil and criminal matters, probate, creditors and insurance subrogation. Cole G. West has joined the firm’s Nashville office, where he will focus on construction, transportation and insurance law.

Legal Aid of East Tennessee held its annual “Forging Justice” event in October to celebrate pro bono volunteers. Among those honored were Thomas “Lynn” Tarpy with Tarpy, Cox, Fleishman & Leveille, who was inducted into the Donald F. Paine Memorial Pro Bono Hall of Fame; Kevin Newton with The Law Offices of Mayer & Newton; the law firm of Kramer Rayson; the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office; and the students of the University of Tennessee College of Law Expungement Clinic.

The Knoxville law firm of Winchester, Sellers, Foster & Steele recently announced that Ryen M. Lamb joined the firm as an associate. Lamb earned her law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law in May. She will focus her practice on commercial litigation, banking, bankruptcy and creditors’ rights law.

A team of Music Row attorneys in Nashville has left Dickinson Wright to join Loeb & Loeb. The group, led by Derek Crownover, represents country stars Jason Aldean, Luke Combs and Kane Brown, as well as Craig Wiseman and Big Loud, Sam Hunt and Otis Redding’s estate. TBA members among the others making the move are Robert “Cam” Caldwell, Nate Drake, Colleen Kelley, Robert Kouchoukos and Noah McPike.

Memphis attorney Edward L. Stanton III has been appointed to serve as a board member of the National Association of Former United States Attorneys (NAFUSA) for the 2022 class. The organization was founded to promote, defend and further the integrity and independence of U.S. attorneys. Stanton was appointed U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee in 2010 by former President Barack Obama, a position Stanton held until 2017. He now practices in  Butler Snow’s Memphis office where he leads the Commercial Litigation Practice Group.
The firm also announced that Nashville attorney Joseph F. Welborn III has been named to the Tennessee State Committee of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Welborn has more than 28 years of experience in business and commercial litigation. He also is experienced in civil rights litigation, catastrophic personal injury cases and wrongful death cases.

The Memphis Bar Association Young Lawyers Division presented its 2019 Chancellor Charles A. Rond Memorial Award for Outstanding Judge to 30th District Circuit Court Judge Mary L. Wagner (Division VII) at its annual meeting in November. Chosen by YLD members each year, award recipients are selected based on their ability, demeanor, integrity and diligence as a judge.

The Nashville Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has named Stites & Harbison attorney Ann Ralls Brown to its 2020 class of Nashville’s Top 30 Under 30. The listing recognizes young professionals and philanthropists under the age of 30. Class members are nominated by peers, co-workers and supervisors. At the firm, Brown focuses on family law cases.

Bone McAllester Norton welcomed attorneys Mandy Strickland Floyd and Jack Spencer to the firm’s Nashville office. Floyd returns to the firm after a two-year stint working on constitutional and civil rights issues at the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee. She will focus on litigation, dispute resolution, victims’ rights, education law, labor and employment law and appellate work. Spencer joins the firm after clerking for Bankruptcy Court Judge William R. Sawyer in the Middle District in Alabama and serving as an intern in the Civil Rights and Claims Division of the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office. At the firm, he will focus on commercial litigation, creditors’ rights, litigation and dispute resolution.

Former Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper has been appointed Nashville’s newest law director. He began working for the city on Nov. 4. Cooper previously worked for Bass Berry & Sims in its compliance and government investigations practice. Cooper also was serving on the city’s community oversight board but resigned from that post after accepting the law director job. In other city government news, Nashville Metro Council attorney Mike Jameson has left that post to begin serving as director of legislative affairs and senior adviser to Nashville Mayor John Cooper.

Madeline E. McNeeley was recently promoted to partner at Harris Lowry Manton LLP. She serves in the firm’s Atlanta office, where she focuses on product liability, wrongful death, personal injury and appellate litigation. Prior to joining the firm in 2011, she clerked for Judge Peter T. Fay of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and as a staff attorney to the circuit. McNeeley graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 2008.

The Heritage Law Group in Gallatin celebrated five years of service to residents of Kentucky and Tennessee in September with an event for friends and family and ribbon cuttings with two local chambers of commerce. The firm also holds events for its clients and the public such as the Elder Care Expo, Wills for Heroes, food drives and educational seminars. Jake Mason established the law group.

At the recent Tennessee General Sessions Judges Conference in Chattanooga, Henry County General Sessions Judge Vicki S. Snyder became the first female judge to win the conference’s top honor, the Judge Leon Ruben Award for Excellence. In addition, the newly created Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Hamilton County General Sessions Judge Clarence E. Shattuck Jr., who recently retired after 36 years on the bench, and The Friend of the Conference Award was presented to Tim DiScenza, former disciplinary counsel for the Board of Judicial Conduct.

Junaid Odubeko, a partner in the Nashville office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, has received the firm’s 2019 Diversity Leadership Award, which recognizes a partner who demonstrates an exceptional commitment to promoting and advancing diversity within the firm. Odubeko, a member of the firm’s recruiting committee and chair of the Lawyers of Color Resource Group, is also a graduate of the TBA’s Leadership Law program. He focuses his practice on complex commercial and business disputes and real estate litigation as well as regulatory and political matters. Outside the office, Odubeko serves as legal counsel to the Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus and as an adjunct professor of campaign finance and elections law at Vanderbilt University Law School.

Alan Bean has joined the Nashville office of Starnes Davis Florie as a partner. A native of Middle Tennessee, Bean has been practicing law in Nashville since graduating from Vanderbilt University Law School in 2007. He focuses his practice on health care liability, premises liability, products liability and personal injury cases. He also advises health care providers and handles appellate, administrative and peer review matters.

Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger recently named members to the Chattanooga and Hamilton County Yellow Rose Centennial Committee, which will help plan local commemorations for the upcoming anniversary of ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Committee members include Chattanooga lawyer Marcy Eason, a past president of the Tennessee Bar Association and a member with the law firm of Miller & Martin, and Lynda Minks Hood, executive director of the Chattanooga Bar Association.

Michael Milligan is the TBA’s new AV and Webcasting coordinator. He is a grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and graduated from Appalachian State University in 2015. He moved to Nashville soon after and began working in live A/V and production for Lipscomb University, Brentwood Baptist Church, the Nashville Sounds, and other companies on a freelance basis. He is an avid sports fan, loves music and plays bass guitar and piano in his free time. Milligan replaces Steve King, who held the position for nearly eight years. King has moved with his family to Florida.
 

PASSAGES

Knoxville lawyer ROBERT LOUIS CROSSLEY JR. died Oct. 24 at the age of 66. Born in New York state, Crossley was raised in Knoxville. He later attended Vanderbilt University for his undergraduate studies and the University of Tennessee College of Law for his law degree, which he earned in 1979. Crossley practiced with Baker, Worthington, Crossley, Stansberry & Woolf; Walt, Dyer and James; and Long, Ragsdale & Waters PC, mostly in the areas of commercial litigation, administrative, regulatory and employment law. The family requests that donations in Crossley’s honor be sent to the Knoxville Bar Foundation, P.O. Box 2027, Knoxville 37901-2027.

Former public defender and Lebanon attorney COMER LEWIS DONNELL died Oct. 24 at age 79. Donnell earned his law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School, afterwards serving as city attorney for Lebanon and Watertown, Wilson County attorney, and director of petroleum taxes for the state. In 1989, Donnell was appointed, and later elected, public defender in the 15th Judicial District where he worked until his retirement in 2018. Memorial donations may be made to College Hills Church of Christ, 1401 Leeville Pike, Lebanon 37090; Lebanon Gideon Camp, P.O. Box 591, Lebanon 37088; or the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, 530 Church St., Ste. 300, Nashville 37219.

Memphis attorney LENARD PHILIP HACKEL died Oct. 14. He was 79. Born and raised in Memphis, Hackel earned his law degree from the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law in 1967. After graduation, Hackel worked in civil rights for a social service organization. He then went into private practice with the law firm of Nicholson, Hackel and Nicholson and later worked as a civil servant for Shelby County.

Knoxville lawyer LEWIS RUSSELL HAGOOD died Oct. 11 at the age of 89. Hagood graduated first in his class from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1963 and subsequently practiced for more than 50 years, specializing in labor and employment law. He was a senior partner at his firm Arnett, Draper & Hagood. He also was active in the legal community, serving as a member of the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners from 1994 to 2001 and as its president in 2002. He also was a member of the Knoxville Bar Association’s Judicial Committee. The family requests that memorial donations be sent to The Salvation Army, 409 Broadway, P.O. Box 669, Knoxville 37901-0669 or the University of Tennessee Foundation, Lewis Hagood Endowment, c/o Ryan Young, University of Tennessee College of Law, 1505 W. Cumberland Ave. Ste. 248, Knoxville 37996.

Knoxville lawyer DANIEL FISHER MCGEHEE died Oct. 29 at the age of 75. McGehee graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1964 and joined the National Guard, where he rose to the rank of Sergeant First Class. From 1969 to 1971 he worked for a political consulting firm in Washington, D.C., where he ran polling for Howard Baker’s first statewide election. McGehee returned to Tennessee to attend the University of Tennessee College of Law, graduating in 1974. He then founded his own law firm in downtown Knoxville where he remained the principal partner for the remainder of his life.

Former University of Memphis Law Dean NICHOLAS L. WHITE died Oct. 14 at age 94. An Ohio native, White served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, seeing action in the battles of Guam and Iwo Jima. Following the war, White attended the University of Cincinnati School of Law, graduating with honors in 1956. He practiced real estate and construction law for a Cincinnati law firm for 14 years and then took a position as professor and assistant dean at Indiana University School of Law. In 1977, White was named dean of the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, serving there until 1984, and then again as interim dean from 1992 to 1993. He retired in 2011. Memorial contributions may be made to the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, 1 N. Front St., Memphis 38103 or the Third Marine Division, Caltrap, P.O. Box 466, Lisbon, OH 44432 (include a note that the gift is being given in memory of White).