Press Releases

Press Releases

Tasha Blakney to Take Office Friday as TBA President-Elect

Posted by: Barry Kolar on Jun 17, 2021

NASHVILLE, June 17, 2021 — Knoxville attorney Tasha C. Blakney will take office as president-elect of the Tennessee Bar Association (TBA) on Friday during the group’s annual convention in Memphis. Blakney will assume the presidency in 2022. 

Blakney is a partner at Eldridge & Blakney PC in Knoxville. She earned her law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law and has more than 20 years of experience in the legal profession. Before helping found Eldridge & Blakney, she worked as a judicial clerk for former Supreme Court Justice Gary R. Wade when he was presiding judge of the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals and as an assistant attorney general in the Knoxville office of the Tennessee Attorney General. 

An active member of the TBA, Blakney has held a variety of positions with the association, including second district governor for the TBA’s Board of Governors, co-chair of the Public Education Committee, member of the TBA’s House of Delegates and executive committee member of the Environmental Law Section. Blakney served as president of the TBA Young Lawyers Division (YLD) from 2010-2011. She was awarded the TBA YLD President’s Award in 2006 and is a 2005 graduate of the TBA’s Leadership Law program. 

Blakney is a past-president of the Knoxville Bar Association and was selected as a fellow in the Tennessee Bar Foundation, the Knoxville Bar Foundation and the American Bar Foundation. She has served as an elected member of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates and was one of 26 lawyers chosen from across the nation to participate in the ABA’s inaugural Leadership Academy Program through its Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section. In 2009, then- Gov. Phil Bredesen appointed Blakney to the Tennessee Community Services Agency Board of Directors, and she would later be re-appointed to the position by then-Gov. Bill Haslam. 

Taking office along with Blakney will be President Sherie Edwards of State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company in Brentwood and Vice President James “Jim” Barry of Germantown. 

The Tennessee Bar Association was founded in 1881. Its membership represents the entire spectrum of the legal profession in Tennessee and beyond. The TBA is open to all licensed attorneys in good standing, and it is dedicated to enhancing fellowship and professionalism among the members of Tennessee’s legal community.