TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Feb 21, 2022

Bass, Berry & Sims lawyer Ashleigh Karnell has begun a six-month fellowship with the Tennessee Innocence Project (TIP) as part of the firm’s Pro Bono Fellowship Program, which allows attorneys to provide pro bono legal service full-time while receiving their regular compensation. Karnell will continue the firm’s longstanding support of TIP and will continue to work to exonerate Artis Whitehead, a Memphis Black man currently serving a 249-year sentence in connection with a 2002 robbery. Firm attorney Danielle Dudding Irvine worked on the case during her fellowship with TIP in 2020. Whitehead has asserted his innocence and says there are issues with an eyewitness, a confidential informant and forensic evidence. An associate in the firm's Nashville office, Karnell practices in the Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practice Group. She earned her law degree from Belmont University College of Law in 2017.