NASHVILLE, May 17, 2023 — Knoxville attorney and University of Tennessee (UT) College of Law Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus Douglas A. Blaze will be honored next month with the prestigious William M. Leech Jr. Public Service Award. Named for former Attorney General William M. Leech and presented by the Fellows of the TBA Young Lawyers Division, the award is given to a Tennessee lawyer who has been of outstanding service to the profession, legal system and the community.

The Leech Award will be presented at the TBA Annual Convention in Knoxville on June 16 during the Lawyers’ Luncheon.

A 1984 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, Blaze first joined the law faculty at Arizona State University and helped establish a community-based legal service clinic. He also practiced with the firm of Fennemore Craig in Phoenix, where his practice involved commercial and tort litigation. Blaze joined the UT Law faculty in 1993 as the director of clinical programs. He also taught at the school, focusing on access to justice, criminal law, procedural law, and leadership and professional development. He later was named director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution and interim associate dean for academic affairs. He served as dean of the law school twice: from 2008-2015 and then again from 2020-2022. Blaze helped found the college’s Institute for Professional Leadership and served as its first director. He retired from full-time teaching in July 2022.

Blaze has been active in the national legal community, helping to establish and then chairing a new Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Leadership Section. He also has served on the AALS Membership Review Committee and the American Bar Association (ABA) Council on Legal Education and the Bar Standards Review Committee. In Tennessee, he was appointed as an inaugural member of the Tennessee Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission and served as its chair from 2014 to 2016. He also served on the TBA’s Evolving Legal Markets Committee.

Blaze has received numerous honors and awards, including UT’s Macebearer Award, Thomas Jefferson Prize and National Alumni Association Public Service Award. He received the Harold Love Outstanding Community Service Award from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and the Deborah Rhode Award from the Association of American Law Schools for his work in promoting access to justice. He also received the Bass, Berry & Sims Award for outstanding service to the bench and bar, the Harold Warner Outstanding Teacher Award and the Carden Institutional Service Award. For his efforts promoting equal access to justice in Tennessee, he received the B. Riney Green Award in 2003 from the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services.

The TBA 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.