The Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility issued two new ethics opinions last week. The first, 2023-F-169, addresses what steps lawyers should take when departing a law firm and what steps firms should take to protect clients. The second, 2023-F-170, addresses acceptance of credit card payments and the use of payment platforms such as Venmo. TBA CLE ethics speaker Brian Faughnan provides his take on the opinions in his blog Faughnan on Ethics.

Williamson County lawyer Tiffany Marcilynne Johns was censured by the Tennessee Supreme Court yesterday. The court found that Johns, while representing a client in an uncontested divorce, failed to send a draft marital dissolution agreement to the spouse for five months. After the agreement was executed, Johns appeared in court to enter the final decree, but she did not provide the court with the original decree. The final decree of divorce was not entered until June 2023. The court found that Johns failed to respond to requests for information from her client and determined that she violated Rules of Professional Conduct 1.3 and 1.4.

Washington, D.C., lawyer Jay Arthur Rosenberg was permanently disbarred from practicing law in Tennessee today. The Supreme Court of Tennessee took the action based on an order of disbarment from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on April 20. On June 8, the Tennessee court asked Rosenberg to respond as to why disbarment should not be imposed. The court reports that Rosenberg did not file a response with the court as ordered.

The Supreme Court of Tennessee today permanently disbarred Kent Lowery Booher from the practice of law and ordered him to pay all costs incurred to the Board of Professional Responsibility. After a hearing upon the disciplinary petition, a hearing panel determined by a preponderance of the evidence that Booher’s conduct violated Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct 8.4(a), (b), (c), and (d) and warranted permanent disbarment.

Colorado lawyer Bonnie Dunlop was reinstated to the practice of law in Tennessee on July 24 after the Board of Professional Responsibility found the petition for reinstatement to be satisfactory. The court had placed Dunlop on inactive status more than ten years ago, on April 19, 2013.

The Tennessee Supreme Court reinstated the law license of Jefferson County lawyer Capp Peterson Taylor on Aug. 2. Taylor was suspended for six months on Dec. 19, 2017, and for two years on Jan. 8, 2020. A reinstatement petition was filed on Oct. 7. A hearing panel of the Board of Professional Responsibility found that Taylor has the moral qualifications, competency and learning in law required for admission, and that resumption of law practice would not be detrimental to the integrity and standing of the bar or the administration of justice or be subversive to the public interest.

The Tennessee Supreme Court reinstated the law license of Rutherford County lawyer Gary Neil Patton on Aug. 2. The court conditioned reinstatement on continued compliance with terms and conditions it imposed on May 22 when it suspended Patton for one year, with 30 days to be served on active suspension and the remainder on probation. At that time, the court conditioned probation on Patton incurring no new complaints of misconduct related to the conduct for which he was suspended.

The Tennessee Supreme Court transferred the law license of Williamson County lawyer Timothy Paul Molyneux to disability inactive status on July 28. Molyneux may not practice law while on inactive status. He may petition for reinstatement by showing that his disability has been removed.

The Tennessee Supreme Court on July 28 referred the case of Shelby County lawyer Monica Aislynn Timmerman to the Board of Professional Responsibility for whatever action the board deems warranted. Timmerman pled guilty to and was adjudged guilty of driving under the influence, a Class A misdemeanor, in the Shelby County General Sessions Criminal Court in February.

The state Supreme Court reinstated the license of Tennessee attorney Jeremy Bland effective July 28, after Bland completed requirements of the BPR.