TennCare is seeking a $975 million budget increase for next year, largely driven by rising medical costs. According to the Tennessee Lookout, two main factors are contributing to the increase: an estimated $165 million in price hikes for medical care and $41 million to cover the cost of new classes of drugs for treating obesity, heart disease and diabetes. This year's budget request follows significant cuts in TennCare enrollment, with 300,000 people losing coverage last year. A federal judge ruled in August that those cuts violated Tennesseans' rights following a 2020 class action lawsuit. In presenting the proposed budget to Gov. Bill Lee earlier this month, TennCare officials said the agency is on more solid fiscal ground and providing more services than ever before.

The Shelby County District Attorney General (DA) will appeal two recent decisions by a lower court judge to release multiple shooting suspects without bond. The DA’s office is challenging decisions by Shelby County General Sessions Criminal Court Judge Bill Anderson, who allowed suspects involved in multiple shootings to be released on their own recognizance. Among them is a man who engaged in a nearly 12-hour standoff with police earlier this month, as well as three suspects charged in the shooting of a FedEx employee last month. According to the Daily Memphian, the appeal follows a series of headlines in recent months over bail decisions by Anderson, particularly in cases involving violent crimes.

The American Bar Association (ABA) has approved 56 law schools — more than a quarter of all ABA-accredited campuses — to use JD-Next, an alternative law school admissions program. Developed in 2019 by the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, the program recently was acquired by Aspen Publishing, Reuters reports. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. JD-Next participants take an eight-week online course that concludes with an exam. Earlier this month, the ABA created a new pathway for law schools to admit students without relying on traditional standardized tests, offering more flexibility in admissions. While JD-Next is currently offered four times a year and remains a small part of the law school admissions landscape, Aspen says it plans to expand the program's reach with more participants and law schools.

Former Tennessee State Sen. Katrina Robinson, who represented parts of Memphis, has been resentenced for misrepresentations made to the Health Resources and Services Administration, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee. Robinson was resentenced to time served and fined $48,600. Her original sentencing in 2022 was for time served and one year of supervised release. Robinson was founder and director of The Healthcare Institute, a for-profit organization that provided educational and training programs for jobs in the health care field. The institute received $2.2 million in federal grants between 2015 and 2019. In 2021, a jury found Robinson guilty of two counts of wire fraud in connection with transfers she made from the institute's operating account for personal expenditures.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti recently has taken action on a number of issues, including leading a group of 31 state attorneys general in urging congressional members to pass the “Kids Online Safety Act.” The bill is designed to protect children from online harm by giving parents easy access to safety settings, the ability to disable algorithms and improved processes for reporting dangerous content. Skrmetti also recently joined with 46 other state attorneys general to call on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen consumer protections against robocalls and texts. The group outlined a list of actions it would like to see made in the FCC’s Robocall Mitigation Database. Finally, the Office of the Attorney General issued a reminder of the VSAFE.gov website, which highlights fraud schemes targeted at veterans as well as tools for protecting against and reporting scams.

The Tennessee Department of Revenue has refunded $938 million to almost 47,000 businesses based on a change to the franchise tax law passed during the 113th General Assembly. The Nashville Post reports that the 2024 fiscal year budget had provided $1.6 billion for about 120,000 taxpayers to receive refunds due to the legislature's change to its tax on businesses, a modification that removed the provision for the tax based on the amount of property a business owned. Almost 59% of the money in the budget for the refunds has been given to approximately 39% of businesses that are eligible. The department is accepting refund claims until Dec. 2 for most taxpayers, but those in eight counties impacted by Hurricane Helene have until May 1, 2025.

Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands (LAS) was recently awarded a new $73,000 grant from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). In an email to TBA, the LAS says it will use the grant money to evaluate its existing pro bono program, with the goal of attracting and retaining pro bono attorneys to assist in serving low-income clients in the 48 counties it serves across Middle Tennessee. The grant is for six months, with the option to apply for a longer two-year grant to implement recommendations suggested by the evaluation.

The Tennessee Department of Correction (DOC) is proposing a $6.8 million increase to CoreCivic’s contract next year, raising the total payout to $244.5 million despite the company’s history of failing to meet contractual obligations and an ongoing federal civil rights investigation. Tennessee Lookout reports that CoreCivic, which runs four Tennessee prisons, has paid over $29.5 million in penalties since 2022 for issues like staffing shortages, with turnover rates reaching 146% last year. Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, a CoreCivic facility under federal scrutiny, has faced significant safety risks, including contraband smuggling and a 188% guard turnover rate.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan in Texas blocked a new rule from the Biden administration that would have expanded access to overtime pay to millions more salaried workers across the U.S. The Associated Press reports that the judge agreed with the state of Texas and a group of business organizations that the Department of Labor (DOL) exceeded its authority when it finalized the new rule earlier this year, ruling that the department could not prioritize employee wages over job duties when determining eligibility. The rule would have increased the threshold at which employers are required to pay overtime to salaried workers from $43,888 a year to $58,656 a year, marking the biggest increase in decades. Jordan had temporarily blocked the rule in June.

The TBA received the Excellence in Continuing Education Programming Award for the Young Lawyers Division's (YLD) "Rookie's Guide Series" from the Tennessee Society of Association Executives (TNSAE) at the group's annual meeting on Nov. 13. The curated series fills a unique need in the legal community, offering a “crash course” for young lawyers to learn the basics of a range of practice areas. Members of the TBA YLD suggested the series concept based on their own experiences in the first few years following law school. For many lawyers, the law school experience focuses on overarching legal concepts, but does not provide practical insights into the range of legal issues lawyers are asked to handle, leaving a gap following graduation. The series fills that gap by providing an honest look at the practice areas covered, including basic issues a lawyer should expect to encounter as well as the ethical and other pitfalls to avoid when handling cases in this area. TNSAE President Edithann Buckles Wadewitz presented the award to TBA's Executive Assistant Karen Belcher, who was at the award ceremony representing the association.