WNBA star Brittney Griner was today released from a Russian prison as part of a high-profile prisoner exchange in which the U.S. released notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the Associated Press reports.  “She’s safe, she’s on a plane, she’s on her way home,” President Joe Biden said from the White House. He added that Griner would be back in the U.S. within 24 hours. Bout, a felon once nicknamed “the Merchant of Death,” is a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the Justice Department once described as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers. Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, Baylor University All-American and Phoenix Mercury pro basketball star who was arrested in Russia in February for bringing less than a gram of cannabis oil in vape cartridges into the country. The U.S. failed to secure the release of Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan who has been jailed in Russia since 2018. Whelan was arrested on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government have said are baseless.

The Rutherford & Cannon County Bar Association held a portrait unveiling this week for longtime Rutherford County General Sessions Judge David Loughry. Friends and colleagues of Loughry attended the event, which was presided over by Judge Ben Bennett. Bennett thanked Loughry for his 24 years of service to the county and attorneys Steve Waldron and Ben Parsley shared personal stories and memories of time spent with Loughry. The portrait will hang in the courtroom for Division II of the Rutherford County General Sessions Court. Loughry served on the bench from 1990-2014. Read more from the Administrative Office of the Courts.

The Tennessee Court of Workers' Compensation Claims has announced that the settlement approval process in Memphis will change effective Jan. 3. Starting on that date, settlement approvals will take place on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 9-11 a.m. CST. Approvals will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Lawyers must be in the courtroom, ready to present, by 11 a.m. to have their settlements heard that day. No settlements will be scheduled in advance, but parties are asked to submit a petition for settlement approval 48 hours before the date desired. Read more from the court about these new processes.

Washington, D.C., attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit yesterday against SmileDirectClub, alleging the Nashville-based company requires customers to sign nondisclosure agreements in order to receive refunds. This action, Racine says, prevents consumers from making informed purchasing decisions. The suit is seeking a court order to invalidate the requirement and bar the company from using deceptive business practices. It also is seeking restitution for consumers and imposition of civil penalties. SmileDirectClub said its policy follows American Association of Orthodontics guidelines for refunds. The Nashville Business Journal has more from both sides of the dispute.

A multi-state action against JUUL Labs Inc. has resulted in a $434.9 million settlement. Of that total, Tennessee is slated to receive approximately $13 million, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced today. The pay-out is the result of a 34-state investigation into JUUL’s marketing and sales practices, which found the company tailored their products and advertisements to minors. In addition to the financial settlement, JUUL agreed to refrain from a number of marketing tactics, including using cartoons, depicting persons under 35, selling brand name merchandise, using paid influencers, and advertising on billboards, public transportation and most social media. 

Lauren Sudeall will join the faculty of Vanderbilt Law School in summer 2023, the school reports. Sudeall is currently on the faculty of Georgia State University College of Law, where she is the founding faculty director of the Center for Access to Justice. At Vanderbilt, Sudeall will launch and direct the school’s Access to Justice Initiative as part of the George Barrett Social Justice Program. She earned her law degree from Harvard Law School, has clerked for a number of federal appellate court judges and worked for the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.

The five-member board tasked with overseeing Rutherford County’s Juvenile Detention Center has met three times so far and is working to better understand the center’s inner workings, WPLN reports. The board — comprised of Rutherford County Mayor Joe Carr, retired judge Steve Daniel, longtime juvenile court prosecutor Leslie Collum, pastor and attorney Michael McDonald, and school board member Claire Maxwell — has questioned what the center does to rehabilitate kids, and how many juveniles end up in adult facilities. It says it is trying to build a general understanding this year before it begins to review policies and procedures in the new year.

Indianapolis-based Barnes & Thornburg LLP has opened a Nashville office with longtime Bass Berry & Sims health care executive Eleanor Smith. The firm has named Smith as chief client officer, the Nashville Business Journal reports. Smith worked at Bass Berry & Sims for the last 17 years, serving most of that tenure as managing director of the firm's health care practice. Barnes & Thornburg has 22 offices across the country with a special focus on the health care market.

Free Legal Answers, the virtual legal advice clinic for qualifying users to post civil legal questions at no cost, last month surpassed a total of 250,000 questions answered since its launch in 2016. The program was spearheaded by former TBA President Buck Lewis, who was struck with the idea to connect pro bono lawyers with those in need of legal services after attending a series of meetings that addressed unmet civil needs around the state. “It just occurred to me that there were lawyers sitting in this hearing on BlackBerrys — they were BlackBerrys back then — emailing their clients,” says Lewis, a shareholder at Baker Donelson in Memphis. “Could we provide legal services that way for pro bono clients?” After working with his firm’s IT staff, he helped launch Free Legal Answers in 2011 and shared the code with colleagues in multiple states before working with the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service to make the program available nationwide. Since it began, more than 11,000 lawyers have registered to answer questions for users in 41 jurisdictions. The ABA Journal has more on the story.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and a coaltion of 25 states and the District of Columbia have filed an amicus brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzalez v. Google. The brief urges the high court to interpret Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act (1996) narrowly to ensure technology companies remain accountable to state consumer protection laws. It explains that the judicial expansion of internet “publisher” immunity under Section 230 has severely hampered their ability to remedy internet-related wrongs. The Attorney General’s Office has more on the story.