The Tennessee Bureau of Workers’ Compensation presented the 2022 Sue Ann Head Award for Excellence in Workers' Compensation to Bob Pitts Sr. at a luncheon last week. Pitts is a policy advisor with the Associated Builders and Contractors of Great Tennessee. Two finalists also were recognized for their influence on workers' compensation: Sarah Reisner, principal with Manier Herod, and Dan Headrick with Star Physical Therapy. The award is named in honor and memory of Sue Ann Head, who led the Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Division for over 30 years. She died in 2018. See the announcement and photos from this year’s event.

Tennessee’s full abortion ban will go into effect tomorrow, following the 30-day waiting period under the state’s trigger law. Uncertainties remain in a post-Roe world, WSMV reports, with some physicians questioning their rights under the new law. Immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling returning abortion authority to the states, Tennessee’s six-week abortion ban went into effect. That ban will be superseded tomorrow by the Human Life Protection Act. Memphis defense attorney Blake Ballin with Ballin, Ballin & Fishman has been advising doctors. He says the law does not provide an exception for any kind of situation, whether it be for rape, incest or child abuse. The provision related to a mother’s life is an affirmative defense to criminal charges. He is telling doctors if they perform an abortion they could be charged with a felony. It would then be their responsibility to prove the life of the mother was in jeopardy.

Friends and colleagues gathered at a retirement reception for Circuit Court Judge Donald E. Parish last week. Matt Maddox, president of the Carroll County Bar Association, served as the master of ceremonies and introduced Parish’s former law partner Michael King, Court of Criminal Appeals Judge John Everett Williams and Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger A. Page, the McKenzie Banner reports. Local attorney Steve West unveiled a portrait of Parish that will be displayed in the Carroll County Courthouse. Parish, who announced his retirement last year, served on the bench for 16 years, worked in private practice for 25 years and has been active in the Carroll County Bar Association. The 24th Judicial District Circuit Court serves Henry, Carroll, Benton, Decatur and Hardin counties.

An annual report on hate crimes in Tennessee found a slight uptick in offenses that law enforcement tied to a known bias, Axios Nashville reports. The data, based on a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation report released this week, showed 133 crimes in 2021 were attributed to a bias compared to 122 in 2020. Racial bias accounted for 58% of the incidents statewide while biases related to sexuality or gender were found in 23% of cases.

The American Bar Association is collaborating with the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) and the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) to once again mobilize lawyers to assist as poll workers in the upcoming November election. The Poll Worker Esq. Initiative encourages lawyers, law students and other legal professionals to assist in upcoming elections. The initiative kicked off today with the release of a video that details how to sign up to be a poll worker and a landing page where lawyers can sign up to volunteer. There will also be a social media campaign, which will run through the fall.

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix this week agreed with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' guidance on emergency abortions was unauthorized and went beyond the text of a related federal law. The government had relied on a 1986 federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which seeks to ensure hospitals provide emergency medical care for the poor and uninsured, to impose the new guidelines. Reuters reports that Hendrix did not pursue a nationwide injunction, instead blocking HHS from enforcing the policy in Texas and against two specific groups of doctors. The administration’s policy would have required hospitals to provide emergency abortions to women regardless of state bans on the procedure.

Mark Chalos, managing partner of Lieff Cabraser’s Nashville office, has been elected co-chair of the Class Action Litigation Section of the American Association for Justice (AAJ). The section creates a forum for attorneys to share ideas, discovery, and litigation strategies and allows AAJ members to network and work collaboratively on class action cases. Read more from Lieff Cabraser.

Two Patterson IP attorneys, Ed Lanquist and Scott Douglass, have joined Baker Donelson as shareholders in the firm’s intellectual property group, the Nashville Post reports. Lanquist, who will be president of the TBA in 2024, is a longtime leader at Patterson, where he was named president and managing partner in 2009 and served in those positions nearly 10 year. He will be based in Baker’s Nashville office. Douglass, a former shareholder at Patterson, will join Baker’s Memphis office.   

Eighteen attorneys have been selected to participate in the 2023 class of the Nashville Bar Foundation Leadership Forum. Participants will take part in monthly workshops for nine months to help them realize their potential and to benefit the legal profession and local community. The forum was created in 2014. Class members must have three to eight years of experience to be considered. Read NBF’s press release for a full list of class members.  

Nationwide litigation firm Freeman Mathis & Gary LLP today announced it will add five attorneys to its Nashville office. Jason Pannu, former TBA president, will join the firm as partner and office chair. Associates will include Lorne Hiller and Jacob Jones. Additionally, two attorneys from the firm’s Los Angeles office, Marc Shrake and Jordan Meeks, will relocate to the Nashville office. “I am excited to join FMG and gain access to its resources and national platform,” Pannu said. “We have already assembled a great team in Nashville and look forward to growing the office in the near future.”