Attorney Amber Griffin Shaw has been appointed to serve as attorney for the Town of Atoka – a Tipton County city of more than 10,000 residents. Shaw is managing partner of the Covington office of Harris Shelton Hanover Walsh. “I am looking forward to assisting Atoka as it continues to plan for more people to relocate, a variety of new improvements, and the development of standards that will provide a desirable place to live and work for many years to come,” Shaw said. Shaw has previously been named Tipton County Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Woman of the Year and Memphis Area Legal Services Pro Bono Attorney of the Year. She is a TBA member and a 2015 graduate of the TBA Leadership Law program. Read more from Harris Shelton.

Memphis attorney Muriel Malone Nolen has been selected as the next executive director of the Tennessee Human Rights Commission (THRC), the Commercial Appeal reports. Nolen is a former Shelby County assistant district attorney general and joined THRC in April 2021 as the agency’s deputy director before taking on the role of interim executive director in February. Additionally, Nolen has worked for Memphis Area Legal Services, Hamilton County District Attorney’s Office and Southwest Tennessee Community College. She currently serves on the Board of Crime Stoppers of Memphis and Shelby County and the executive board of the Ben F. Jones-National Bar Association and is the immediate past regional director of The National Black Prosecutors Association.

Attorneys from Memphis law firm Petkoff and Feigelson PLLC have joined Evans Petree PC. Attorneys James L. Cresswell Jr., David I. Feigelson and Logan A. Klauss joined the firm on July 1 and will continue to represent their clients in the areas of aviation, trucking and general casualty. Evans Petree President Joe Getz said Petkoff and Feigelson are “national leaders in aviation law and commercial transportation and are a great addition to our litigation team.” Petkoff and Feigelson was founded in 1976 by George Petkoff, who died in 2020. Read the press release from Evans Petree.

According to a recent Vanderbilt study, more than 99% of Nashville landlords have legal representation in civil cases, compared to less than 1% of renters. “And so, unless you get to Legal Aid … you have to navigate those waters alone,” Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands Executive Director Darkenya Waller says. The Nashville office of LAS currently has only two attorneys representing all of its housing cases, but a new pilot program is hoping to triple that number. Metro recently passed a $2.6 million grant to help fund LAS’ Right to Counsel program, which will allow the nonprofit to take on more cases and give more attention to the ones they already have. The two-year pilot program will also include an education program for tenants and landlords, as well as a partnership with Conexion Americas to better serve Nashville’s immigrant communities. WPLN has more on the story.  

Williamson County Juvenile Court Judge Sharon Guffee was recently honored by the Williamson County Republican Career Women with the group’s Charles M. Sargent Leadership Award. The award is named for the late District 61 state representative who served from 1997 until his death in 2018. The club recognizes a community leader each year who exemplifies Sargent’s contributions to the county. Guffee spoke of her friendship with Sargent when accepting the award, calling the recognition the “greatest honor that I’ve received because of who he was and the impact that he had.” Former Williamson County Mayor Rogers Anderson and Franklin Vice Mayor Brandy Blanton are former recipients of the award. The Administrative Office of the Courts has more on the story.

The Chattanooga Bar Foundation inducted four new fellows during its 2022 Fellows Luncheon last week, the Hamilton County Herald reports. Dean Clements is the managing partner at Spears, Moore, Rebman and Williams, where he represents physicians, hospitals and health care providers in medical malpractice and licensing matters. Ron Feldman focuses in the area of commercial real estate at Husch Blackwell. Jeffrey Maddux is a shareholder with Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, where he handles commercial litigation in the education and financial services industries. Finally, Maury Nicely is an attorney with Evans Harrison Hackett, where he focuses on employment litigation and labor law. Fellows work to improve the study of law, the administration of justice, and relations between the members of the legal profession and the public.

The Tennessee Court of Workers' Compensation Claims reports that there will be no settlement approvals at any of its offices this week from Wednesday to Friday because the court’s judges will be at a judicial conference.

Federal agents accused of targeting, mocking and, in some instances, brutalizing Latino workers at a Grainger County slaughterhouse claim their lives will be endangered by the public release of video from the controversial raid. Although the video is currently under seal, an investigation by Tennessee Lookout of the April 2018 raid indicates the footage appears to show a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent putting his boot on the neck of a Latino worker and punching another Latino worker in the head without provocation. In depositions taken in the case, the agent’s colleagues allegedly agree that the actions constituted excessive force. Those who were involved in raid are now asking a federal judge to bar public release of the footage and any mention in the court record of what it depicts. They argue the information could "prejudice potential jurors, provoke retaliation and place the agents … at personal risk.”

Women are continuing to break barriers in the legal profession each day, and law school enrollment is no different, Above the Law reports. New data based on 2021 enrollment shows the number of female law students once again outpaced their male colleagues, and for the sixth year in a row, more women entered law school than did the year before. Women first outnumbered men in law school in 2016. Today they represent 55.3% of the law student population, ahead of 44.4% men and 0.31% who identified as "other." Enjuris has the full breakdown.

A Tennessee-based federal judge has blocked the Biden administration from enforcing an executive order designed to protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination in schools and the workplace. Tennessee Lookout reports. The decision by U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley Jr., issued on Friday, was in response to a case filed by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery and 19 other state attorneys general. Atchley agreed with the group that the January 2021 executive order went too “too far and too quickly, stretching the U.S. Supreme Court’s employment-based decision beyond its ‘narrow’ holding, usurping the authority of Congress and state Legislatures and failing to give lawmakers and the public a say on the issue." The ruling means the order will be unenforceable while the states pursue their challenge. Read the ruling and Slatery's response.