The Tennessee Supreme Court has appointed Nashville lawyer John L. Farringer IV to serve as the next chair of the Access to Justice Commission. He will replace Knoxville lawyer J. William “Bill” Coley, and will serve a two-year term beginning on April 1. Farringer has served on the commission since 2018, and is a member of Sherrard, Roe, Voigt & Harbison. Last month, the court named four new members to the commission: Sara E. Barnett, Adolpho A. Birch III, Lindsay Frilling and Kendra Mansur. The Administrative Office of the Courts has more on each appointee’s background.

Deborah Enix-Ross, president-elect of the American Bar Association, is accepting nominations from those who are interested in filling positions on ABA standing and special committees, commissions and other entities. Apply by Friday to be considered. An ABA presidential appointment requires membership in the association and a desire to contribute to the group’s work. For more information or to discuss the process please contact Appointments Committee Chair Michelle Behnke, 608-233-9024 or Vice-Chair Stephen Younger, 646-927-5565. For questions regarding the online application, contact Katy Englehart with the ABA. Interested individuals may also contact TBA members Jonathan Cole and John Tarpley, who have been active in recruiting Tennessee lawyers to serve in the ABA.

The Tennessee Bar Association has opened nominations for the Fourth Estate Award: Honoring Courageous Reporting on Justice and the Law. This year’s prize includes a $250 honorarium for the winner. The TBA strongly supports the freedom of expression under the First Amendment, as exercised by lawyers on behalf of their clients and by journalists on behalf of the public. It particularly wants to recognize and encourage journalists who promote public understanding of the rule of law and our system of justice through their vigorous exercise of First Amendment rights. Nominees may be individuals or teams of Tennessee-based journalists who worked on  published stories. The deadline for entry is March 31. For more information, contact TBA Assistant Executive Director Barry Kolar.

A new survey from legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa shows that 75% of respondents want to be in the office at least one day per week while only 27% want to be in the office more than a day or two. The group conducted the "LawLife 2.0 How the Pandemic Redefined the Way We Work" survey as a follow up to its 2021 “Lawyers’ Perspectives on Returning to the Office” survey and found that the desire to be in the office declined significantly in less than a year. Just 10 months ago, the number of respondents who wanted to be in the office three or four days a week was 46%. Stephanie Biderman, a co-author of the survey, said firms need to make the office experience worth the commute. “Firms have to make time in the office more valuable. Training, mentorship, positive cultural events and team-building events. That is where the focus is going to have to be,” she says. Law.com has more on the story.

President Joe Biden said yesterday that he has narrowed his search for a Supreme Court nominee to replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer to four women, The Hill reports. "The short list are nominees who are incredibly well qualified and documented. They were the honor students, they come from the best universities, they have experience, some on the bench, some in the practice," Biden told NBC News' Lester Holt. "What I've done is I've taken about four people and done a deep dive on them ... to see if there’s anything in the background that would make them not qualified," Biden said. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that candidate interviews could start next week.

Judge David F. Hensley has announced his retirement from the Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board effective March 31. He has served on the board for close to eight years. Hensley earned his law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1979, and began his career in Chattanooga clerking for Tennessee Court of Appeals Judge Herschel P. Franks. He then spent over 30 years in private practice before being appointed to the inaugural Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board by then Gov. Bill Haslam in August 2014. He was re-appointed by Haslam in 2018. Off the bench, Hensley has served the Chattanooga community as a board member and chair of the North River YMCA and a board member of the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

A new study from two law professors identifies 25 law schools whose students “overperformed” on the bar exam. Among the group are two law schools in Tennessee: Belmont University College of Law, which comes in at number six, and Vanderbilt University Law School, which comes in at number 19, the ABA Journal reports. The study looks at bar results to identify schools that dramatically outperformed their predicted bar exam passage rates. The study also looks at why these schools are seeing success in this area despite “not spending extravagantly more resources.” Read the full study “The Secret Sauce: Examining Law Schools that Overperform on the Bar Exam” by University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law professor CJ Ryan and University of Iowa College of Law professor Derek T. Muller.

The Tennessee Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission (ATJC) is seeking feedback on how to best serve communities across the state and opportunities to improve its initiatives. This survey will help inform the ATJC's strategic planning process, which is conducted every two years and is used to focus efforts, programs, and resources. The ATJC will be creating its strategic plan at the end of February and welcomes survey responses from members of the legal and judicial system and the community, as well as ATJ Commission members, members of its Advisory Committees and other key stakeholders.

Legal fees for the Davidson County Election Commission’s (DCEC) defense of an anti-property tax ballot measure have surpassed $700,000 and are still rising, the Nashville Post reports. The Tennessee Court of Appeals last week heard arguments from the DCEC and Metro on the merits of the proposal, which seeks to roll back the county’s 2020 property tax increase and limit the city’s ability to raise taxes in the future. The DCEC had to hire outside counsel, but because DCEC Chair Jim Delanis and the GOP members declared the DCEC’s interest at odds with Metro’s, outside counsel was retained. Republican commissioners last summer chose to defend the ballot in court instead of seeking a declaratory judgement first. As a result, the DCEC is responsible for defending the proposition, not 4 Good Government, which wrote the measure and gathered signatures to place it on the ballot. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN) today sent an open records request asking for more information about the McMinn County School Board of Education’s decision to ban the book “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” from eighth-grade curriculum. The graphic novel depicts interviews between the book’s author, Art Spiegelman, and his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. According to News Channel 9, McMinn County Schools chose to remove “Maus” for foul language and images of nudity and suicide. ACLU-TN staff attorney, Stella Yarbrough, says the decision “flies in the face of academic freedom.” Read more from ACLU-TN.