The video from the 2017 Tennessee High School Mock Trial Competition’s championship round is now available for streaming. This year’s competition featured a showdown between two Nashville teams, the all-girls Harpeth Hall squad versus the defending champions, the all-boys Montgomery Bell Academy. MBA took home the title once again. The 2017 case was a criminal trial, involving a death at a nursing home facility.

Voting for TBA offices will begin tomorrow via electronic ballot. All members of the TBA's Young Lawyers Division, as well as TBA members in a district or Grand Division with a contested race, will receive an email with a link to the ballot. Voting will continue throughout the month of March.

Weston Elected Vice President

The Nashville Business Journal shows the Tennessee Bar Association remains the state's largest association serving traditional professions. Information was obtained from association representatives and association websites.

The TBA's involvement in the "Informed Voter -- Fair Judges" project was covered in today's Tennessean. The initiative is designed to educate voters about the importance of fair and impartial judicial elections and provide resources for evaluating judicial candidates. The article featured a quote by TBA President Cindy Wyrick, who also is state co-chairwoman of the project. “We want every citizen to know just how critical it is to our justice system that we, as voters, elect fair and impartial judges.” The project is sponsored by the National Association of Women Judges and the League of Women Voters. Tennessee is one of eight states to participate.

The Tennessee Society of Association Executives is celebrating 50 years of service to the state this year, and the current issue of its Connection magazine features a look back at the organization’s history and accomplishments. Among those featured are former TBA Executive Director Gil Campbell, who led the organization in 1992, and current TBA Executive Director Allan Ramsaur, who brought the organization into the digital age during his presidency in 2000. “I began my tenure by announcing that my year would be the year of the 'virtual presidency,’” Ramsaur said in the article. “Our goal would be to have a fully functional website and email communications scheme for our members by the end of the year, goals which we accomplished."

When the head of one of Chattanooga’s most distinguished families admitted last week that he drained the accounts and mortgaged the home of his mentally ill sister, the event underscored a grave truth: most exploitation of the elderly and disabled occurs at the hands of those closest to them, the Times Free Press reports. Citing a 2009 study by the National Center on Elder Abuse, the paper reports that family members commit 90 percent of all elder abuse and 34 percent of financial abuse against the aged. TBA Executive Director Allan Ramsaur, interviewed for the story, talks about the association’s efforts to update state law and help judges stay informed about conservator abuse.