Recipients of the 2023 TBA Public Service Awards will be honored Saturday at a brunch event in downtown Nashville. The TBA’s Access to Justice Committee has recognized Anne Boatner as the Ashley Wiltshire Public Service Attorney of the Year, David M. Cook as the Harris Gilbert Pro Bono Attorney of the Year and Tenaya Winkelman as the Law Student Volunteer of the Year. The awards recognize outstanding service by attorneys and law students who have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to increasing access to justice for underserved individuals and communities in Tennessee. Read more about the TBA Public Service Awards. For information about the Public Service Awards or Saturday's brunch, please contact Liz Todaro.

Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel shareholder and TBA member Kirby Yost will now serve as chair of the firm’s real estate practice group. Yost has been with Chambliss since 2011 and assists owners and developers of all sizes on real estate transactions, including acquisitions, dispositions, financing and retail and office leasing, advising on land use, zoning and other real property matters. She follows Michael Stewart, who served in the role for several years. Yost is a member of the TBA Young Lawyers Division, Public Education Committee and a 2019 member of the TBA Leadership Law program.

Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands Executive Director DarKenya Waller has been named a Woman of Achievement by YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee. She will officially be inducted into the Academy for Women of Achievement next spring. The YWCA launched the academy in 1992 to increase community awareness and appreciation of the diverse contributions of women in the workforce and the community. Read more in the Tennessee Ledger.

The Kiwanis Club of Columbia awarded the George F. Hixson Fellowship to two Tennessee attorneys who were former presidents of the club, the Columbia Daily Herald reports. Retired circuit court judge Bob Jones and TBA member and Criminal Appeals Court Judge Bobby Holloway were presented with the honor at the club’s weekly meeting on Friday. Jones was appointed 22nd Judicial District Circuit judge by former Gov. Don Sundquist and retired from the bench in 2018. Holloway was appointed to the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals by former Gov. Bill Haslam in 2014. Holloway is a past president of the Tennessee Judicial Conference, a Tennessee Bar Foundation fellow and a board member of the Tennessee Judicial Conference Foundation. The George F. Hixson Fellowship recognizes individuals who have contributed significantly to Kiwanis’ history of generosity and dedicated service to their local Kiwanis Club, their community and the world.

In a new opinion piece for the Tennessean, Brentwood attorney and TBA member Ed Miller writes of his recent analysis of death sentences in Tennessee since 1977 when the death penalty was reinstated. After identifying 2,838 adults convicted of first-degree murder, Miller breaks down and compares the sentences imposed on defendants convicted of murdering a single victim and those convicted of murdering multiple victims. He writes that of the 2,460 defendants with one victim, only 55 have been sentenced to death. Miller says he also identified 335 multiple-victim murderers who were sentenced to life with or without he possibility of parole—six times the number of single-murder defendants who have been sentenced to death. “This demonstrates that a death sentence is not a comparatively proportional punishment for the murder of a single victim,” Miller writes. Read the opinion piece for Miller’s full breakdown of his research.

Brian Faughnan, shareholder in the Memphis office of Lewis Thomason, was recently elected president of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL). Faughnan has served as the organization’s treasurer, secretary and president-elect and will now lead the group through August 2022. APRL is made up of 400 lawyers, law professors and judges who hold an interest in lawyers’ professional responsibility, legal ethics, legal malpractice and the evolving law of lawyering, primarily through the application of the rules of lawyer ethics to the practice of law. Faughnan practices in commercial litigation, appellate litigation and media law at Lewis Thomason and works in conjunction with the firm’s president in all ethics and professional responsibility matters within the firm. He is a TBA member and a frequent speaker for the TBA on ethics and professional responsibility issues. Read more from Lewis Thomason. 

Retired Davidson County General Sessions Court Judge Daniel Eisenstein was recently honored by the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) with its Sam Cochran Criminal Justice Award. According to NAMI, the award “recognizes an exemplary individual whose work in the criminal justice system has improved the fair and humane treatment of people with mental illness.” During his time on the bench, Eisenstein presided over the Davidson County Mental Health Court. After retirement, he continued his work in mental health and its intersection with the criminal justice system. Eisenstein has previously been honored with Mental Health America of Middle Tennessee’s Louise B. Katzman Volunteer of the Year Award and NAMI Tennessee’s Vision of Hope Award and Professional of the Year Award.

Attorney Steve Groom has announced the launch of Dedicated General Counsel PLLC, the Nashville Post reports. The new firm will offer legal services to companies without having to hire in-house counsel. Groom has previously worked at Nashville firms Neal & Harwell, Stites & Harbison and Butler Snow and general counsel and other leadership positions at CapStar Bank, Franklin Financial, CoreCivic and SunTrust. According to Groom, businesses who hire Dedicated General Counsel will pay “for a predetermined ‘fraction’ of the general counsel’s time.” 

Baker Donelson shareholder and past TBA president George T. "Buck" Lewis has been appointed as a special advisor to the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service. Lewis served as chair of the committee from 2016 to 2019. He is also a past chair of the Tennessee Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission, and has been honored for his access to justice work by the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Service and National Association of Pro Bono Professionals.

Chattanooga attorney and TBA Young Lawyers Division President-elect Brittany Faith has been elected to serve on the Board of Governors  for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), the Chattanoogan reports. Faith is an immigration law attorney at the Chattanooga law firm Grant, Konvalinka & Harrison PC. Last month she was honored with AILA’s 2021 Joseph Minsky Young Lawyer Award for the outstanding contributions she has made as a young lawyer in the field of immigration and nationality law.