The Tennessee Supreme Court has appointed Charles K. Grant to serve on its Board of Professional Responsibility (BPR). Grant is a shareholder in the Nashville office of Baker Donelson where he practices in employment and business litigation matters. He previously served on the state Supreme Court’s Advisory Commission on the Rules of Practice and Procedure and the Disciplinary Hearing Committee, District V. Grant is a past president of the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, the Nashville Bar Association, the Napier-Looby Bar Association and a past recipient of the TBA’s Harris Gilbert Pro Bono Award. Read more on Grant’s appointment to the BPR from Baker Donelson.

Hamilton County General Sessions Judge Alexander McVeagh has been recognized with the American Bar Association’s 2021 On the Rise Award. Each year, the ABA recognizes 40 of the nation’s young lawyers who exemplify a broad range of high achievement, innovation, vision, leadership and legal and community service. McVeagh was first appointed as general sessions judge in 2017. One of the youngest judges in Tennessee history, McVeagh founded Hamilton County’s first misdemeanor drug recovery court in 2019. He previously practiced with Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, the Tennessee Public Defenders Conference and the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee. He currently serves on the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission, Technology Oversight Committee and on the Governor’s Criminal Justice Reform Task Force. McVeagh also serves as the president of the Chattanooga Bar Association Young Lawyer Division, as the East Tennessee governor on the TBA YLD Board, and as the state's Young Lawyer Delegate to the American Bar Association House of Delegates. 

Nashville lawyer and Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison member Cornell Kennedy will lead the firm’s new healthcare services group focused on dentists, optometrists and veterinarians. Kennedy said the new group will focus on helping clients with issues related to operating as a small business owner and health care provider. At the firm, Kennedy practices in the areas of general corporate law and health care. For corporate clients, he handles business formation and dissolution, acquisitions, employment matters and covenants not-to-compete. For health care clients he also handles transactional matters, including practice start-ups, practice acquisitions and equity buy-ins. Read more in a press release from the firm.

Nashville attorney James Crumlin has finished eight full and seven half Ironman races—a triathlon competition with a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride an a 26.22-mile run. Crumlin, an attorney at Bone McAllester Norton, details his journey to becoming a triathlete for a recent article in the Tennessean, telling the paper his road to becoming an Ironman competitor actually began with a bet he made with a good friend. Crumlin eventually became known as a Nashville fitness guru after launching the Capitol Steps Workouts, where he leads two free, hour-long workouts each week, running up and down the Capitol steps among other exercises. Crumlin practices in labor and employment and business and corporate law at Bone McAllester, as well as litigation and dispute resolution, and entertainment and media law. He is a TBA member and a 2006 graduate of the TBA’s Leadership Law program.

Vice president of the TBA’s Young Lawyers Division and Chattanooga attorney Brittany Faith is being recognized by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) with the 2021 Joseph Minsky Young Lawyer Award. Faith was chosen for the award based on her outstanding contributions to the immigration and nationality law practice areas. Faith leads the Immigration Practice Group at Chattanooga law firm Grant Konvalinka & Harrison PC, where she helps clients from across the world with their immigration needs. Faith will assume the role of president-elect for the TBA YLD this month, before leading the division as president in 2022-2023. Read more about Faith’s accomplishments in immigration law on AILA’s website.

Lewis Thomason special counsel, Michael Goode, was appointed to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on International Trade in Legal Services earlier this month. The committee monitors the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and other international trade negotiations involving the U.S. and the provision of legal service. It also educates and engages with entities interested in the status of the GATS and provides feedback to the ABA. Goode is a TBA member and works in the Nashville office of Lewis Thomason. He is a member of the TBA’s Estate Planning & Probate and Immigration Law sections and currently serves as chair of the International Law & Practice Section and vice chair of the Tax Law section. Read more about his appointment from Lewis Thomason.

TBA member Linda Warren Seely has joined Butler Snow LLP as pro bono counsel, where she will lead the firm’s pro bono efforts from its Memphis office. Seely has most recently served as director of the American Bar Association’s Dispute Resolution Section. Prior to the ABA, Seely served as the pro bono projects manager for West Tennessee Legal Services and managing attorney for senior citizens projects at Memphis Area Legal Services. Seely has served on the TBA’s Board of Governors, House of Delegates and Access to Justice Committee and is a prior recipient of the association’s Public Service Attorney of the Year Award and a President’s Award. She is currently a member of the TBA’s CLE and Attorney Well-Being committees. Butler Snow has more on Seely’s new position.  

Memphis attorney and TBA member Corey B. Trotz has been on television and billboards for so long, he’s now sort of a Memphis institution, the Daily Memphian says in a feature article about the personal injury lawyer. “He’s a bespectacled, bald man in his late 50s who’s a pretty good tennis player, and lately has developed an affinity for pickleball. But he is on television. And billboards. A lot.” And with a catchy jingle, he is an unlikely celebrity, the paper says. Trotz is an attorney at Nahon, Saharovich & Trotz where the firm’s ads are “a bit of in-your-face fun.” One shows Trotz superimposed on a mountain with an audible wind in the background, scaling any height for a client. In others, he drives a race car or appears with a talking dog. During the Super Bowl he was superimposed into the stadium crowd. Friends thought he really was at the game. Trotz credits the ads for the firm’s success but is serious when he says “All I care about is taking care of my clients.” When talking about his work, Trotz says insurance companies have an army of lawyers and unlimited resources but likes to think his firm and others “level the playing field.” 

The ABA Journal last month profiled Nashville attorney and federal public defender Kelley Henry and her work advocating for those on death row. Henry, based in Nashville, has served as the chief of the Capital Habeas Unit at the Federal Public Defender's office for the Middle District of Tennessee since 2003 and has been co-counsel in more than 30 capital cases during her career. The article details Henry’s representation of Lisa Montgomery, who was executed by the federal government on Jan. 13. Henry had argued that Montgomery was incompetent for execution and Henry even tested positive for COVID-19 while working to defend her client. “I see myself as someone who is defending the Sixth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, the 14th Amendment, because if you say it’s OK to violate those rights because you just don’t like my guys, then your rights are next,” she said of her job. Henry is a member of the TBA and its Federal Practice and Criminal Justice sections. Read the full article.

The American Bar Association announced this week that Nashville attorneys Randy Kinnard and Daina Bray are the recipients of two awards from the association’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section. Kinnard will receive the Pursuit of Justice Award, given to attorneys who have shown outstanding merit and who excel in providing justice for all. He is a personal injury and medical malpractice attorney at Kinnard, Clayton & Beveridge. Bray will receive the section’s Animal Law Committee’s Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law Award, which recognizes a committee member who, through commitment and leadership, has advanced the humane treatment of animals through the law. She is general counsel for the international nonprofit Mercy for Animals and vice chair of the TBA’s Animal Law Section.