Nashville attorney Costin Shamble has been appointed director of the Office of Conflict of Interest and Commitment Management at Vanderbilt University. In that role, she will utilize technology and web content to support and advance the university’s system for identifying and addressing conflict of interest and commitment concerns. Prior to Vanderbilt, Shamble served four years as university attorney for Austin Peay State University and 10 years as diversity compliance manager at the Tennessee Department of Conservation and Environment. She is a member of the Tennessee Bar Journal Editorial Board and of the TBA Leadership Law (TBALL) class of 2016. Read more on Shamble’s new role from Vanderbilt’s website.

Baker Donelson attorney and TBA member Christian Schuetz was last month appointed Honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany in Tennessee. Schuetz was appointed to the position by the president of the Federal Republic of Germany and was sworn in by the German Consul General in Atlanta on Jan. 13. In this role, he will support Germany's diplomatic and consular mission and help promote bilateral relations in the areas of culture and foreign trade between Germany and Tennessee. Schuetz practices in the areas of real estate and finance and economic development in Baker’s Nashville office and is a member of the firm’s Global Business Group. He is a German native who earned his law degree in Germany and is a member of the Tennessee chapter of the German American Chamber of Commerce of the Southern U.S.

The University of Tennessee College of Law's Legal Clinic is connecting its students with entrepreneurs and community members to provide them with the legal assistance needed to launch their start-ups and more. Professor Brian Krum spearheaded a collaboration between his Business Clinic law students and aspiring Knoxville entrepreneurial fellows. In this partnership, students advise entrepreneurs on intellectual property issues, types of legal entities they should form and financial options. Students in Professor Eric Amarante’s Community Economic Development Clinic are also getting hands-on experience through assistance they’ve offered a fellow student in forming non-profit foundation that helps those in Uganda refugee camps. The College of Law’s website has more on the work students are doing through both clinics.

TBA law student member and Vanderbilt Law School student Ramon Ryan has won the American Bar Association’s 2020 K. William Kolbe Writing Competition according to the school. His winning article, “The Fault in Our Stars: Challenging the FCC’s Treatment of Commercial Satellites as Categorically Excluded from Review under the National Environmental Policy Act,” was first published last fall in the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law. Ryan serves as editor-in-chief of the publication. The article led two members of the U.S. Congress to ask the FCC to look into the issue. The Kolbe award includes a $2,500 cash prize, membership in the ABA’s Infrastructure and Regulated Industries Section (which sponsors the competition) and free registration and airfare to attend the section’s spring meeting. Ryan plans to join the Nashville office of Bass Berry & Sims when he graduates later this year.

Todd Presnell, a partner in Bradley’s Nashville office and TBA member, was recently selected by the Defense Research Institute (DRI) as the 2020 recipient of the Tom Segalla Excellence in Education Award. The award honors a DRI member whose contributions through legal scholarship exemplify the highest educational standards of DRI and further its mission of improving the skills of the defense lawyer. Presnell is a member of Bradley’s Litigation Practice Group and maintains an active trial practice, serves in discovery-counsel roles, and leads and advises on internal corporate investigations. He is the chair of the TBA’s Litigation Section and a 2007 graduate of the TBA’s Leadership Law program. Read more on Bradley’s website.

Clarence A. Wilbon, a partner in the Memphis office of Adams and Reese, has been named to the firm’s executive committee. The group is the management body of the firm, which oversees strategic operations as well as attorneys, advisors and professional staff. Wilbon, who also chairs the firm’s Diversity Committee, advises financial services clients, health care and life sciences companies. He was a member of the TBA’s 2008 Leadership Law class and an active member of the Young Lawyers Division in the early days of his career.

Shortly after moving into her first ever corner office, Sheri Fox announced she was leaving her post as executive director of Legal Aid of East Tennessee to move to Savannah, Georgia. Fox took on the LEAT position in 2016 with two goals in mind: to strengthen and grow LAET and to make sure the firm could take advantage of new opportunities she saw on the horizon. She says both of these goals have been accomplished thanks to the hard work and dedication of LAET staff. Fox will practice with a small plaintiff’s firm in Savannah. She is a TBA member, TBA Labor and Employment Section member, a 2008 graduate of the TBA Leadership Law program and has a member of the TBA’s Access to Justice Committee. Read the full profile on Fox from the Hamilton County Herald.

Chambliss Bahner & Stophel attorney Logan Threadgill was earlier this month featured in the Chattanooga Times Free Press Rising Star series, where he discussed his practice and his life as a former soccer prodigy. Threadgill played Division I soccer at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he was a four-year letterman. He was also a midfielder between his junior and senior years in college for one of the first Chattanooga Football Club (CFC) teams to play for a national championship. In the article, Threadgill also discusses his stint as an intern for then-U.S. Rep. John L. Duncan in Washington, D.C. and how his time there inspired him to pursue law. Threadgill is now a litigation associate with Chambliss, representing construction companies, financial institutions and a variety of other commercial clients. He is the District 5 Representative for the TBA’s Young Lawyers Division and a member of the Litigation Section.

Belmont University College of Law has promoted TBA member Debbie Farringer to serve as its Associate Dean for Academic Affairs & Associate Professor of Law. Farringer, who has been with the law school since 2013, currently serves as the director of Health Law Studies and has taught a variety of courses, including Health Law, Health Care Business and Finance, Health Law Fraud and Abuse, Bioethics and Mental Health Law. Her scholarship explores the operation and impact of health laws and health policy on providers and suppliers, with a special emphasis on the unique challenges facing the health care industry in the area of cybersecurity. She is also the faculty supervisor for the Belmont Health Law Journal and coaches the health law transactions moot court team. Farringer is also chair of the board of directors of the Tennessee Justice Center, a member of the TBA’s Health Law Section and was part of the TBA Leadership Law Class of 2016.

An article on general sessions court reform in Tennessee written by Hamblen County Assistant Public Defender Willie Santana has been published in the latest issue of the Lincoln Memorial University Law Review. In How to Make Better Sessions Judges: Appellate Review A Proposal to Reform Tennessee’s General Sessions Courts for the 21st Century, Santana writes about general sessions judicial misconduct and its negative impact on those involved in criminal cases. He also proposes ways in which the court can be reformed, including “injecting appellate review into the general sessions court” as a means of improving the system. Santana, a TBA member and member of the TBA’s Leadership Law Class of 2020, was featured in an article from the New York Times last year on overcrowding and poor conditions in the Hamblen County jail.