Former Republican Rep. Robin Smith of Hixson has been directed to report to Alderson, a minimum security federal prison in West Virginia, by 2 p.m. on Jan. 5, reports Chattanoogan.com. In October, Smith was sentenced to serve eight months in prison and pay a $7,500 fine for her role in the legislative fraud case that also involved former House Speaker Glen Casada and his top aide, Cade Cothren. Smith pleaded guilty to honest-services wire fraud connected to a taxpayer-funded mailer scheme. After her guilty plea, she cooperated with prosecutors in their cases against Casada and Cothren, who were convicted and given prison time, but pardoned recently by the president. Smith is seeking to have her sentence reduced. One of her attorneys also has sought a presidential pardon.

Tennessee lawyer and former Knoxville Mayor Randy Tyree died Nov. 24 at the age of 85. A graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and the University of Tennessee (now Winston) College of Law, Tyree first worked for the FBI in Washington and Puerto Rico. He later served as a patrolman and detective in the Knoxville Police Department, as the city's police and fire commissioner, as an attorney with Egerton, Armistead, Davis & McCord and then Morrison, Morrison, Tyree & Morrow and finally as mayor. During his time in the mayor’s office — from 1976-1984 — he brought the World's Fair to Knoxville. He ran for governor in 1982, but lost to then-incumbent Gov. Lamar Alexander. Knox News looks at his legacy.

The TBA Pro Bono Portal provides a centralized source for lawyers and law students to find pro bono opportunities across Tennessee. Whether looking for virtual opportunities, in-person clinics or longer-term cases, volunteers can go online and search options by date or type of representation. Learn more about the portal in a press release from the TBA or visit the site today to begin volunteering! Thank you to Paladin and World Within for making the first year of the portal free to the Tennessee legal community.

Gary Humble has ended his state senate campaign just two months after launching a bid to unseat Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, citing “personal and organizational commitments.” According to the Williamson Scene, Humble made the announcement last Friday, saying, “after much prayer, thought, and honest conversations with my family, I have reached the conclusion that this is not the right pursuit for me at this time.” The founder and executive director of Tennessee Stands will continue to run that organization. He has offered a full refund to anyone who donated to his campaign.

The Tennessee Bar Association will be closed Wednesday through Friday in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. An abbreviated edition of TBA Today will be published on Wednesday. Visit the TBA website at any time to access CLE offerings and contact information for individual staff members. The office will reopen Dec. 1 at 8 a.m. CST. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Tennessee Supreme Court on Nov. 21 suspended 18 attorneys for failure to pay the annual registration fee, 12 of whom also failed to file proof that client funds are held in an IOLTA-compliant account. View the fee suspension order and IOLTA suspension order. Lawyers reinstated in the last month include two suspended this year, one suspended in 2021, one suspended in 2020 and one suspended in 2019. Access all administrative suspensions dating back to 2005.

Law firms now account for 10.5% of U.S. office leasing activity — double their pre-pandemic share — as other industries have scaled back and firms increasingly require in-person work, Reuters reports. Strong profitability and a renewed emphasis on office presence have allowed many firms to expand or maintain space, contributing to 8.3 million square feet leased through the third quarter. While more than a third of firms expanded their footprint, nearly one-third reduced space.

READLER, Circuit Judge. The derailment of 38 cars in a Norfolk Southern freight train in early 2023 upended the quiet Columbiana County (Ohio) community of East Palestine. With the train carrying hundreds of thousands of gallons of hazardous materials, the derailment stoked fires that billowed for days. Those combustions were followed by additional “controlled releases” that resulted in a “toxic mushroom cloud” of chemicals. Am. Master Complaint, R. 138, PageID 1804, 1805–06. To some observers, the incident “looked like something out of Chernobyl.” See Salena Zito, ‘We Don’t Know What We Are Breathing’: A Report from East Palestine, The Free Press (Feb. 23, 2023), https://perma.cc/T4J5-CCBW. Thousands were evacuated from the area, with fears growing over potential health, environmental, and economic fallout from the accident. Within days of the accident, lawsuits ensued against Norfolk Southern. The cases, filed on behalf of numerous affected individuals and businesses, were eventually consolidated into one master class action. In the end, a $600 million settlement was forged between the parties, which the district court ultimately approved. See In re E. Pal. Train Derailment, --- F. 4th --- , Nos. 24-3852, 24-3880, 25-3342, 2025 WL 3089606, at *1 (6th Cir. Nov. 5, 2025). Today’s case, however, does not directly concern the victims of the derailment or the settlement they achieved. Instead, it involves the lawyers who sued Norfolk Southern. The dispute here involves a late-breaking fight over the timing and allocation of attorney’s fees. Weeks after the district court gave final approval of the settlement and fees, Morgan & Morgan—a law firm that represented a group of individuals and entities who had filed standalone cases against Norfolk Southern—challenged the distribution of attorney’s fees. Despite having been awarded nearly $8 million in attorney’s fees (and receiving those fees at an expedited pace), Morgan & Morgan took issue with the process for awarding those fees. In the end, the district court refused to undo its earlier decisions. We largely agree. Save for a narrow issue as to Morgan & Morgan’s specific allocation of the total fee award, which we remand for consideration by the district court, we affirm.

BLOOMEKATZ, Circuit Judge. Jonathon Chase Vowels-Harper was a young adult when he met a minor girl on social media. The two began to exchange casual text messages, but their conversations soon turned sexual. Vowels-Harper asked the minor to send him sexually explicit photos and videos of herself, and she did. He later pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography based on that conduct. At sentencing, the district court applied a four-level enhancement on the ground that one of the videos of the minor depicted “sadistic” conduct. Vowels-Harper argues that the court applied the wrong standard in evaluating the video for the sadism enhancement. We agree, so we vacate his sentence and remand for resentencing under the proper standard.

The Defendant, Gerald Tyshawn Henry, was convicted by a Knox County jury of second degree murder and various other gun-related crimes, for which he received an effective sentence of fifty years in confinement. In this appeal, the sole issue presented for our review is whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain the Defendant’s conviction of second degree murder. Upon our review, we affirm.