The writing section of the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) will get an overhaul this summer with a greater emphasis on gauging analytical skills, according to Reuters. Currently, LSAT takers have 35 minutes to write an argumentative essay on a provided topic designed to demonstrate their logical reasoning. The updated writing section will give examinees 15 minutes to read different positions on a debatable topic, after which they will have 35 minutes to write an argument in which they take a position and address the strengths and weaknesses of the various ideas presented. The writing section, which is taken separately from the rest of the test, will debut on July 31, eight days before the first LSAT without logic games.

The U.S. Supreme Court is seeking $19.4 million in federal funds to increase security for the nine justices and assign protection of their homes to its own police force rather than the U.S. Marshals Service, citing "evolving" risks faced by the nation's top judicial body, reports Reuters. That funding would include $5.8 million to expand the security activities of the Supreme Court Police, its in-house security force, and $13.6 million to let the court's police take over the duties currently served by the Marshals Service of protecting the justices' homes. Serious threats against federal judges rose to 457 in fiscal year 2023, from 224 in fiscal 2021, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

TBA's Day on the Hill and Big Shrimp Legislative Reception will be held in Nashville on March 20. The events give Tennessee lawyers an opportunity to meet with their legislators and talk to them about issues important to the profession, including funding for indigent representation. The TBA Day on the Hill will include a luncheon and meetings with legislators in the afternoon, followed by the annual Big Shrimp reception that night. Sign up now to take part!

Isaiah 117 House, a northeast Tennessee-based nonprofit ministry, broke ground on a new facility in Memphis on Monday. The organization allows children to go to a comfortable environment where trained volunteers can care for them during the period between removal and placement with a foster family. The Daily Memphian reports that in Shelby County, 1,200 children are in state custody. Teenagers make up the largest group, followed by small children from infancy through age 4. The Department of Children's Services (DCS) and Isaiah 117 House leaders began collaborating after they met at a monthly meeting of the Memphis Interfaith Foster and Adoption Ministries, an alliance of churches, agencies, ministries and community advocates who serve foster, adoptive and kinship children and families.

On March 4, Davidson County attorney Wesley Jesse Ladner III received a public censure from the Supreme Court of Tennessee and was ordered to pay the costs and fees of the Board of Professional Responsibility. The censure was conditioned on Ladner engaging a practice monitor for two years, contacting the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program and complying with any of its recommendations. Ladner represented a client in a contentious divorce matter. During the course of the domestic litigation, Ladner engaged in abuses of the discovery process, failed to diligently and timely respond to discovery requests, and made factual misstatements to the court and opposing counsel. Ladner executed a conditional guilty plea acknowledging his conduct violated Rules of Professional Conduct 1.3, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 8.4(c) and (d).

Burch, Porter & Johnson PLLC has announced that Judge Bernice Donald has joined the firm after retiring from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 2023. Donald will continue her domestic and international arbitration and mediation practice, and her work as a special master, advisor on appellate strategy, and counsel in internal investigations, from the firm’s office in Memphis. In a statement this week, Donald said that the firm's "deep expertise and its leadership in community affairs is a great fit with the mediation, arbitration, appellate advisory and internal investigation work I have done since leaving the bench.” Read the press release from the firm.

A group of Democratic Tennessee lawmakers is asking the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate how the state has further restricted the process for people with felony records to get their voting rights back, reports the Associated Press. The group argues that "Tennessee law permits restoration of voting rights through a straight-forward administrative procedure," but the elections office has imposed additional requirements that people get their full citizenship rights restored or secure a pardon in addition to the restoration processes that have been in place. The policy changes began last summer, halting nearly all voting rights restorations. The issue once again sparked outcries from voting rights advocates after elections officials in January made another legal interpretation that restoration of gun rights is part of the requirement. Because of those changes, coupled with existing state and federal laws for certain offenses that permanently ban someone from getting their gun rights back, critics argue the state’s new policy permanently disenfranchises tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of people from getting another chance to vote.

The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) has named Samantha Fisher as communications director. In this role, Fisher will serve as spokesperson for the Supreme Court of Tennessee and the AOC. In addition, she will provide communications support to AOC initiatives focused on improving public education and understanding of the judicial branch and its essential role in a democratic society. Previously, Fisher served as communications director for the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter where she led and coordinated messaging on the $26 billion opioid distributor’s settlement.

A bill that would require all written driver’s license tests to be given only in English will be taken up by the Senate Transportation and Safety Committee on Wednesday. According to the Nashville Post, SB1717/HB1730, sponsored by Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, and Rep. Kip Capley, R-Summertown, “prohibits use of a translation dictionary, electronic device or interpreter to assist with the examination.” Currently, Tennessee offers standard driver’s license tests in English and Spanish. Rep. John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, said, “I represent one of the most diverse districts in the state of Tennessee, probably one of the largest immigrant populations in the state ... That is a blatantly discriminatory bill designed to target specific individuals.”

The Certificate of Need Reform Working Group, made up of Republican Tennessee lawmakers, will file a bill this legislative session that will overhaul the current Certificate of Need Program (CON), according to a Feb. 26 email sent to 36 senators and representatives obtained by the Nashville Business Journal. The CON was established in 1972 by the federal government and is a permit for the establishment or modification of a health care institution, facility or service at a designated location, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. The bill will be aimed at eliminating the requirements for certain types of medical facilities and lightening restrictions for others, eliminating the CON requirements for freestanding emergency departments, intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) habitation facilities that are licensed by the Tennessee Department of IDD, burn units, neonatal intensive care units and organ transplant facilities. If the bill passes, the new requirements would go into effect on July 1, 2025, and new facilities would be required to receive accreditation within two years.