Chris Smith reviews Valley So Low: One Lawyer’s Fight for Justice in the Wake of America’s Great Coal Catastrophe by Jared Sullivan, which studies the Kingston coal ash disaster, the clean up, the lawsuits that followed after workers became sick and what he characterizes as "the near-total failure of the American tort system to hold powerful corporations to account when their wrongdoing devastates the environment and destroys people’s lives."

The Journal’s “back page” content looks a little different in 2025! Introducing “Closing Statements.” We’ll post a question here in each issue and invite you to submit your answer. Perhaps you’ll see your closing statement in the next issue! For this issue, we asked "If you weren't a lawyer, what would be your career?"

TBA staff member Laura Labenberg has been promoted to the position of Director of the Young Lawyers Division and Law Student Development, a move applauded by both TBA and Young Lawyers Division (YLD) leadership. Labenberg joined the TBA in September 2022 in a coordinator role supporting the Young Lawyers Division (YLD) and law students across the state. She previously served as a professor of rhetoric at Hofstra University and executive director of an educational nonprofit in New York. Earlier in her career in higher education, Labenberg served as a grants coordinator and conference coordinator. She earned her doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies at Hofstra University. According to TBA Executive Director Sheree Wright, the promotion reflects Labenberg’s outstanding service to the TBA and YLD over the past three years.

The Tennessee Bar Foundation has opened the 2026 Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) grant application. Established by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1984, the IOLTA program generates funds that are used to provide civil legal services to the poor and/or improve the administration of justice. The deadline to apply is Sept. 29. Learn more about grant eligibility and guidelines, and access the application portal, at www.tnbarfoundation.org. The foundation was established in 1982. Since its inception, it has contributed more than $32 million to Tennessee nonprofit organizations. Read the full announcement.