TBA Law Blog

TBA Law Blog

Tennessee Justice Center: An Innovative Legacy

Posted on: Jan 1, 2016

Journal Issue Date: Jan 2016

Journal Name: January 2016 - Vol. 52, No. 1

Twenty years ago, Tennessee bar leaders’ defense of access to justice set an example that inspired colleagues across the country, and established a legacy that still touches thousands of Tennesseans today. In 1995, congressional leaders sought to abolish the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), which provides crucial federal funding for legal aid. Leaders of the TBA, the Tennessee Bar Foundation and local bar organizations rallied from across the state and across the political spectrum to head off the threat to equal justice. They lined up support in the Tennessee congressional delegation and persuaded the late Sen. Fred Thompson to champion LSC in the Senate. They convinced the Tennessee legislature, with the help of lawyer-legislators like then-House Majority Leader Bill Purcell, to create new state funding sources for Tennessee’s legal aid programs.

LSC survived, but with new restrictions on Legal Aid’s services. Bar leaders founded the Tennessee Justice Center (TJC) as a nonprofit law firm to operate without government funding so it could handle the cases that Legal Aid could no longer pursue. The Tennessee Bar Foundation provided seed money with an IOLTA grant and lawyers and law firms pitched in to help launch TJC. Two decades later, TJC has helped hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Tennesseans, serving clients in all 95 counties.

Last November, nearly 400 guests attended a Nashville gala honoring the nine visionary bar leaders who made it all happen, and to celebrate their legacy of Equal Justice under Law. To learn more about these champions of justice, visit https://www.tnjustice.org/hall-of-fame.

— Michele Johnson, TJC executive director

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