NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judge. After the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock decision, the U.S. Department of Education issued three documents under Title IX—each stating that the Department will now fully enforce Title IX to prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity. discrimination in education programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. The Department’s actions prompted twenty states to bring a pre-enforcement challenge. A district court granted the States a preliminary injunction. On interlocutory appeal, the Department challenges this ruling, arguing that the States lack standing, the Documents are unreviewable, and the district court abused its discretion in issuing the injunction. We disagree and affirm.

The Petitioner, Braylen Bennett, appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, arguing that he was denied the effective assistance of trial counsel, that his guilty pleas were unknowing, unintelligent, and involuntary, and that the cumulative effect of trial counsel’s deficiencies in performance warrants post-conviction relief. Based on our review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

Plaintiff sued the owner of a hotel after she fell in its lobby. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant, concluding that the defendant did not owe a duty to the plaintiff. Because the trial court’s order does not adequately explain how an expert report proffered by the plaintiff was treated in adjudicating the motion for summary judgment, we vacate and remand to the trial court for the entry of an order that addresses this issue.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has rejected a Board of Professional Responsibility petition for immediate suspension of Hawkins County lawyer Daniel Graham Boyd. The court took the action after a trial court granted Boyd judicial diversion. The court also directed the board to “evaluate the facts and circumstances” of the case and proceed as appropriate.

The Tennessee Supreme Court recently granted a request from Knox County lawyer Mark Steven Graham for a hearing to reconsider a temporary suspension imposed on May 20 for failure to comply with a Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program (TLAP) monitoring agreement. The court had rejected a similar request in May, but said Graham had since “alleged sufficient facts to establish good cause” for a hearing. The court cited his willingness to execute and comply with a monitoring agreement. It directed the Board of Professional Responsibility to hold a hearing and its recommendation with the “utmost speed consistent with due process.”

Memphis lawyer Miles Mason was awarded the TBA’s prestigious Justice Joseph W. Henry Award for Outstanding Legal Writing today during the group's Annual Convention in Memphis. The award, which was presented at the Lawyers Luncheon, was established more than 40 years ago and is given each year to the lawyer who writes the most outstanding article published in the Tennessee Bar Journal for the preceding year. Mason will be recognized for his article “You Are the Father!: Untangling Custody Rights in Tennessee Between Unmarried Parents,” which appeared in the November/December 2023 issue of the Journal. Mason is the founder of Miles Mason Law Group PLC and a certified public accountant. He is a nationally recognized speaker who presents continuing education seminars across the country. His father-in-law, the late Judge Joe B. Jones, was the first recipient of the Joe Henry Award in 1981. Read the TBA's press release for more information.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has imposed a three-year suspension on Knoxville attorney Loring Justice. The decision affirmed the recommendation of a hearing panel and overturned a chancery court decision, which had imposed permanent disbarment. The court found that Justice filed various motions, which contained insulting and inflammatory statements about the judge presiding over a child custody dispute involving his minor child and the child’s mother. Justice previously was disbarred in 2019, under previous rules that did not make that discipline permanent. Read more in a release from the court.

The Tennessee sheriff who was indicted and arrested on more than a dozen official misconduct charges in Gibson County is now facing charges in Davidson County, Action News 5 reports. Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas yesterday was indicted on 18 criminal counts and booked into Nashville’s detention center. The actions were taken in both counties after an investigation by the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office identified a scheme by Thomas to “enrich himself and a group of investigators by profiting from the labor and care of Gibson County and Tennessee Department of Correction inmates.”

The Nashville office of the national law firm Morgan & Morgan is slated to move from its Broadway office to mixed-use tower One Nashville by year's end. A permit notes that the law firm will take approximately 19,500 square feet of space on both the first and third floors of the building, previously called One Nashville Place, at 150 Fourth Ave. N. The firm currently operates from about 20,000 square feet at the 810 Broadway building near the I-40 interchange, Nashville Post reports.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision today that a group of anti-abortion doctors did not have standing to challenge new rules related to mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used in medication abortion. The decision overturns a ruling by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which had made it more difficult to obtain the drug. The opinion did not address any underlying regulatory or safety issues raised by the group, only finding that the doctors did not show they had personally been harmed by the government’s rules. In related news, Reuters reports that another case from three Republican-led states is still working its way through the appeals process and if taken up by the court could test the legitimacy of the rule.

In another decision released today, the court overturned a lower court’s ruling ordering Starbucks to reinstate seven Memphis-based employees terminated amid a unionization drive. The justices rejected a “more lenient test” used by the lower court to determine the employees had to be reinstated. Instead, it directed courts to use a more stringent, four-factor test applied in other contexts. Read more about both decisions from The Hill.