Longtime Chattanooga lawyer and former TBA President Thomas Maxfield "Max" Bahner died this past Friday at the age of 89, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. Bahner earned his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1960 and practiced for decades at Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel. Bahner focused his practice primarily in the area of complex litigation. He also was an American Arbitration Association (AAA) arbitrator and a Rule 31 certified mediator. He was serving as an emeritus member of the firm at the time of his death. Bahner served as TBA president from 1980-1981. He also served as president of the Chattanooga Bar Association, and for nearly 17 years as a member of the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates, leading the Tennessee delegation for nine years. Service to the Tennessee judiciary included chairing the Tennessee Supreme Court's Advisory Commission on the Rules of Civil Procedure for seven years, during which time the commission wrote the Tennessee Rules of Evidence, and chairing the task force that reviewed and recommended changes to the Tennessee Rules of Judicial Conduct. Funeral services are pending. TBA President Jim Barry called Bahner's passing "a sad day for Tennessee and our profession." Read comments about Bahner's life and legacy from past TBA presidents or this profile of Bahner from 2017.

Join colleagues on Nov. 14 from noon to 1 p.m. CST to learn how to save time, reduce paper and increase completion rates of client questionnaires. Danielle DavisRoe with TBA’s member advantage partner Affinity Consulting will discuss free and inexpensive tools to electronically gather data from clients during this webcast. Learn more or register here.

Memphis Area Legal Services (MALS) will hold a Thursday afternoon Courthouse Advice & Counsel Clinic this week starting at 1 p.m. CDT at the Shelby County Courthouse, 140 Adams St., Room 134. Volunteer lawyers are needed to help clients navigating the court system. This clinic is held the first and third Thursdays of the month. For more information or to sign up to help call 901-523-8822 or fill out this Google form.

Five community mediation centers from across the state recently gathered for a three-day conference in Nashville. Attendees discussed ways to expand access to remote mediation for pro se and low-income litigants in underserved judicial districts. The conference was an extension of an innovative push for remote mediation started prior to the pandemic by Nashville Conflict Resolution Center and supported by funding from the Tennessee Bar Foundation and AAA-ICDR Foundation. Staff from centers in Chattanooga, Columbia, Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville heard from Dr. Lorig Charkoudian, delegate in the Maryland General Assembly and executive director of Community Mediation Maryland. The centers collectively provided 976 mediations last year. Read more in this news release.

The University of Tennessee College of Law has named Carol Anne Long as the new director of the Bettye B. Lewis Career Center. Long has been a member of the career services team since March 2022, spending the past 10 months as interim director. A 2000 graduate of the law school, Long first was named associate director of the center. Long previously practiced civil and criminal defense litigation with two Knoxville law firms and worked as a judicial clerk for Judge Charles D. Susano Jr. of the Tennessee Court of Appeals and Judge James Curwood Witt Jr. of the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals. She was active in the TBA Young Lawyers Division and is married to former TBA President Jason Long.

Washington County lawyer Brett Nathaniel Mayes received a public censure from the Tennessee Supreme Court Tuesday. The court took the action after finding that Mayes, under the penalty of perjury, falsely stated on two “Statement of Interest” forms from the Tennessee Ethics Commission that he had never filed bankruptcy. He had in fact filed bankruptcy in 2019. Mayes was required to complete the form while serving on a local planning commission. The court determined that his conduct violated Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(c).

The TBA Attorney Well Being Committee will present a free one-hour webinar on Oct. 25 to help lawyers explore preemptive and restorative strategies to shield themselves from burnout. Nashville attorneys Brad Bald and Brigid Caldwell will lead the discussion, sharing insights about their personal paths to wellbeing. The event, Attorney Armor: Shielding Yourself from the Flames of Burnout, will run from noon to 1 p.m. CDT. Register here for the Zoom presentation.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has unanimously held that a property owner using his home as a short-term rental did not violate homeowner association restrictions requiring homes be used for “residential and no other purposes.” However, the court also held that the property owner’s short-term rentals do violate later amendments to the restrictions that impose a minimum lease term of 30 days. Read more about the decision or access the full court opinion.

Brent Easley, who recently concluded a stint as Gov. Bill Lee's legislative director, has been named president of BHA Strategy, the Nashville Post reports. The lobbying and public relations firm was founded by former Lee aides Blake Harris and Laine Arnold. Harris was Lee's chief of staff, while Arnold was communications director. Easley worked for TennesseeCAN, StudentsFirstTN and state House Republicans before joining the Lee administration. He is also an adjunct professor at Lipscomb University.

Defense lawyers and major corporations are urging a U.S. judicial panel to strengthen a proposed rule that would for the first time govern federal mass torts cases. Reuters reports that the group says the draft rule does not go far enough to weed out "meritless" lawsuits. They are calling on the panel to strengthen the language to include a directive that plaintiffs’ counsel demonstrate “basic due diligence into plaintiffs’ claims, such as evidence of exposure to the alleged cause and a resulting injury, early in the case.”