For the first time in 101 years, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has elected a Black president, the ABA Journal reports. Deborah Archer, a New York University School of Law professor with expertise in civil rights, will serve as the organization’s eighth president. Fighting against racial injustice is expected to be a top priority for Archer, alongside voting rights, abortion rights and discontinuation of get-tough immigration policies. The ACLU describes Archer as an established civil rights lawyer, scholar and teacher. At the NYU School of Law, she is a tenured professor of clinical law, director of the civil rights clinic, and co-faculty director of the school’s Center on Race, Inequality and the Law. A graduate of Yale Law School, Archer has been a board member of the ACLU since 2009, general counsel since 2017 and a member of the board’s executive committee since 2016.

The Board of Judicial Conduct yesterday entered into a deferred discipline agreement with Stewart County Judicial Commissioner Joyce Tomlinson. The agreement says Tomlinson is alleged to have “injected herself into an active criminal case involving a family member and acted in a discourteous and intemperate manner inappropriate for a judicial officer.” Tomlinson is said to have “questioned and challenged” officers at the Stewart County Sheriff’s Department about a family member’s case. She was “sarcastic, argumentative, raised her voice, and banged her hands on the table,” and taunted the officer who had investigated her family member’s case, making it clear she did not believe his account of the case. Under the discipline agreement, Tomlinson will resign from her position no later than Feb. 14 and will not seek an appointed or elected judicial office in the future.

Campaign vendor Phoenix Solutions — under scrutiny after an FBI probe of several state legislators last month — appears to have improperly filed its application to do business in the state, TNJ: On the Hill reports. Washington-based Northwest Registered Agents LLC was hired in November 2019 to register Phoenix Solutions in New Mexico. An electronic signature in the name of a Northwest employee was also used to register Phoenix with the Tennessee Secretary of State four days later. A spokesperson for Northwest, however, said the filing “was unauthorized.” The company said it was not hired for registration purposes in Tennessee. Republican legislators did $231,144 worth of business with Phoenix, mostly under the direction of Rep. Robin Smith, R-Hixson. Smith, alongside former House Speaker Glen Casada, R-Franklin, Rep. Todd Warner, R- Chapel Hill, and former Casada aide Cade Cothren, is now at the center of the FBI probe. An anonymous source told the Tennessean earlier this month that Phoenix Solutions is owned by Cothren.

Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee & the Cumberlands will hold three phone clinics this week for members of the public with questions about housing and renters’ rights, bankruptcy, medical bills, debt collection, domestic violence, SNAP benefits and unemployment benefits. Two clinics will take place on Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 4 to 6 p.m. CST. A third clinic will be held on Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. CST. LAS is looking for attorneys to help answer questions. To volunteer, contact Andrae Crismon or Kendra Cheek or call 615-780-7131.

The TBA Mock Trial Committee is seeking sitting judges, attorneys and law students to volunteer for the 2021 Tennessee High School Mock Trial Competition. This year, because of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the competition will be held virtually on the Empire Mock Trial platform. Also, rather than the traditional 14 district competitions, the qualifying competitions will be based on the state’s three grand divisions. Grand division competitions will be held simultaneously the weekend of Feb. 19-21 with nearly 70 teams vying for a spot at the state competition. The state competition will take place March 19-21. Learn more about volunteer opportunities and get links to registration forms on the TBA mock trial website.

The Tennessee Supreme Court today permanently disbarred Williamson County lawyer Matthew David Dunn from the practice of law and ordered him to pay restitution in the amount of $5,995 and costs of the disciplinary proceeding. Dunn accepted a referral from an intermediary organization not properly registered with the board, received a fee for services from a client but did not perform any legal services, failed to respond to the client’s requests for information about the representation or communicate in any manner, and abandoned the client. Dunn must comply with the requirements regarding the obligations and responsibilities of permanently disbarred attorneys.

Lauderdale County lawyer Jennifer Lynn Mayham was today suspended from the practice of law by the Tennessee Supreme Court for a period of five years, with one-year active suspension. She must also obtain an evaluation with the Tennessee Lawyer’s Assistance Program, engage the services of a practice monitor, pay restitution in the amount of $4,700 and reimburse the board for all costs in the disciplinary proceeding. Mayham was convicted of misdemeanor drug possession and plead guilty to misdemeanor perjury. She failed to reasonably communicate with seven clients regarding the status of their case and accepted retainers, after which she failed to perform the professional services for which she was retained. She also failed to respond to the board’s request for information during the investigation and comply with the Order of Temporary Suspension entered in 2018. She must comply with the requirements regarding the obligations and responsibilities of suspended attorneys and the procedure for reinstatement.

Memphis attorney Virginia Watson Griffee passed away on Dec. 11. While in law school at the University of Memphis, Griffee served as Comments Editor on the Law Review and graduated in the top ten percent of her class. After graduation, she clerked for Judge Harry Wellford on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. She then worked as an associate attorney for Armstrong Allen, and later as in-house counsel for Great Western Consumer Finance Group until the early 1990s. At the time of her death, Griffee was a solo practitioner, specializing in Estate Planning, Wills and Trusts, Probate and Elder Law. A memorial service for Griffee will be held at a later date.

Chattanooga District Attorney Neal Pinkston yesterday announced that charges in 11 cases will be dismissed after it was found that an informant had planted the evidence that led to the charges, the Chattanoogan reports. Pinkston said the informant, who was working with the Chattanooga Police Department’s Narcotics Unit, had planted the evidence “in the houses of potential defendants when the informant arrived to complete the illegal narcotics transactions.” His office is asking that all charges in those cases be dismissed immediately. Pinkston added that the public defender appears to be representing all the defendants, some of whom are still in custody on the charges. The Chattanoogan has a full list of the cases.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against the stock trading app Robinhood, almost immediately after it began restricting the trading of certain stocks, The Hill reports. Robinhood blocked its users’ ability to acquire new shares of stocks in companies including GameStop, AMC and BlackBerry. Prior to the restrictions, those stocks had been made popular by a Reddit forum that caused “unprecedented stock rise.” The suit was filed in the Southern District of New York and it claims the app “purposefully, willfully, and knowingly,” removed GameStop from the trading platform, which “deprived retail investors of the ability to invest in the open-market and manipulating the open-market.” Users on the Reddit forum had worked together to drive up the price of stocks that traditional hedge funds had shorted, which sent GameStop stock soaring more than 1,000% over the past several weeks.