TBA leaders were in Washington D.C. this week as a part of ABA Day 2017 to speak to members of Congress about the importance of funding for the Legal Services Corporation and other issues. TBA efforts were led by President Jason Long, President-elect Lucian Pera, YLD President Rachel Mancl, Legislative Counsel Gif Thornton and Executive Director Emeritus Allan Ramsaur. Nashville attorneys Ann Pruitt from the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services and Jonathan Cole, president of the National Conference of Bar Presidents, also joined the delegation.

Join the TBA on May 19 for a CLE on entertainment and sports law at the Belmont University College of Law. Sessions will cover a Supreme Court update focusing on hot button trademark and copyright cases and the state of music licensing. Speakers will also address music publishing, how songwriters get paid and an introduction to the world of virtual reality. Read more and register here.

The Arkansas judge who was removed from a death penalty case after participating in a rally against executions has accused the state’s attorney general and Supreme Court of violating ethics rules by not allowing him to respond, the ABA Journal reports. “There is something fundamentally unfair about refusing to hear all parties to a dispute,” Judge Wendell Griffen said. Griffen previously joined other judges on the federal and state level in blocking recent executions because a drug manufacturer objected to the use of its product. 

The Tennessee Senate voted 23-6 yesterday to assign “natural and ordinary meaning” to terms in state law, drawing criticism from LGBT groups who view the bill as discriminatory, the Tennessean reports. The bill fails to define what terms it seeks to clarify, but resembles a similar previous measure that singled out terms like “husband” and “wife.” Sen. John Stevens (R-Huntingdon) said the bill was designed to compel courts to side with Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion in the landmark same-sex marriage ruling. The House approved the measure last month, so it now heads to Gov. Bill Haslam’s desk for approval.