Young Lawyers Division Director Stacey Shrader Joslin will be leaving the TBA at the end of the month, concluding 11 years of service with the organization. Taking her place will be Katharine Heriges, who joined the staff on Nov. 16 and has been training under Shrader Joslin this week. Heriges comes to TBA after two years of working on local Nashville political races. Prior to that she worked as an English teacher abroad in Busan, South Korea. In addition to serving as coordinator for the YLD, Heriges will work with the TBA’s Public Education Committee. She can be reached at (615) 383-7421 or kheriges@tnbar.org.

The Tullahoma office of the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands recently presented two inaugural awards to local volunteers. The group honored Haven of Hope Executive Director Mona Mason with the Tullahoma Community Award for her efforts to improve services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in six Tennessee counties. In addition, Manchester attorneys J. Stanley Rogers, Christina Henley Duncan and Edward H. North -- individually and collectively as the law firm of Rogers, Duncan & North -- were given the agency's Pro Bono Leadership Award. The trio was honored for providing voluntary legal assistance to low-income individuals in Coffee County. Read more from the Tullahoma News.

Lawrence McKinney has yet to receive a penny of the $1 million the Innocence Project says he is owed for spending 31 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. The Lebanon Democrat reports that the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole has not exonerated McKinney and without the exoneration, he cannot receive his compensation. “I’m working with an attorney from Memphis. We’re just waiting to see what the next step is," McKinney said.

An article in the Atlantic reports on a common thread in recent state supreme court campaigns: whether judges are sufficiently "tough on crime." Alicia Bannon with the Brennan Center for Justice writes that more than half of TV ad spots that aired in recent state supreme court elections either criticized or praised the records of judges and candidates on criminal justice issues. “Behind these ads are special interest groups—many with clear financial interests in cases that come before state courts—who appear to be coalescing around a strategy to exploit public-safety issues." That leaves judges less likely to side with criminal defendants and the public less confident in a fair judiciary, she argues.

The Downtown Columbia Business & Professionals Association recently voiced its opposition to a proposal to move the Maury County Courthouse to the Columbia Mall, the Daily Herald reports. A lack of handicap accessibility, security problems and the occasional severe over-crowding of the building are among the reasons Judge Bobby Sands said he feels the move is necessary. But James Lund, president of the downtown association, says such a move could possibly destroy what has happened so far in downtown Columbia. "We need to help the county come up with a solution," he argues.

An investigative report from WREG finds that ex-offenders continue paying for their punishment through complex fines and fees associated with the criminal justice system long after they have completed serving their time. A basic fee schedule does not exist in Memphis, according to WREG, and the amount of fines and fees vary by crime. "I don't disagree that people shouldn't foot the bill if they commit a crime, [but] we've gone well beyond that," says Josh Spickler, executive director of Just City -- a local group committed to reform. Spickler says the group plans to conduct research on the issue, including how the fines impact taxpayers.

The Associated Press reports that the District of Columbia has agreed to pay $16.65 million to Donald Eugene Gates, a current Tennessee resident who was freed in 2009 after spending 27 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit. The amount to be paid to Gates is about $617,000 for each year he spent in prison. A federal jury on Wednesday found that two city police officers fabricated and withheld evidence in the case. “Today, justice was served. Long-awaited justice was served,” Gates said.

The Tennessean reports on the process and success of Nashville's youth courts, a system that allows students who are facing misdemeanor accusations to go before a jury of their peers. Teens who participate as lawyers and jurors are trained by Juvenile Court Judge Sheila Calloway. According to advocates for the program, fewer than four percent of students who go through youth courts reoffend -- a much better success rate than those processed in juvenile court.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said this week that she nearly withdrew from the confirmation process because of the critics, the Associated Press reports. “During the nomination process, there were many who said I wasn’t intelligent or smart enough to be on the court. It was very, very painful to me,” she said while speaking Tuesday to students at the Richmond School of Law. Sotomayor also shared with students that one of her few regrets is that she never clerked for a judge. She encouraged the students to pursue clerking opportunities.

The University of Tennessee College of Law has launched its first advanced law degree, a master of laws (LLM) in U.S. business law. The program is designed to train lawyers to practice in the global marketplace. “We’re excited to welcome talented lawyers from around the world to UT Law, where they will gain new knowledge in the classroom and practical field experience outside the classroom,” said Melanie D. Wilson, dean of the law school. The college is accepting applications for the fall of 2016.