The Next Door, a Chattanooga nonprofit correctional release facility, offers former female inmates a second chance through its one-on-one therapy and training. The Times Free Press reports that 329 women have completed the program since it started in 2011, with only seven percent sent back to jail within three years. 

The number of pro bono hours volunteered by Tennessee attorneys went up by nearly 3,000 in the last reporting year, according to the annual report by the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission featured in The Chattanoogan. "Tennessee attorneys continue to respond to the need for free legal assistance,” said Doug Blaze, chairman of the Commission. About 40 percent of all lawyers completed the voluntary filing -- fewer than the year before -- but those who did report gave an average of more than 78 hours in one year, an increase of nearly 6 percent. Read the full report.

The average score on the multiple-choice portion of the July bar exam fell 1.6 points from the previous years, reaching its lowest level since 1988, Bloomberg Business reports. The mean score on this summer's exam was 139.9, down from 141.5 in July 2014. "It was not unexpected," says Erica Moeser, the president of the NCBE, which creates the multiple choice part of the test. "We are in a period where we can expect to see some decline, until the market for going to law school improves."

A lawsuit filed by Hamilton County school boards over education funding outlines $700 million in recommendations they say have been ignored by state officials, the Times Free Press reports. The suit lists teacher salaries, health insurance and fully funding the state’s share of classroom costs as contributing to the missing money. "We've specifically listed the things that the Supreme Court has said unequivocally the General Assembly has to do,” said attorney Scott Bennett, who filed the suit for the school board.

Parks Snyder PLLC, a new law firm in Columbia, will specialize in domestic relations and estate planning, The Daily Herald reports. The firm was formed by Houston Parks, who most recently served as a senior trust officer at First Farmers and Merchants Bank, and Shawn Snyder, who has been serving as executive director of The Mediation Center. The firm is located at 813 S. Garden St., Suite 209.

The Knoxville News Sentinel reports the state is paying a combined $47,000 per month to three consultants developing the governor’s privatization plan. According to the report, the consultants’ monthly salaries are more than the amount paid to four state employees assigned to the privatization effort, where reports show the highest pay is $12,000 per month. 

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals heard four cases on Sept. 29, 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., on the University of Tennessee at Martin campus, The Jackson Sun reports. The court  convened in the Boling University Center’s Watkins Auditorium. See photos from the session.

Brian Mason, a Kentucky deputy clerk issuing marriage licenses out of the office of Kim Davis, is questioning the validity of the licenses without Davis’ name, The New York Times reports. Davis requested that her name and title be removed from the licenses after she refused to issue them on religious objections. Mason shared his concerns with Judge David L. Bunning in a three-page filing in which his lawyer, Richard A. Hughes, wrote that he believed the changes “were made in some attempt to circumvent the court’s orders and may have raised to the level of interference against the court’s orders.”

Memphis lawyer William Leon Hendricks was suspended Sept. 17 from the practice of law by the Tennessee Supreme Court for four years, retroactive to April 30, 2013, with two years active suspension and two years of probation. Hendricks was charged with contempt for violating an injunction after he participated in transferring some assets for companies against whom the Department of Commerce and Insurance filed suit. Read the BPR release.

Do current copyright laws still work in today’s digital age? That question will be before a Congressional listening session tomorrow in Nashville, chaired by U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia. “In the coming weeks the House Judiciary Committee will conduct several roundtable discussions to hear directly from the creators and innovators about the challenges they face in their creative field and what changes are needed to ensure U.S. copyright law keeps pace with technological advances,” Goodlatte and U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, said in a joint statement. The Tennessean has more.