The ABA Journal reports that out of everyone who graduated from ABA-accredited law schools in 2015, 70 percent have full-time, long-term employment positions that require or prefer a law degree. Data released earlier this week by the ABA’s Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar notes the class of 2015 was 8.8 percent smaller than the class of 2014, where 69 percent of graduates were in the same position. The data also showed a decline in law-firm hiring. “(The data) shows that the employment market remains challenging for recent graduates even as law schools are substantially reducing enrollment,” said Barry Currier, ABA’s managing director of accreditation and legal education.  

In a legal opinion released today, Attorney General Hebert Slatery wrote that any records obtained by a third party in conjunction with an employment search for a director of schools for a school board are public records and subject to inspection. The opinion was requested by Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville. Third parties include but are not limited to the Tennessee School Board Association and the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents. Slatery added that if the third party is one whose “origin and authority may be traced to state, city, or county legislative action,” then its meetings are subject to the Open Meetings Act. 

The Obama administration today commuted the prison sentences of 58 federal convicts, four of whom are from Tennessee. Three of the four Tennesseans were sentenced for crimes involving cocaine. The other was sentenced for a crime involving methamphetamine. The prisoners are scheduled to be released Sept. 2, The Knoxville News Sentinel reports. 

A sexual abuse victim has filed a suit against Cornerstone Nashville church and his abuser seeking $10 million in punitive damages, The Tennessean reports. In the suit filed in Davidson County Circuit Court two weeks ago, the victim said the Madison church appointed Brian L. Mitchell to be his mentor despite Mitchell's prior criminal history and allowed them to be alone together. The suit references incidents that span 2007 and 2008. Mitchell was convicted of aggravated sexual battery for a 2007 incident after the victim told a therapist about the incident. 

U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell today denied a request by attorneys for the state and Rutherford County to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to release a 15-year-old from solitary confinement in Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center. However, Campbell declined to issue an injunction barring the use of solitary confinement for children in Tennessee. Attorneys for the boy and his mother said the boy was locked down for five days, a portion of which he was held in a cell 23 hours a day with a window covered by a board. Jail officials dispute that claim, The Tennessean reports. Campbell ordered the release of the boy in April on the same day as the lawsuit was filed.

“Congress did not do enough to help the more than 47 million Americans living in poverty,” according to the Shriver Center’s Annual Poverty Scorecard released this week. The scorecard identifies important poverty-related legislation considered by Congress in the past year and provides a comprehensive look at how each representative voted. Of Tennessee’s 11 lawmakers, nine received a grade of ‘F’. Representatives Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, and Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, received an ‘A’ for their efforts to fight poverty. 

With three Tennessee Supreme Court Justices and seven intermediate appellate judges facing retention elections, along with 15 trial judges and a number of local judges on the ballot in August, the TBA is renewing its effort to assure fair and impartial judicial elections by asking judges to subscribe to the Tennessee Fair Judicial Campaign Code of Conduct. In the 2014 election cycle, where all judges and judicial officers were on the ballot, more than 116 judges subscribed to the code. Letters to all known judges and judicial candidates on the ballot are being issued this week. Visit the TBA's 2016 Tennessee Judicial Election Information Center for more information. 

What would composer Wolfgang Mozart do with a closing argument? University of Tennessee College Law Student Melissa Joy Baxter, a classically trained pianist, explains how principles of artistic performance can be applied to craft every aspect of a closing argument. “The Mozartian framework is emotionally appealing, sterling in clarity, consistent in structure, and brilliantly simple — everything a closing argument should be,” she writes. 

The Leaf-Chronicle reports 14,223 driver’s licenses were revoked this week in Montgomery County due to unpaid litigation taxes, court costs or fines assessed by the Montgomery County General Sessions Court. While many motorists said they were caught off guard by the notices they received this week, court staff have been working since September to go through all General Sessions records to make sure they were accurate. The fines and fees date back to 2012. 

Assistant public defenders in Williamson County have stopped accepting some new cases due to case overload, The Tennessean reports. "We’re not refusing all cases, we're just telling the judge each day we’re in court, 'as of right now I cannot accept this case,'" said 21st District Public Defender Vanessa Bryan. But District Attorney Kim Helper is challenging the case refusals, and said she plans to file a formal objection next week that will ask the public defender to provide more evidence of the overwhelming caseloads. Indigent cases have been handed over to private attorneys, which Helper said is costing taxpayers.