Bass, Berry & Sims PLC announced that W. Brantley Phillips Jr. was appointed to serve as chair of the firm’s litigation and dispute resolution practice group, the Nashville Post reports. Phillips will oversee more than 100 attorneys and staff working in Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis and Washington, D.C. Phillips joined Bass in 1998 and has been serving as co-chair of the firm’s securities and shareholder litigation practice group.

Monypeny & Associates, a Memphis-area tax litigation firm, announced today it will open a Nashville office in the Fifth Third Center. The Nashville Post reports Tyler DeWitt, a principal attorney and CPA with the firm, will oversee the Nashville office.

Former Henderson County Sheriff Ricky Lunsford, who was sentenced to prison after opening fire on his wife in a bar parking lot, will receive a new trial. According to the ruling handed down Friday by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, the trial court failed to properly instruct the jury. Lunsford has remained free on bond throughout the appeals process, WBBJ reports.   

General Sessions Part III Court Coordinator Lisa Bell has entered the race for Rutherford County's new General Sessions Court Judge. The Rutherford County attorney has been appointed a special judge on numerous occasions, WGNS reports. Two attorneys previously announced their candidacy for the judgeship.   

A Chicago woman filed a federal lawsuit last week that accuses Starbucks of misleading customers about the ice-to-product ratio in its cold beverages, The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports. The suit, which seeks class-action status, claims “a Starbucks customer who orders a Venti Cold Drink receives only 14 fluid ounces of that drink – just over half the advertised amount.” 

Tomorrow, May 3, is Middle Tennessee’s largest online giving day: The Big Payback. During the 24-hour giving cycle, you can support Tennessee’s Youth Courts by donating at least $10 online. The program allows students who are facing misdemeanor accusations to go before a jury of their peers and provides education about the legal system. The Big Payback is offering prizes/incentives for the nonprofit with the most donations from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. (CDT), and for the nonprofit with the largest number of unique or individual donors.

The American Counseling Association said a new Tennessee law that allows counselors to deny service based on their own “sincerely held principles” is in direct violation of the ACA’s code of ethics. The association has also called the measure an “unprecedented attack” on the counseling profession. “(The measure) not only disproportionately affects LGBTQ Tennesseans seeking counseling, but will also have unintended consequences that will reach Tennesseans in all walks of life,” ACA spokesman Art Terrazas said. Read more from Associations Now. 

“Do some votes matter more than others?” The Tennessean's Frank Daniels III breaks down the argument over whether Tennessee should be required to recount votes in its 2014 election, which included Amendment 1. The measure amended the state constitution to "explicitly eliminate abortion as a right in Tennessee." U.S. District Judge Kevin Sharp recently ruled that the secretary of state must do a recount; but, Sharp’s ruling came a day after Circuit Court Judge Michael Binkley ruled the state's vote counting procedure was sound. The article includes a look at John Jay Hooker’s 2014 gubernatorial run against Gov. Bill Haslam, when Hooker asked for clarification on how votes for amendments would be tabulated.

The “Yes on 1 Campaign,” a group that supported the 2014 abortion ballot measure, today filed a notice to join a Williamson County case in which voters challenged the method by which votes were tabulated. The group, which says it spent millions of dollars to get the measure before voters, is seeking to appeal Circuit Court Judge Michael Binkley’s recent ruling that upheld the state’s method of counting votes, but stopped short of determining that the count itself was right, The Tennessean reports. A federal judge later ruled that the state’s method of counting votes was not correct. Attorney General Hebert Slatery has said the state will appeal that ruling.

“You can be a public interest lawyer wherever you are,” former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. told students today at Georgetown University Law Center. Holder left the Justice Department in 2015 and returned to the firm of Covington & Burling. He said he will continue his work as an advocate for justice reform. “I am not ashamed that I work at a corporate law firm,” Holder added. “I’m a trained lawyer and a pretty good one.” Read more from The National Law Journal.