Welcome to the Tennessee Bar Association Dispute Resolution Law Section.  This has been an exciting year for our Section under the leadership of Immediate Past Chair, Jackie Kitrell.  I am looking forward to serving as your Chair for 2015-2016.  Please join me in congratulating Jackie, the TBA staff, the Section membership and the executive council for producing an informative and inspiring continuing legal education (CLE) program on current ADR law topics in Nashville in May 2015.

Our Section is committed to furthering the legal knowledge of its members, increasing our legal skills, exchanging ideas, improving the practice of law in the areas of law most directly affecting our practices and promoting professionalism.  This year, the executive council will continue to hold regular monthly meetings to develop a new CLE program with another great line-up of speakers.  We will be seeking and submitting articles for our newsletter and continuing to look for innovative ways to involve and engage our membership.   We welcome suggestions for ways to improve the Section, enhance our Section website and to increase opportunities for helpful communications among members.

In the meantime, here is some food for thought:

I do not limit my practice to neutral service as mediator or arbitrator. I still litigate, and even though at my age the thrill is largely gone, I will bestir myself when necessary to try a case.

But in my practice as a lawyer, most of what I do is ADR. In 2014, I was involved in four relatively “big” cases that were resolved. Two were tried, two were settled, one after a day and a half of mediation. Again the only unusual thing about this is the 50% that were tried. Statistics show that nationally, something like 95% of all civil cases filed are resolved by compromise settlement. Many of these are mediated. All of our federal district courts and most of our state trial courts have local rules requiring use of ADR in some or all categories of cases.

The TBA, as well as other providers of CLE, offers fine instruction in how to pick a jury, make an opening statement or closing argument, cross examine an expert, and so on. These skills are important, and the instruction is valuable. But if the statistical and anecdotal reports I’ve read and heard are true, they don’t teach lawyers the skills they actually use most, which involve the representation of clients in ADR.

I don’t think there’s much disagreement that advocating and negotiating for a client in mediation requires a different skill set than representing the client at trial. And even though an arbitration hearing is very like a bench trial, in critical ways it is also not; and arbitration, too, is much used in today’s world.

The Dispute Resolution Section ought to be the crossroads for the entire TBA. Members of all sections are consumers of ADR, and our section ought to be consumer oriented. We need to involve members of other sections in our CLE, and seek the input of litigators, family lawyers, general counsel, and employment lawyers in crafting what we teach.

How to pick a mediator? How to pick and arbitrator? How to write a mediation brief? How to prepare a client for mediation? These are questions we ought to be dedicated to helping TBA members find the answers.

We’re going to try to help. It should be fun.

Robert L. Arrington

TBA Dispute Resolution Law Section

rarrington@wilsonworley.com

Welcome to the Tennessee Bar Association Business Law Section.  This has been an exciting year for our Section under the leadership of Immediate Past Chair, Van East.  I am looking forward to serving as your Chair for 2015-2016.  Please join me in congratulating Van East, the TBA staff, the Section membership and the executive council for producing an informative and inspiring continuing legal education (CLE) program on current business law topics in May 2015, and for their collaborative efforts in publishing four (4) section newsletters during the past year.

Our Section is committed to furthering the legal knowledge of its members, increasing our legal skills, exchanging ideas, improving the practice of law in the areas of law most directly affecting our practices and promoting professionalism.  This year, the executive committee will continue to hold regular monthly meetings to develop a new CLE program with another great line-up of speakers.  We will be seeking and submitting articles for our newsletter and continuing to look for innovative ways to involve and engage our membership.   We welcome suggestions for ways to improve the Section, enhance our Section website and to increase opportunities for helpful communications among members.

Kris Kemp

TBA Business Law Section Chair

Kris.Kemp@h3gm.com

The Tennessee General Assembly recently passed legislation expanding the Retail Accountability Program to require wholesalers to report the sales of an expanded range of products, including food items and other types of tangible property.  A memo which discusses more details about what items need to be reported to the Department has been posted to their website at http://www.tn.gov/revenue/section/hot-topics.

The TBA Corporate Counsel Law Section Executive Council has a bi-monthly telephone conference, which is scheduled the second Tuesday of the month at 10:00 a.m.

The Council is responsible for developing the section's CLE program for the year, discussing and providing opinions on potential legislation that may be brought up during the legislative session, and producing news to the section.

If you are intested in joining the Executive Council, please contact me via email at cgibson@tnbar.org by Monday, July 13, 2015.  Please put TBA CORPORATE COUNSEL LAW SECTION EXECUTIVE COUNCIL in the Subject line of your email.  Your information will then be submitted to the Executive Council for review.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

We look forward to you joining the Executive Council!

Christy Gibson

TBA Corporate Counsel Law Section Coordinator

cgibson@tnbar.org

Two new important notices have posted to the Department of Revenue’s website. You may read them by clicking the links below:
 
New Liquor-by-the-drink Price Schedule
Nonprofit Exemption for Sales and Use Tax

The Department of Revenue launched its newly redesigned website over the weekend. It features a more streamlined and modern look, and the content is easier to navigate.

The Department’s redesigned website is part of a statewide effort of the Governor’s 23 executive branch departments. We wanted to let you know about a few changes that come as a result of the new website:
·       The address for the main page of our website, http://www.tn.gov/revenue, will remain the same.
·       However, the website addresses for other parts of our website are changing as a result of the redesign. If you have items bookmarked on our old website, those bookmarks will no longer work.  Please remove your old bookmarks.
·       A button to access Revenue Help feature, where you can search for answers to questions, and submit questions to the Department, is prominently featured on the home page as well. We encourage you to use this feature, as it is a very quick and efficient way to get a response to your questions from the Department.

Much of the content organization follows an organization that is somewhat similar to our old website. However, there are a few changes to categories that you should be aware of:
 
Tax Resources—This area is akin to the “tax library” area of the Department’s old site.  However, in the new site, it is more comprehensive. It includes access to not only tax rulings and important notices, but also compliance information as well as statistics and collections.

Doing Business—Doing business offers information that may be helpful for new and existing businesses including taxpayer education information, tax and registration requirements, compliance information, and so on.

Taxes—You will see that the taxes pages are more comprehensive and better organized. They are designed to be “one-stop shops” for someone wanting to learn about a tax. Information about due dates and rates, exemptions, publications and much more can all be found on a single page by navigating the menu on the left hand side of each tax page.

We hope you enjoy our newly redesigned site and find it easier to use.  As always, we welcome your feedback, and we look forward to working with you.  You may submit your comments to our Director of Communications, Kelly Cortesi, at Kelly.Cortesi@tn.gov.  

Four new important notices that discuss recently passed legislation have posted to the Department of Revenue’s website. You can view them by clicking the links below.

Tobacco 15-10

Sales 15-09

Income 15-08

Sales 15-07

2015 legislative summaries have posted to the Tennessee Department of Revenue’s website. The summaries provide brief descriptions of 2015 legislative changes to statutes administered by or affecting the Department.  
 
You may read the summaries here:  http://www.tn.gov/revenue/legsumm/2015legsumm.shtml

The Tennessee Supreme Court’s pilot Business Court opened May 1 in Davidson County. Presiding Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle and staff attorney Justin Seamon shared the “how-to” about the process and operations of the court during a one-hour webcast (https://cle.tba.org/catalog/course/3419) that is now available for replay. The course will remain live on the TBA CLE website for one year. Learn more about the business court in this announcement from the court (https://www.tba.org/news/chief-justice-lee-chancellor-lyle-launch-business-court) or watch the webcast now.