The Immigration Section has several events set for the winter and spring on 2015.

On January 20, 2015, from noon until 1:30 pm, Terry Olsen of the Olsen Law Firm will host a seminar on immigration enforcement & removal processes, where  Supervisory Detention & Deportation Officers John Bobo & Robert Whited will be speaking on various topics, including the new Policies for the Apprehension, Detention, and Removal of Undocumented Immigrants. Terry Olsen will also be speaking on his observations of this new policy. This event will be held at: 535 Chestnut Street, Suite 130, Chattanooga, TN 37402.

On February 12, 2015, from noon to 1:00 pm, I will moderate at the TBA’s offices in Nashville, a seminar, where Catherine M. Chargualaf, the Assistant Field Office Director, ERO, Nashville, will be speaking on immigration enforcement & removal processes, including the new policies.

Finally, on the morning of April 16, 2015, at the TBA’s Nashville office, we will hold our annual Immigration Law Section Forum with speakers from the USCIS and HSI-ICE as well as the new Chief Counsel, Alice Miller, of the Office of Principal Legal Advisor for ICE.

I would like to thank the authors for the articles in this issue: Terry Olsen, Kerry Krauch, and myself. If you would like to write an article, please e-mail me at bbuchanan@visalaw.com or call me at 615-345-0266.

Bruce Buchanan

Click here to find out more about surrogacy legislation and court decisions. 

A recent TBA survey of private attorneys who handle court appointed work show they feel undervalued, overworked, and unfairly compensated. The rate these attorneys are paid has not changed since 1994. In the survey, half reported frequently hitting the fee cap on appointed cases and 77 percent reported not bothering to submit a fee claim for an appointed case. Survey responses indicated an overwhelming number of cases are not just adult criminal cases, but also dependency, neglect and abuse work, generally as guardian ad litem or parent's attorney. More than half of respondents left lengthy comments on their experience with court appointed work, with many reporting that they love doing the work but cannot continue doing so at the current compensation rates, likening the work to pro bono, and that reporting requirements frequently add stress to an already difficult-to-handle clientele. With a compensation rate that has not changed since 1994, Tennessee court appointed attorneys are among the lowest paid in the nation.

Hi everyone,
 
In less than 8 months, on July 21-25, 2015, the ABA Center on Children and the Law will be hosting the 4th National Parent Attorney Conference: Achieving Justice Against the Odds as well as the 16th National Children and the Law Conference: Advancing Access to Justice for Children and Families. These meetings always bring together the best thinking on issues related to the entire child welfare legal system. To create the best possible conferences, we need your input. Please follow these link (or see the attachments) for the Requests for Workshop Proposals. Within the documents are links to submit your onlineproposals.
 
Parent Attorney Conference

Conference on Children and the Law

Please share this announcement with anyone you think would be interested in presenting at one of both of the conferences. Proposals for both conferences must be submitted separately and are due no later than January 12, 2015.
 
I look forward to reviewing your proposal and seeing you next July!

Mimi Laver
Director, Legal Education
ABA Center on Children and the Law
1050 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036
202-662-1736
Access to Justice for Children and Families

In the first domestic decision by Judge Neil McBrayer, in an over 50-page opinion, the Court affirmed 1.) Limiting Father’s communication with the children; 2.) Refusing Father’s request to retain an expert to rebut testimony by an expert Mother and Father initially agreed would provide a recommendation about parenting time; 3.) Excluding certain portions of his treating physician’s testimony; 4.) requiring the children to continue counseling sessions with their psychologist; 5) Terminating Father’s participation in educational decisions for the children; 6) Instituting a permanent injunction against the Father; 7) Finding Father guilty of six (6) counts of criminal contempt; 8) Finding Father guilty of civil contempt; 9) Denying Father’s request to re-open proof to present newly-discovered evidence; 10) Awarding Mother $678,933.05 in attorney’s fees and discretionary costs.  Only the finding of Father’s civil contempt was reversed. 

This is a landmark case of parental alienation, in which the Court quoted from Dr. Bill Bernet of Vanderbilt, in his discussion of the phenomenon known as parental alienation, and listed the criterion that the children in this family met for this serious mental condition, which are as follows:

• The children have allied themselves strongly with Father and have rejected a relationship with Mother without legitimate justification.

• A persistent rejection or denigration of a parent that reaches the level of a campaign.

• Weak, frivolous, and absurd rationalizations for the child's persistent criticism of the rejected parent.

• Lack of ambivalence.

• Independent-thinker phenomenon

• Reflexive support of one parent against the other.

• Absence of guilt over exploitation of the rejected parent.

• Presence of borrowed scenarios.

• Spread of the animosity to the extended family member of the rejected parent.

Father’s time with the children was thus severely limited to four hours every other Saturday with supervision, when there had been no physical abuse, but only severe parental alienation.

An application for permission to appeal has been filed by the father

Dear TBA Entertainment & Sports Law Section Member:

You're invited to join your fellow TBA Entertainment & Sports Law Section members for a happy hour on Wednesday, December 17, 2014 from 6:30-8:30p.m. upstairs at Sinema (2600 Franklin Pike, #102).

This will be a fun, casual opportunity to get to know each other a little better.  Big thanks to Riley Warnock & Jacobson for providing drinks and snacks to put us in a festive mood, and Chris Vlahos and Brittany Schaffer for coordinating.

We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you there!

Casey Summar
TBA Entertainment & Sports Law Section Chair

Welcome new and returning Section members!

Please enjoy our first Section newsletter for this TBA year.  In this issue, we explore the Supreme Court’s decision in Daimler AG v. Bauman, the Vance v. Ball State University decision, and available Federal Law CLE Courses.  Special thanks to Kathryn Olita for serving as newsletter editor this year and to our contributor Erik Fuqua.

We recently had a very successful CLE program, entitled Federal Practice Seminar 2014, that included presentation on eDiscovery, revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and developments in federal evidence.  If you missed it, you can still view video recordings of the presentations on the TBA's website.

We are currently reviewing proposed amendments to the federal rules of appellate, civil, and criminal procedure, to recommend comments to the Board of Governors.  If you have any feedback that you would like included, please contact one of the members of the executive committee.  The deadline for our comments is December 15, 2014.

If you are interested in joining the Section’s executive committee, please contact one of our members.  We are looking for new members.  The committee meets telephonically about once a month for about 30 minutes to discuss section issues and to assist in planning the annual CLE program.

If you would like to volunteer or want more information, please contact me as soon as possible at mfulks@bakerdonelson.com or (423) 975-7655.

Mark A. Fulks

2014 -2015 Section Chair

Speakers

As part of the TBA's efforts to advocate for the passage of legislation important to the practice of law, we need your stories and voice. TBAImpact is how we make sure your voice is heard in the halls of Congress and the General Assembly on issues important to sustaining and improving the practice of law and administration of justice. Through TBAImpact, discover key issues facing lawyers in the legislature, voice your support or dissent, and find out how you can connect with your representatives.
 
Josie Beets, Public Policy Coordinator
Tennessee Bar Association