President Barack Obama is visiting Nashville next week to deliver remarks on the nation's immigration system at Casa Azafran, an immigrant community center on Nolensville Pike. The Dec. 9 visit will mark Obama's second trip to Nashville in less than a year. In January, Obama visited McGavock High School where he gave a speech on education, the Tennessean reports. 

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, President Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general, will lead the federal civil rights investigation into the chokehold death of Eric Garner. Grand jurors yesterday declined to indict the white New York police officer who put Garner, who is black, in a chokehold during his arrest for allegedly selling loose cigarettes. Chokeholds were banned by the New York City Police Department in 1993. The ABA Journal has more.

U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper announced that his Counsel, Alfred Degrafinreid II, has departed to become Chief Deputy Criminal Court Clerk of Davidson County. As Cooper's Nashville-based Counsel, Degrafinreid coordinated community outreach and advised on housing matters, the music industry and other policy issues. In his new role, Degrafinreid will assume the top staff position for Davidson County Criminal Court Clerk Howard Gentry. The Nashville Post has more.

Fred M. Leonard died Nov. 28 at the age of 78. A TBA Senior Counselor living in Bristol, Leonard graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1964. Private family services will be held at a later date.

Complete your annual ethics requirement with live programs across the state, online videos, games or online interactive courses. Visit TBA CLE for more information. 

CNN legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer Jeffrey Toobin analyzes the judicial legacy President Barack Obama is leaving on the D.C circuit and federal courts around the country. Obama has had 280 judges confirmed, which represents about a third of the federal judiciary. Two of his choices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, were nominated to the Supreme Court; 53 were named to the circuit courts of appeals, 223 to the district courts, and two to the Court of International Trade. Obama’s judicial nominees look different from their predecessors, as well. Forty-two per cent of his judgeships have gone to women, compared to 22 per cent of George W. Bush’s judges and 29 per cent of Bill Clinton’s. Thirty-six per cent of President Obama’s judges have been minorities, compared with 18 cent for Bush and 24 percent for Clinton. Additionally, Obama has increased the number of openly gay judges to 10.

The Supreme Court today heard arguments regarding a former UPS driver who sued the company for discriminating against pregnant women. Peggy Young was pregnant with her now 7-year-old daughter when UPS told her she could not have a temporary assignment to avoid lifting heavy packages, as her doctor had ordered. Young's case hinges on the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, a law that Congress passed in 1978 specifically to include discrimination against pregnant women as a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The question in Young's case is whether UPS violated the law through its policy of providing temporary light-duty work only to employees who had on-the-job injuries, were disabled under federal law or lost their federal driver certification. WATE has more.

Lawyers for the state of Louisiana have joined with Michigan officials in asking the Supreme Court to resolve the question of whether states can ban same-sex couples from marrying. In the state’s response filed at the Supreme Court yesterday, Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell argues that the justices should take the case because the state’s “case squarely implicates a spiraling national controversy that has already nullified the marriage laws of over 20 states and spawned a four-to-one circuit split.” The response from Louisiana came before the responses to other petitions filed earlier by same-sex couples in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, Buzzfeed News reports.

Law school has become a buyer’s market as even the top-rated law schools compete for students with the best academic credentials. The New York Times DealBook blog reports on the phenomenon, spurred by declining law school enrollment — down 24 percent from 2010 to 2013. In response, some law schools are cutting tuition, increasing financial aid, bargaining with students and offering more joint degrees to entice them. “It’s insane,” Northwestern University School of Law Professor Rodriguez said. “We’re in hand-to-hand combat with other schools.” The ABA Journal has more.

Chattanooga is the only large Tennessee metropolitan area that does not have a law school, although that was not the case from 1898 through 1960. Attorney Jerry H. Summers recalls the history of the city’s law school in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The school began as the law department of U.S. Grant Memorial University, predecessor to the University of Chattanooga. It became third largest in the South, ranking only behind University of Virginia and University of Texas law schools.  Read more about the history of the law school here.