The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit today issued an order in the Occupy Nashville case, reversing a District Court's order denying qualified immunity and granting partial summary judgment of liability for state officials involved in the case. Attorney General Herbert Slatery issued a statement regarding today’s’ decision, saying “The State has consistently maintained that its response to the health, property, and safety issues that developed as a result of the occupation of War Memorial Plaza was entirely reasonable.”

Attorney Margaret Behm will serve as the 2015 campaign chair of the Campaign for Equal Justice, the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands announced today. The campaign is an annual initiative that raises money for the Legal Aid Society, Tennessee’s largest non-profit law firm. Behm is a principal at Dodson, Parker, Behm and Capparella PC in Nashville.

Former U.S. solicitor general Paul D. Clement will deliver the Rose Lecture at noon on Oct. 24 at the University of Tennessee College of Law. The event, which is free and open to the public, is part of the Richard L. Rose Endowed Lecture Series established by Rick Rose, a 1974 alumnus of UT Law and currently the managing director and president of the Coats Rose law firm in Texas.

Nashville remains first in line to get a new federal courthouse, the Nashville Business Journal reports. Nashville has pursued a new courthouse for 22 years, when federal officials deemed the current courthouse at 801 Broadway inadequate because of security concerns. If built, the new U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee would cost $181.5 million, according to the latest government estimates. The site for the would-be courthouse is 719 Church St., next door to the Nashville Public Library.

Newly appointed Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Jeff Bivins addressed the Howell Edmunds Jackson Inn of Court last night, discussing the proposed Amendment 2 to the State Constitution, which will be on the ballot in the upcoming election on Nov. 4. "We stand at a crossroads in November," Bivins said. "We have to decide whether to go forward with a system that has been in place since the 1970s, a system that has not seen one single judge be the subject of any scandal, or to go with something else." The Jackson Sun has the story.

The Tennessee Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended the law license of Kent Lowery Booher based upon his entry of a guilty plea to two counts of statutory rape. View the BPR notice.

The U.S. Small Business Administration will open a temporary Disaster Loan Outreach Center in Memphis following widespread flooding in the area on Sept. 11, the Memphis Business Journal reports. The center will be open for a week, beginning Wednesday, at the Shelby County Equal Opportunity Compliance office. Businesses and nonprofits of any size can borrow up to $2 million at interest rates as low as 2.6 percent to repair or replace real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory and other business assets, the release said. Homeowners can borrow up to $200,000 to repair or replace real estate, while homeowners and renters are eligible for loans up to $40,000 to repair or replace personal property. The filing deadline for property damage is Nov. 24, while the deadline for economic injury applications is June 24, 2015.

Twitter is suing the FBI and the Department of Justice to be able to release more information about government surveillance of its users. The social media company filed a lawsuit today in a California federal court to publish its full "transparency report," which documents government requests for user information. The San Francisco-based company said in a blog post that it believes it's entitled under the First Amendment to "respond to our users' concerns and to the statements of U.S. government officials by providing information about the scope of U.S. government surveillance." WRCB has more from the Associated Press.

Gov. Bill Haslam said he intends to vote for all four of the proposed amendments to the state Constitution on the Nov. 4 ballot, the Memphis Daily News reports. Haslam and former Tennessee Supreme Court Justice George Brown were featured during the Amendment 2 campaign stop at the Salvation Army’s Kroc Center at the Mid-South Fairgrounds in Memphis yesterday. 

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson yesterday denied the contempt of court order issued by House Republicans against Attorney General Eric Holder for failing to turn over documents to House Republicans investigating Operation Fast and Furious, the ABA Journal reports from the Associated Press. Jackson based her ruling on the fact that Holder had moved for the indefinite stay of her previous order that Holder turn over these “non-deliberative documents”. Because he had moved for the stay, Jackson says she should have ruled on it before the Oct. 1 deadline, but simply didn’t get around to it.