The University of Arizona will be the first major U.S. university to offer a bachelor of arts degree in law when it launches its program next fall, administrators announced this week. Arizona’s program will differ from the prelaw or legal-studies majors offered by many universities. Those programs tend to focus broadly on the social sciences, while Arizona’s will closely resemble a law school curriculum, with the law classes taught by full-time law school faculty. The program is designed to complement Arizona’s new “3+3” program, which allows students to complete a bachelor's in law and a juris doctor degree within six years, rather than the typical seven. The National Law Journal has more.

The Hawkins County Recovery Court, a division of General Sessions Court, will hold its first graduation ceremony Saturday from 4 to 9 p.m. at Rogersville City Park's main stage. The event is in celebration of National Drug Court Month and the 25th Anniversary of Drug Courts nationwide. Patty Ward will be recognized as the first graduate for completing an intensive program of comprehensive drug treatment, close supervision and full accountability. The Rogersville Review has more. 

Chattanooga lawyer Stephen Goldstein died Tuesday. The funeral service will held Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Mizpah Congregation Sanctuary, located at 923 McCallie Ave. A graveside service will follow immediately at the Mizpah Congregation Cemetery.

A Tennessee lawyer living in Florida has filed a motion to marry his laptop. The ABA Journal reports that Chris Sevier intervened in a high-profile case involving recognition of same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Sevier argued that if same-sex couples have the right to marry, Sevier should be permitted to wed his "preferred sexual object," which he describes as a "porn-filled Apple computer," the Broward-Palm Beach New Times reports. Last year, Sevier made headlines when he filed a product liability suit contenting that Apple Inc. was responsible for the pornography addiction that he says resulted when he mistyped a Web address into a MacBook Pro laptop. He made further headlines when he was arrested for allegedly stalking country singer John Rich and a 17-year-old-girl.

Charles Robert Bone of Nashville’s Bone McAllster Norton PLLC announced today he is running for mayor of Nashville next year. Bone, an attorney, businessman and Democratic Party fund-raiser with strong ties to the city's power base, joins second-term Metro Councilwoman Megan Barry in the campaign to succeed Mayor Karl Dean. He told the Tennessean he'll make a formal announcement and appoint a campaign treasurer "in the coming weeks" and hold an opening event and fund-raiser on June 25.

The compounding pharmacy responsible for a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak in 2012 that sickened 153 Tennesseans and killed 16 has finalized a plan to compensate families. The compounding center is putting in $50 million, its insurance company is adding $25 million and a tax refund and sale of an affiliated company make up the rest of the $100 million settlement. Nashville attorney Ben Gastel, who represents the collective plaintiffs, says families are lucky to get much at all since the Massachusetts pharmacy declared bankruptcy after the outbreak. His firm is still working on other lawsuits that target Saint Thomas Hospital, which housed the pain clinic responsible for a majority of the infections. Nashville Public Radio has the story.

John E. Clemmons was disbarred on May 5, retroactive to April 2, 2013, the date on which he was temporarily suspended. Clemmons consented to disbarment because he could not successfully defend charges filed against him with the Board of Professional Responsibility alleging that he misappropriated money from several wards for whom he had been appointed conservator, and pled guilty to four counts of theft in amounts over $60,000, aggravated perjury and TennCare fraud. View the BPR notice.

Maury County’s Election Commission on Monday censured commissioner Lynn C. Nelson of Columbia for voting in the local Republican primary, the Columbia Daily Herald reports. The commission is also asking state officials to consider removing Nelson from office as the vice president of the Maury County Democratic Party. Nelson also served as a Tennessee delegate to the national Democratic Party Convention in 2012. Commissioner Jerry Colley, who voted against the motion to censure, said he believes Nelson did not know a state statute limits voting in a primary to a bona fide member of the sponsoring party or a voter who declares allegiance to that political party.

State and federal officials should simplify the drugs used to execute death-row inmates, giving them a single-drug dosage like those used to euthanize animals or help people commit suicide, a new report by bipartisan, legal think tank The Constitution Project recommends. The report comes amid renewed debate about capital punishment due to the botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate last week, the Wall Street Journal Legal Blog reports.

Every female senator signed a letter to President Barack Obama calling for international sanctions against the terrorist group that abducted more than 200 girls in Nigeria last month, Roll Call reports. Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Maryland. and Susan Collins, R-Maine, led the group of women pressuring the administration to implore the U.N. Security Council to add Islamic militant group Boko Haram to its al-Qaida sanctions list. The Senate passed a resolution by voice vote yesterday afternoon condemning the kidnapping.