Legal Aid of East Tennessee’s (LAET) Chattanooga office has been awarded a $20,000 grant to fund their “Women in Crisis Project" by the Community Foundation of Chattanooga. According to an announcement today, the project will screen, advise and assist victims of domestic violence in obtaining public benefits for which they may be eligible. The goal of the project is to break the cycle of domestic violence by creating financial independence. “Grants, especially private foundation grants, dealing with public benefits are exceedingly rare,” said Russell Fowler, LAET's associate director. "The Community Foundation should be commended for their foresight in recognizing the link between domestic violence and a victim’s financial dependence on their abuser.”

Judge Camille R. McMullen became the first African American woman to preside over a panel of an appellate court proceeding in the state of Tennessee this week. McMullen, of Shelby County, presided over the August term of the Court of Appeals, Western Section in Jackson on Tuesday. “Judge McMullen has proven herself to be a respected colleague and it was time that this barrier was broken,” Judge Thomas Woodall of Dixon said in a press release. “Today is a good day for the state of Tennessee and the judicial system.” Judge McMullen first made history in 2008 becoming the first African American woman to serve on a state appellate court. The AOC announced the news today.

BP has once again asked a federal judge to halt payments from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement fund, citing what it called fresh evidence of fraud in the claims process. According to the National Law Journal, the company said it learned within the past week about a potential conflict involving two members of the claims administrator’s appeals panel who were reviewing payments while their law firms were submitting claims. BP also asserted potential fraud, citing a July 15 tip from its recently established fraud hotline that an employee at the claims center in Mobile, Ala., had been assisting family members in submitting “fraudulent subsistence claims” in exchange for a share of the payments.

A state probation officer is labeling former Knox County Trustee John J. Duncan III as a “low risk” candidate for unsupervised judicial diversion, according to a report obtained by Knoxnews. Duncan faces sentencing Aug. 15 after pleading guilty last month to official misconduct. Duncan admitted he approved $3,000 in bonuses for himself and other staff in the Trustee’s Office though they had not completed the required training programs.

In a two-page decision issued today, a panel of federal judges has rejected a request to consolidate multiple lawsuits filed against Pilot Flying J for an alleged fuel rebate scheme. The panel concluded that it would be best to allow an Arkansas court to continue its deliberations on a proposed settlement, which already has won initial approval from a district court judge in Little Rock. “Centralization at this time could delay settlement proceedings,” the panel concluded, noting that truckers who don’t agree to the settlement terms can opt out. The Tennessean has the story.

A coalition of groups calling itself the Fair Courts Litigation Task Force has launched a new website designed to track litigation that could impact the nation’s court system. The website will compile information on litigation that either challenges or supports ethical rules aimed at keeping the judiciary free from partisan politics and outside influences. "This website will prove a valuable resource for all who care about the integrity of our judicial system," said Justice at Stake Acting Executive Director Liz Seaton. Member organizations include the American Judicature Society, the Brennan Center for Justice, Justice at Stake, the National Center for State Courts and The Campaign Legal Center.

British humanitarian and former Hezbollah hostage Terry Waite has been named scholar-in-residence at Lipscomb University’s Institute for Conflict Management. Waite, who garnered international recognition when he successfully negotiated the release of hostages in Iran and Libya while serving as a special envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1980s, has a one-year appointment with the institute beginning in September. He was guest lecturer for the institute in 2006. “Dr. Waite will add a new dimension to the work of the institute,” said Steve Joiner, managing director of the institute. “With his experience as a negotiator and a world-renowned agent of peace, he is a testament to the power and resilience of the human spirit and has long been devoted to humanitarian causes, intercultural relations and conflict resolution.”

According to a survey of 281 female lawyers at 38 law firms in the southeast, “strategic flirtation” is more common at law firms with stereotypical masculine cultures that emphasize competition, ambition and assertiveness. The more masculine the culture, the more strategic flirting takes place, the study found. Yet, masculine cultures were less forgiving of flirts than feminine cultures. “Bottom line from the research: Flirting at work—even if it’s more common in some cultures—isn’t such a good idea,” the Washington Post writes. “But you probably didn’t need a study to tell you that.” The ABA Journal has more.

University of Virginia School of Law professor Alex Johnson Jr. argues that blame for the underrepresentation of minorities in the legal profession is misplaced, the National Law Journal reports. Instead of identifying the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) as a major barrier to black and Hispanic law school applicants, Johnson writes in the latest edition of the Stanford Law & Policy Review that the real reason is because these students tend to “misapply” to law schools that are unlikely to admit them because of their grades and LSAT scores. He also says a disproportionate percentage of minority law grads take the bar exam in states with the toughest pass cutoffs. Other legal educators took Johnson’s conclusions with a grain of salt. “I don’t think that this ‘misapplication’ alone can explain the large number of shutouts that occur,” said John Nussbaumer, an associate dean at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School who has researched the correlation between LSAT scores and the admission of minority applicants.

Nashville Metro Councilman Jason Holleman launched a 70-mile walking tour of Senate District 21, exactly one year from the democratic primary election. Holleman says he plans to spend the next seven days meeting with voters and visiting local businesses, the Tennessean reports. Holleman faces attorney Jeff Yarbro in the race to replace longtime state Sen. Doug Henry.