The TBALL after-graduation party will be held on Friday, June 14, at 9:30 p.m. at the Hard Rock Café on Second Avenue in Nashville. There will be an open bar to a certain point, so bring cash just in case. There will be a DJ for your dancing enjoyment. If you are not registered for the Convention but want to attend the party, please email TBALL Coordinator Brittany Sims at bsims@tnbar.org.

Just in case you’ve been in hiding and haven’t received email or ‘snail mail’, the TBA Convention will be held next week, June 12-15, in Nashville. Yes, it will be safe to come back to Nashville as all the tourists (and Lord knows we love them, polyester and all), sequins, and big hair will have left town and Bonnaroo is 2 hours away. The Convention is incredible this year, packed full of CLE programming that you absolutely do not want to miss. There are also, of course, lots of opportunities to have a great time with your fellow TBALLA members. There will even be honky-tonkin’ at Roberts Western World on Thursday night. We’ll have our TBALLA Annual Meeting on June 14, from 2:30-3:15pm, in Suite 5 of the Sheraton Downtown (the center of all TBA meetings and CLE). If you haven’t already registered, please check out https://www.tba.org/info/2013-tba-annual-convention to get more information and register. We hope to see you there!

The Obama administration announced a plan on Tuesday to lift the veil on patent ownership. As part of the plan, the president said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is drafting a rule that would require patent applicants to disclose who actually owns them. While proponents defend the action as falling within the scope of the executive rule-making authority, critics of the proposal have suggested the new disclosure rule may be an overreach. The Legal Blog of the Wall Street Journal has the story.

U.S. Attorney Bill Kilian was greeted with jeers last night from a hostile crowd of over 300 at the "Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society" event at the Manchester-Coffee County Conference Center, sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee. Killian initially pitched the event as an effort at increasing understanding and tolerance of Muslims and their religious beliefs in order to improve relations between local residents and Muslim neighbors. Tension has been especially high since Coffee County Commissioner Barry West drew fire for posting a picture promoting anti-Muslim sentiments on his Facebook page. The Chattanooga Times Free Press has the story.

Interested In speaking at an upcoming CLE prorgam? The TBA is hosting a speaker training program June 28-29. Lawyers will learn the skills they will need to present at CLE programs. For more information, download the registration form or email CLE Director Mindy Fulks.

The American Lawyer surveyed the country’s largest and highest-grossing law firms and ranked them according to their percentage of minority attorneys and partners. Of the 228 firms ranked, Memphis-based Baker Donelson and Nashville’s Bass Berry and Sims came in at numbers 167 and 190, respectively.

The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has taken up a resolution to protect victims of so-called gay and trans “panic” legal defenses, the Wisconsin Gazette reports. The resolution proposes no longer allowing defense attorneys to use tactics asking a jury to find that a victim’s gender identity or sexual orientation is to blame for the defendant’s excessively violent reaction. The ABA House of Delegates must pass the resolution at the 2013 ABA Annual Meeting in August for the recommendations to become official ABA policy.

In Mississippi, there were 10.53 law grads for each projected legal job opening in 2011, the ABA Journal reports. According to Matt Leichter, author of the blog Law School Tuition Bubble, Mississippi fares the worst in lawyer gluts because of a poor annual jobs outlook of just 30 jobs per year. Ole Miss law dean Richard Gershon disputes the validity of these numbers, however.

Vanderbilt University law professor Chris Slobogin is questioning this week's U.S. Supreme Court decision that  affirms the practice of taking DNA samples of people charged with serious crimes as a customary part of booking suspects. While some local law enforcement agencies view it as a vote of confidence, Slobogin says the  5-4 decision opens the door to routine DNA sampling of any person arrested for a crime, including people who turn out to be innocent. Although Tennessee’s law only applies to suspects connected to serious crimes, Slobogin questions if the high court’s decision could prompt state lawmakers to broaden the law, possibly infringing on innocent people’s Fourth Amendment rights. The Tennessean has the story.

U.S District Judge James J. Brady spoke out Monday against the increasingly glacial pace of judicial nominations, calling on U.S. Senate leaders to “come to their senses” and recognize the toll a vacant bench has on the court system, the Advocate reports. According to Carl W. Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who is an expert on judicial nominations, Brady’s remarks were unusual for a federal judge but were prompted by the “unusual times” gripping the federal courts. “An increasing number of judges and other people are very concerned about the (nomination) process and how long it takes to move people through it,” Tobias said.