According to a new Forbes article, women are thriving in BigLaw. Contributor Victoria Pynchon interviewed women at AmLaw100 firms Latham & Watkins and Proskauer, Rose about their experiences as large firm lawyers, achieving parity in the legal profession, and juggling motherhood with a demanding career. Despite the low numbers of women currently in ownership and leadership positions, Pynchon says the new crop of women, aided by expanded women’s initiatives, are pressing for change. 

Budget cuts brought about by the sequester will have a profound and pernicious effect on the government’s ability to provide justice for its citizens, the Atlantic magazine says. Unless Congress and the White House are able to make a responsible budget deal, contributing editor Andrew Cohen writes that the cuts will have a specific and negative impact on federal court administrators, public defenders, law enforcement, and the American people as a whole.

The family of Tri-Cities criminal defense attorney Mark Slagle will host a gathering in celebration of his life Saturday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Johnson City Country Club, 1901 E. Unaka Ave., Johnson City. Slagle died last Tuesday (March 5).

Lt . Governor Ron Ramsey today announced a plan to make relatively minor changes in judicial district lines while the bench and bar are given an opportunity to study further reworking. TBA President Jackie Dixon, Chief Justice Gary Wade, Judicial Conference President Bobby Hollaway and Trial Judges Association President Darryl Fansler joined Ramsey at the early afternoon press conference announcing that all of the groups had agreed to support the plan. “We appreciate the opportunity to represent the views of our members in this process," Dixon said. "We will now focus our efforts on assuring that our justice system has the resources it needs to fulfill it mission.” Read more from the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

An in-depth study of federal legal spending by the National Law Journal shows that the government has awarded $3.3 billion to more than 4,700 vendors for legal work over the last 5 years, the ABA Journal reports. Although most of the money was given to those who helped the Justice Department administer the federal program tasked with managing forfeitures, law enforcement training in other countries, and litigation support for disaster cases, the study found that about $400 million has gone to private law firms and solo practitioners.

About 100 protestors gathered at War Memorial Plaza Sunday to oppose the expansion of TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program. The group said that expansion would undermine small government values and inflate the national debt. U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais spoke at the rally, condemning President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act as “the socialization of our health care system” the Tennessean reports.

Gunshot wounds and deaths cost Americans at least $12 billion a year in court proceedings, insurance costs, and hospitalizations paid for by government health programs, according to new study. Author Ted Miller analyzed government statistics for the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluations and found that in 2010 $4.7 billion was spent in court costs with the rest going to medical costs, lost work and other expenses. Visit the Leaf Chronicle for the story.

Chairman Justin Joy of the Shelby County Republican Party will seek another term at the March 24 party convention. Joy was first elected chairman at the 2011 party convention where he ran unopposed. “Really from the national level all the way down to the local county level, frankly the Republican Party needs to grow,” Joy told the Memphis Daily News. “What I would like to see happen here in Shelby County is for the Republican Party to continue to grow not just for the purpose of winning elections, but for strengthening the party.”

State lawmakers are at odds as proposed bills attempt to tackle the issue of the steadily rising number of prescription drug-addicted newborns in Tennessee from two completely different approaches. The Safe Harbor Act, which would give pregnant women incentives to enter drug treatment programs, passed the Senate and will be taken up by a House subcommittee on health today. The subcommittee on criminal justice is scheduled to consider a bill that would criminally prosecute pregnant women whose drug use harms the baby. The flurry of legislation comes on the heels of a statewide push by the Health Department to confront the worsening epidemic, the Tennessean reports.

The Tennessee Court of Appeals has ruled twice that the Corrections Corporations of America (CCA) is a functional equivalent of a government entity and must operate at the same level of transparency required of the government. Most recently the court supported a Chancery Court’s ruling ordering the Nashville-based company, which operates prisons in 20 states, to provide settlement agreements stemming from legal complaints against the company. The Nashville City Paper talks with the man who has led the charge to open up CCA records, Alex Friedmann.