Stories from Knoxville’s WATE News 6, Nashville’s WDEF News 12 and WSMV News 4 covered the new aLEGALz toll-free hotline, which provides free legal information and referrals. The service was launched by the joint effort of a coalition of Tennessee legal groups, including the Tennessee Bar Association.

As many TBA Today readers let us know, we got the right stuff all wrong in our Wednesday item about the BitTorrent copyright lawsuit. Although the story was correct, the spelling was not. Thanks to all who caught this mistake and gave us a well-deserved flogging. We were, however, gratified by just how many people do read TBA Today.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer says he will step down in March as chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, a post he has held since the 1960’s. Breuer announced his departure the day after BP entered a guilty plea in connection with the 2010 Gulf Oil spill, the biggest criminal investigation and penalty in the department’s history, NPR reports. The failed gun running sting operation known as Fast and Furious also sparked one of the biggest controversies of his tenure.

Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey and other top Republicans in the state Senate are launching an effort to cut, realign, and redistrict the 31 judicial districts for the first time since 1984, The Tennessean reports. Supporters say the state’s judicial map is outdated and riddled with political inconsistencies, including too many judges in some districts and too few in others. Proponents say the new plan could save taxpayer money and rationalize the system by combining communities with similar needs into the same district. Others hope the redistricting plan is not a political move to shift the balance of Tennessee courts.

Mary Schneider serves as the director of Drug and DUI courts for Rutherford County where up to 50 drug addicts and 25 DUI offenders are treated at a time, the Daily News Journal reports. The program takes referrals from the court, and offers first-time and repeat offenders treatment and extensive therapy. Schneider opened Drug Court in 2000 after researching the success of similar courts in other states.

The Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill that passed the U.S. Senate yesterday includes $1 million for the Legal Services Corporation to provide assistance to low-income people in areas significantly affected by the super storm. The Legal Services Corporation says that individuals and families encounter a variety of civil legal needs after recovering from a natural disaster, including preventing wrongful eviction, obtaining repairs to damaged rental housing, and contesting inappropriate denials of insurance claims.

BitTorrent copyright infringement lawsuits seeking Internet Protocol (IP) address owners has grown in Middle Tennessee, sometimes filling federal dockets in Nashville, The Nashville City Paper reports. In this type of suit, plaintiffs come armed with the IP addresses of alleged online pirates who shared, at least in part, copyrighted files. They then subpoena Internet providers for the IP owner’s identifying information. The City Paper examined several of these cases, likened to the copyright infringement suits brought by the Recording Industry Association of America about online music sharing.

The Hamilton County Juvenile Court will launch a children’s library in the lobby of the courthouse for the dozens of young children who must spend untold hours in the lobby daily. The creation of the library is a joint volunteer effort of Juvenile Court Judge Suzanne Bailey, the Chattanooga Bar Association, the Tennessee Bar Association's Young Lawyers Division, Green Form Construction, CASA and others. The idea, Judge Bailey told the Hamilton County Herald, was not to just relieve the lobby of congestion and noise but also to spark in children an interest in reading.

The Bobby Dunavant Public Service Awards, which recognizes elected and non-elected public officials, began 10 years ago as a way to counter the damage done by the Tennessee Waltz federal public corruption investigation. The awards will be presented Feb. 27 at a luncheon by the Rotary Club of Memphis East as a part of a larger continuing discussion about the nature of “good government” and why citizens should get involved in elected and non-elected positions.

Court officer Bob Ball will retire Thursday after more than 30 years of service, according to the Chattanoogan. He served under Criminal Court Judge Don Poole since 2005, under Steve Bevil for 15 years, and before that under Russell Hinson for six years. He has been busy the past few weeks training his replacement, Gary Bender.