Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, Nashville’s third-largest law firm, is expanding its Music Row Roundabout office by 12,500 square feet to accommodate growth at the firm. Bob Patterson, partner at the Birmingham-based firm’s Nashville office, told the Nashville Business Journal the firm will expand onto the sixth flood of Roundabout Plaza where it also occupies the seventh, eighth and ninth floors. Construction is expected to start the beginning of May, with the hope that the firm can begin using the space by September.

The Department of Justice yesterday told U.S. District Judge John D. Bates that it will not try again to sue the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight for sharing $400,000 of a $1.2 million whistleblower settlement with Richard A . Bearman, a government economist at the time, for exposing oil companies’ underpayment of royalties to the government 14 years ago. The government argued the payment violated a federal ban on supplementing the salary of an executive branch employee, but the jurors split 7-1, causing the judge to declare a mistrial.

The Justice Department has reached a $1.4 billion settlement with Transocean Ltd., the owner of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded in 2010, killing 11 workers and spawning a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In addition to the $1 billion in civil penalties and $400 million in criminal penalties, the Switzerland-based company must plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating the Clean Water Act and implement a series of operational safety and emergency response improvements to its rigs.

Former Tennessee Republican Party chief of staff Mark Winslow is including the state party in a defamation suit against U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Chattanooga, and advisor Chip Saltsman, the Tennessean reports. Winslow claims a television ad that ran shortly before the 2010 Republican primaries stated that Fleischmann's opponent, and former party chairwoman, Robin Smith paid “lavish bonuses” to staff, including Winslow. The suit states the ad may have referred to the severance payment Winslow received although it was supposed to be confidential. Winslow claims the depiction of his payment was libelous and that he lost political consulting work as a result.

The House voted 354-67 to provide $9.7 billion to pay insurance claims in areas devastated by Superstorm Sandy, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. The bill gives more borrowing authority to the National Flood Insurance Program to pay about 115,000 pending claims.

Robert D. “Don” Arnold became the third General Sessions Judge for Washington County after being appointed by the Washington County Commission during a special meeting  Thursday. He was immediately sworn in by Criminal Court Judge Robert E. Cupp.

National student loan expert Heather Jarvis will speak to students at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law as part of a comprehensive workshop for rising first and second year students. Jarvis has contributed to student debt relief policy for the House Education Committee and others in Congress, as well as advancing public service loan forgiveness. The event will be held next Tuesday at 9 p.m. in the law school’s Wade Auditorium.

The federal government has confiscated Tennessee’s entire stock of sodium thiopental, a key drug for lethal injection, amid questions of whether it was legally obtained overseas during a 2010 shortage in America. Department of Correction Commissioner Derrick Schofield said the state is pursing alternative drugs in order to maintain its lethal injection protocol. Eighty-four inmates currently sit on Tennessee’s death row, 67 of whom have been there for more than 10 years. While death penalty opponents view the sodium thiopental shortage as a godsend, advocates think the state’s delay in finding an alternative drug is preventing justice from being carried out. The Tennessean has the story.

The Kansas Department of Children and Families (DCF) is suing a sperm donor for child support despite his written agreement with a lesbian couple to relinquish parental rights, the ABA Journal reports. Although the Kansas Supreme Court refused to allow a sperm donor to assert parental rights in a case five years ago, the DCF says the written agreement is void and the law doesn’t apply since a physician did not perform the artificial insemination. The nonbiological mother of the child who supports her has been unable to work reportedly due to health problems.

With a new year under way, American Law Daily offers a review of notable members of the legal community who passed away in 2012.