The TBA’s 2024 Litigation Forum is a live virtual event this week on May 16. Programming will include a session covering Tennessee summary judgement, evidentiary privilege and the ethical implications of artificial intelligence from the perspective of the Board of Professional Responsibility. Speakers include Chattanooga attorney David Nagle with Legal Aid of East Tennessee, Nashville attorney Todd Presnell with Bradley Arant Boult Cummings and Tiffany Tant-Shafer with the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility. The program will run from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CDT.

Longtime Chattanooga City Court Judge Russell Bean, who served on the bench for more than two decades and retired in 2022, was honored Friday with a portrait unveiling at the Chattanooga Courthouse. Bean said he was most grateful to have had the opportunity to help young people who came before him in the courtroom, where he mostly heard traffic violations. Local 3 News has the story. See photos from the event on Facebook.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its refusal to grant a rare southern salamander Endangered Species Act protections. The Tennessee Lookout reports that the Berry Cave Salamander, which stretches to a little over 9 inches long, has been found in only a handful of isolated caves — most in east Tennessee — where rapid growth combined with farm runoff, climate change and a legacy of contamination from old quarry mines continues to degrade the creatures’ environment. The largest known population of the salamander lives in the Mead’s Quarry Cave in Knoxville, where its numbers have shrunk by at least 60% over the last decade, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the CBD.

Barnes & Thornburg’s Nashville office has relocated to a new building and larger office space of the Broadwest office tower at 1600 West End Ave., Ste. 800, Nashville, TN 37203. Jay Knight, partner-in-charge of the Nashville office, talked about the move in a release saying, “Moving to the Broadwest office tower is a strategic move that will empower our attorneys and business professionals to better serve our clients, foster innovation and deepen relationships in the local community.” The Nashville Business Journal notes that the firm entered the Nashville market last year with the opening of an interim office in The Moore Building at 827 19th Ave. S. The new Broadwest office is more than double the size of its previous space.

Thirteen federal judges on Monday sent a letter to Columbia University's president stating they will not hire law clerks from the university in response to what they called the school’s "failure to deal with pro-Palestinian protests over the war in Gaza." Law.com reports that the letter says, “As judges who hire law clerks every year to serve in the federal judiciary, we have lost confidence in Columbia as an institution of higher education. Columbia has instead become an incubator of bigotry. As a result, Columbia has disqualified itself from educating the future leaders of our country.” According to reporting from Reuters, the head of Columbia's law school responded with a statement asserting that its graduates are "consistently sought out by leading employers in the private and public sectors, including the judiciary." A law school spokesperson did not comment on whether any of the 13 judges had ever hired Columbia Law graduates as clerks.

The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) has released new episodes of its Court Talk podcast. In "The Mechanics of Appellate Opinions," host Joe Byrd welcomes Stacy Lynch, director of the Court Improvement Program to discuss how attorneys can navigate the juvenile court system effectively, including discussion of Rule 13, Rule 40, and necessary information regarding guardian ad litems, CASA volunteers, Safe Baby Court, court findings of potential dependency and neglect, and more. In "Appointed Counsel," hosted by Judge Jeffrey Usman, judges of the Tennessee Court of Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals pull back the curtain on appellate courts. Judges Jill Ayers, Frank Clement, Tom Greenholtz and Steve Stafford explore a wide variety of topics ranging from arguing cases before appellate courts to the issuance of opinions.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) on Thursday stated that their rate for processing rape kits fell by 64% from the end of 2022 to March of this year. Action News 5 reports that the state’s turnaround times for sexual assault kits drew heavy scrutiny after the murder of Eliza Fletcher in September 2022. TBI had attributed its long delays to staffing woes and low pay.

Nashville’s Metro Council has passed legislation requiring the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to submit quarterly use of force reports. MNPD already presents the council with reports pertaining to crime and traffic stops. Councilmember Delishia Porterfield sponsored the legislation, working on it with MNPD. The data now will include demographic information for subjects (age, gender, ethnicity); specific age of minor subjects; number of instances a firearm was displayed or discharged by an officer, in addition to other use of force; number of incidents where subjects suffered injuries in relation to the use of force and whether these incidents were in compliance with police policy; and if a Taser was used, the total taser discharges and the average number of taser cartridges used per incident. WPLN has the story.

The gun safety group Everytown has released a report finding that 112,000 guns were reported stolen in the U.S. in 2022, with just over half taken from cars, a number that has tripled in the last decade. The Commercial Appeal reports that the study, which analyzed FBI crime data from 337 cities across 44 states, notes that Memphis had the highest number of cases in 2022 with 2,210 gun theft from car incidents, up from 329 in 2013. Atlanta and St. Louis were in the number two and three spots. The study notes that cities in states with high gun ownership and lax gun safety laws see nearly 18 times the rate of gun thefts from cars compared to states with stronger laws.

U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger last week ruled that Tennessee teachers can move forward with their lawsuit challenging a three-year-old state law restricting what they can teach about race, gender and bias. The lawsuit claims that the language of the law is unconstitutionally vague and that the state’s enforcement plan is subjective. The statute restricts teachers from discussing 14 concepts that the legislature deemed "cynical" or "divisive." Chalkbeat reports that Trauger also cited shortcomings of related rules, developed by the state education department, to outline the processes for filing and investigating complaints, appealing decisions and levying punishment that could strip teachers of their licenses and school districts of state funding.