Diversity Law Week students participated in a unique opportunity at the Court of Appeals in Nashville today. The students met for a Q&A session and tour with Judge Andy D. Bennett. The students learned the history of the Supreme Court building, the appellate process, and what clerks and judges do. The event concluded with a tour of the court's museum, an explanation of the formation of the Tennessee Constitution and a chance to view interesting artifacts. Special thanks to Judge Bennett and Nashville attorney Erin Shackelford for meeting with the students. See photos from the day.

The U.S. Marshals Service has asked Congress for $38 million to fund two new programs aimed at bolstering judicial security, Reuters reports. According to the service, the request is in response to a rise in threats against federal judges and U.S. Supreme Court justices. The funding request comes as the U.S. Supreme Court included $19.4 million in its federal budget request to use its own police force rather than the U.S. Marshals Service to protect the nine justices.

Nashville area legal services provider Latitude has opened an office in Tampa, joining the firm’s existing Florida presence in Miami. The Nashville Post reports that Kyle Robisch, formerly a partner in the Tampa office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, will serve as office founding partner and leader. Robisch spent 10 years litigating cases and serving as outside general counsel to Bradley clients. He earned his law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School. Latitude’s Miami office was founded in 2020. The new office joins locations in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, San Francisco and St. Louis.

The comprehensive set of data on bar passage rates released by the American Bar Association (ABA) this week included some additional findings not previously reported in TBA Today. According to Reuters, Vanderbilt University Law School placed third in the nation for its first-time bar pass rate of 96.97%, coming in behind the University of Michigan Law School (97.27%) and the University of Chicago Law School (97.1%). Reuters also reports that longstanding racial disparities in the rates of passage continued in 2023. White exam takers had the highest first-time pass rate at 84%, followed by Asian test takers at 74%, Hispanic examinees at 71% and Black examinees at 58% — continuing an ongoing trend that has fueled criticism of the bar exam as biased.

TBA's Day on the Hill and Big Shrimp Legislative Reception will be held next week in Nashville on March 20. The events give Tennessee lawyers an opportunity to meet with their legislators and talk to them about issues important to the profession, including funding for indigent representation. The TBA Day on the Hill will include a luncheon and meetings with legislators in the afternoon, followed by the annual Big Shrimp reception that night. Sign up today to take part!

The Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services (TALS) is seeking session proposals for this year's Equal Justice University (EJU), set for Aug. 28-30 at the Embassy Suites in Murfreesboro. Topics of interest include employment law, family law, health and benefits, housing and consumer, special education and juvenile justice, as well as professionalism. See all topics and submit proposals online by April 17.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked the federal judiciary to grant minors greater privacy in criminal cases by requiring prosecutors and defense lawyers to refer to them in public court filings by pseudonyms rather than by their initials, Reuters reports. The change, according to the department, is designed to better protect the identities of children who are victims and witnesses of crimes, particularly in sexual exploitation cases. A DOJ official said that in recent years, some people accused of exploiting children track court filings and take other measures to uncover the identity of child victims, who they then contact and harass further. The request has been referred to the Judicial Conference's rulemaking bodies.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti recently joined with other state attorneys general to support the federal “Laken Riley Act,” which would require the detention of undocumented individuals arrested for larceny, burglary, theft or shoplifting; defend Montana’s law banning TikTok in the state unless the app separates from its parent Chinese company; and express concerns over proposed legislation in Maine that, according to Skrmetti, would “interfere with other states enforcing their state laws restricting childhood gender transition if those laws differed from Maine law.” Read more about these issues at the links above.

A federal judge on Friday rejected a challenge by Republican-led states to a Biden administration program that allows hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to apply for emergency entry into the United States, reports Reuters. The states argued that the federak government's authority to use parole is "exceptionally limited" and can only be applied on a case-by-case basis. They also claimed they faced irreparable harm because arriving migrants increase the cost of public services. U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton said the 21 states, led by Texas and including Tennessee, lacked standing to pursue the suit because they could not show that the "parole" program, which allows up to 30,000 people per month to enter the U.S., caused them any injury. "The court has before it a case in which plaintiffs claim that they have been injured by a program that has actually lowered their out-of-pocket costs," he wrote.

The American Bar Association (ABA) online pro bono program ABA Free Legal Answers has released a nationwide list of lawyers, law firms, corporate law departments, law schools and other legal organizations that handled the most online questions in 2023. The list includes 10 Tennessee attorneys: Kevin D. Balkwill, Richard B. Gossett, Bryan C. Hathorn, Mary Jo Middlebrooks, Bruce A. Ralston, Caraline E. Rickard, Moriah C. Rue, Carl E. Seely, Yasmin K. Stiggons and Alissa N. Watson. The nationwide program was originally developed by the ABA and the law firm of Baker, Donelson, which worked to consolidate web programs in Tennessee and other states. Free Legal Answers has emerged as a no-cost way for income-eligible participants to obtain basic civil legal guidance. Since 2019, pro bono lawyers have fielded more than 40,000 inquiries annually for a total of 330,221 answered legal questions since the program's inception.