Gov. Bill Lee has announced that he will deliver his sixth State of the State address to the General Assembly on Feb. 5 at 6 p.m. CST. The joint session will take place in the House chamber of the Tennessee State Capitol. The address will be available on Lee’s Facebook and YouTube channels.

The University of Memphis announced that all campuses, including the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, would continue modified operational status this week, including virtual classes. Law students should monitor their emails for additional details regarding plans for the remainder of the week. Check www.memphis.edu or the school's Facebook page for updates.

University of Tennessee College of Law student Kevin Escalona won "The Closer," the nation’s most challenging transactional law competition, on Jan. 14. Hosted by Baylor Law School in Waco, Texas, 14 law schools are invited annually to compete. Unlike most competitions, each school can send only one student. Each competitor is given only 24 hours to digest their client’s extensive files and prepare to negotiate a deal. This year’s competition challenged the law students to negotiate an agreement between Hotel 1928 (a historic hotel renovated by Chip and Joanna Gaines of Magnolia and Fixer Upper fame), and Neighborly Inc., a Waco-based home service provider. The competitors learned that Neighborly Inc. wants to host a conference at Hotel 1928 during the April 2024 solar eclipse. The competitors negotiated use of the hotel and its restaurants and terms for employment of entertainers, insurance for outdoor liquor sales, use of trademarks and advertising. 

The law firm of Baker Donelson has announced a renewed commitment to the American Bar Association's (ABA) Free Legal Answers (FLA) with a major investment of financial and technology resources that will ensure the tool continues to increase access to advice and information about non-criminal legal matters for those who cannot afford a lawyer. Baker Donelson technicians will work over a period of six months to rewrite and update the code for FLA while also improving the data security of the website. The firm is also making a $250,000 donation to ensure the ABA has the resources to further develop and maintain this next-generation version of FLA. The virtual legal advice platform that would become FLA was launched in Tennessee in 2009, via a collaborative effort between Baker Donelson, the TBA, Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services and the Tennessee Supreme Court's Access to Justice Commission. Since its inception, FLA has received more than 330,000 questions from program participants seeking pro bono legal advice from volunteer attorneys.

The city of Memphis reports that it spent nearly $50,000 for 15 employees to travel to Puerto Rico in July with the intent of recruiting for hard-to-fill jobs, like police officers. The trip did not result in a single applicant. The Daily Memphian reports that the employees — representatives of the public works, parks and police departments — spent hundreds of taxpayer dollars on meals, thousands on flights, more than $500 on tips and $13,566.06 on rooms at the Sheraton Hotel & Casino in San Juan. There was a $14,348.32 catering bill at the hotel for a job fair that 300 people attended. “It was a strategy used by some other cities — Louisville, Dallas and Baltimore — to recruit bilingual employees. It was not successful for us,” the city said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Justice and four additional jurisdictions have joined the multistate bipartisan antitrust lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which was filed in December by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and attorneys general in six other states. Skrmetti's office reports that the additional parties include the states of Minnesota, Mississippi and Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The lawsuit challenges the NCAA’s transfer eligibility rule as an illegal restraint on college athletes’ ability to sell their image and likeness and control their education. The rule requires that college athletes who transfer a second time among Division I schools must wait one year before competing in games.

Adam Johnson has been elected to serve as 2024 president of the Memphis Bar Association (MBA), which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. Johnson is an associate attorney at Nahon, Saharovich & Trotz, where he practices civil litigation in the area of personal injury. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from UCLA in 2003 and he began practicing law in 2008 after obtaining his law degree from the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. During law school, Johnson served as a judicial extern for Judge Bernice B. Donald, then of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, and as a member of both the University of Memphis Law Review and the University of Memphis Moot Court Board. Read more in a release from the association.

The Tennessee Bar Association has submitted a comment to the Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurance (TDCI) regarding the licensure of court reporters and the sunsetting of the Board of Court Reporting. Recently, the TDCI identified the Board of Court Reporting as a regulatory body that is no longer needed. Among other things, the TDCI noted that the board meets only twice a year and has relatively few complaints to deal with. Given that the purpose of most regulatory boards is to protect the public, in this instance the TDCI believes that the public is well protected, and there is no longer a need to have a regulatory board in place. The TBA earlier publicized the request for public comment, and also polled section members to determine their respective opinions on the issue. While some comments agreed with the TDCI’s position that the board is unnecessary and is not needed to protect the public, the majority of comments expressed support for the continued regulation of court reporters. The TBA has thoughtfully considered TDCI’s rationale in recommending to sunset the board, but respectfully believes that the very existence of the board serves the critical function of protecting the public, which is a paramount consideration for the creation or continuation of any state board. Read the full comment.

Perry Stout, former Johnson County Sessions Court Judge, and his wife Pamela Ann Stout, have been charged with various drug charges by the First District Attorney General Steve Finney’s office, reports WJHL. Stout has been charged with money laundering, possession of a weapon during commission of a dangerous felony, conspiracy to possess with intent to sell or deliver Schedule VI drugs, and maintaining a dwelling for the sale or use of narcotics. Stout resigned in June citing "immoral acts" and stated in July that he would not seek reelection to the bench.

Tennessee will participate in a federal program designed to give parents extra cash to buy food for their children during the summer months. The Tennessee Lookout reports that the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer for Children, or Summer EBT, will provide $40 per month for each school-aged child living below the poverty line. The funds are loaded onto a debit card that may only be used to buy food. There are 644,000 Tennessee children who are eligible for Summer EBT — potentially drawing more than $77 million in funding for low-income families.