The Hawkins County Commission has voted to appoint Amy Skelton as a temporary replacement for Juvenile Court Judge Daniel Boyd, who is currently suspended with pay while facing bribery and forgery charges. Skelton, a 2014 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law, is an associate attorney with the Law Office of Mark Skelton and a municipal court judge for Church Hill, Rogersville and Surgoinsville. She will remain in the position until Boyd’s suspension is lifted or through the end of the 2024 election cycle. Hamblen County Juvenile Court and General Sessions Court Judge Janice Snider has been filling in since Boyd was suspended. Boyd was charged with three counts of forgery, one count of criminal simulation and one count of bribery. He turned himself into authorities on Aug. 15. WCYB.com has news of the appointment while the Times News has more about Skelton.

The TBA Young Lawyers Division continued its fall law school visits Tuesday evening with a discussion at the Nashville School of Law. YLD Board members Anthony Adewumi and John Murphy led the discussion. Both are graduates of the award-winning DLI program and encouraged the students to apply, as well as to reach out to lawyers and begin networking with members of the TBA while still in law school. See photos here.

The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.com, claiming the internet retailer has used illegal tactics to fend off companies that would have risen to challenge its monopoly, reports Reuters. The lawsuit has been expected after years of complaints that Amazon.com and other tech giants have abused their dominance of search, social media and online retailing to become gate keepers on the most lucrative aspects of the internet. The FTC asked the court to issue a permanent injunction ordering Amazon.com to stop its unlawful conduct and to consider "any preliminary or permanent equitable relief, including but not limited to structural relief, necessary to restore fair competition."

The Tennessee foster parents of three immigrant children and a Memphis-based advocacy group have filed suit against the Department of Children's Services for failing to support their immigration needs, reports the Tennessean. The suit claims the state allowed youth in their custody to "age out" of the system without taking advantage of the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status program available to minors. The plaintiffs include a 15-year-old girl abandoned by her parents in Guatemala. DCS investigated her living situation last year, and she was removed from a relative's home after she became pregnant. She is now in a foster home, attending high school and raising her baby, the lawsuit states. Without legal status, she is at risk for deportation, though she wishes to stay in the U.S. with her child, a U.S. citizen.

The state’s indigent defense system is at a “breaking point,” a story in the Tennessean suggests. With the lowest indigent defense reimbursement rate in the nation ($50 an hour for non-capital cases), the paper says the funding is “so paltry it amounts to a theft of services from attorneys, who are at regular risk of losing money when appointed to the cases.” The reimbursement rate has only been raised $20 in the last 42 years, despite widespread calls for increases and a 2017 task force recommendation to pay between $75 and $125 per hour. Attorneys and judges interviewed for the story say the low rate is “squeezing the state’s judicial system” leading judges to increasingly rely on less experienced lawyers to handle cases. But even that pool of willing attorneys appears to be shrinking, judges say. Dawn Deaner, former Nashville public defender and current executive director at the Choosing Justice Initiative, says the system is in the worse shape "it's ever been."

A three-judge panel last week ruled that a new state law designed to lower the threshold needed for Nashville leaders to approve improvements to the fairgrounds speedway violates the Tennessee Constitution and cannot be enforced. The law would have allowed the city to undertake demolition at the fairgrounds with a simple majority vote while the local charter requires a supermajority, the Associated Press reports. The state argued that the new law did not specifically single out Music City, but opponents argued that no other municipality fell within the statute’s definition.

A new study by the RAND Corporation, American Bar Association and National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals recommends that caseload guidelines for public defenders be updated to reflect modern-day realities. The current guidelines, issued in 1973, recommend that public defense lawyers devote an average of 13.9 hours to felony cases and 5.2 hours to misdemeanor cases. The new National Public Defense Workload Study recommends guidelines be increased to an average of 35 hours per felony case and 22.3 hours per misdemeanor case. It also increases the average time depending on the seriousness of the case, an element that was omitted from older guidelines. The ABA Journal has more on the study.

The TBA’s Animal Law Section held its Annual Forum on Friday at the Nashville Zoo. Attendees heard from experts on issues affecting veterinary clinics and topics related to pets in divorce, regulation and training of service and therapy animals, and bird law. Stephanie White with the zoo’s Behavioral Husbandry Department presented a “Meet and Greet” with two of the zoo’s residents — a python and owl — and attendees met Finn, a therapy dog for Davidson County Juvenile Court, and Luna, a service dog in training for Retrieving Independence. See pictures from the event.

Frost Brown Todd has reelected Nashville attorney Robert Sartin as chair of the firm, the Nashville Business Journal reports. He will begin his third three-year term with the firm on Jan. 1. Sartin focuses his practice in the energy and automotive industries. The Cincinnati-based firm, with 556 attorneys across 16 offices, has 25 lawyers in its Nashville office.

New Jersey is the latest state to limit its mental health and substance abuse disclosure requirement for those applying to join the bar, Reuters reports. The move comes amid pressure from mental health advocates who say the disclosures discourage law students from seeking help. Beginning Oct. 1, the Supreme Court of New Jersey will revise a question on the state’s mandatory "character and fitness" questionnaire about mental health and substance abuse diagnoses and treatment to ask applicants whether they currently have a substance abuse or mental health issue that affects their ability to practice law in a competent and ethical manner. New York, Ohio and Virginia are among the states that recently eliminated mental health questions from their character and fitness reviews.