Several members of the Tennessee legal community have been selected to take part in Leadership Tennessee, a collective with a mission to foster non-partisan dialogue on issues of state importance. The organization recently announced that 48 individuals will join its 2023–2024 Signature Program and 30 individuals will join its fall Leadership Tennessee NEXT Program. Representatives from the legal community participating in the Signature Program include Noni Ellison, general counsel for Tractor Supply Company; Ignacio Vincentelli, general counsel for International Paper; and Lynda Hood, executive director of the Chattanooga Bar Association. L. Maverick Flowers, an associate attorney with Polsinelli, will participate in the NEXT Program. 

Mary L. Smith was sworn in as the 147th president of the American Bar Association during the ABA’s House of Delegates meeting on Monday in Denver. Smith is the first female Native American president of the world’s largest voluntary bar association. Smith has held many leadership roles in the ABA, including serving as secretary and on the board of governors. She also served as an ABA representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

In a presentencing report filed on Friday, prosecutors called for former state senator Brian Kelsey to serve 41 months in federal prison for his conviction of two felonies stemming from a campaign finance scheme connected to his failed 2016 congressional bid, reports the Tennessean. The report cites Kelsey's "troubling lack of respect for the law and the public good." Kelsey is scheduled to be sentenced next Friday. An initial sentencing date was called off after Kelsey attempted to revoke his 2022 guilty plea. A federal judge declined to allow him to change his plea.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper and Police Chief John Drake announced last Thursday at a press conference that they plan to place full-time resource officers on the city’s elementary school campuses as soon as possible, reports the Tennessean. Drake said officers assigned to school would wear uniforms similar to bike patrol officers and would be trained on best practices for dealing with young children. Despite pushback against officers in elementary schools from public school leaders, Cooper said the long-term goal is to put at least one full-time officer on every MNPS campus.

A new report compiled by the Nashville Community Oversight Board shows Nashville police are more likely to use excessive force when interacting with Black and Hispanic people. Using data from 2018-2022, the 43-page document found that Black people are three times more likely to have a gun drawn on them by police than white people. In school settings, 96% of students who had force used against them by a school resource officer were Black.

Two conservative groups are asking a federal court to block the Biden administration’s plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers, the Associated Press reports. In a lawsuit filed Friday, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute argue the administration overstepped its power when it announced the forgiveness in July. The program would offer cancellation of debt for borrowers with income-driven repayment plans, which typically offer cancellation after borrowers make 20 or 25 years of payments. The administration says that “past administrative failures” have resulted in inaccurate payment counts, which have set borrowers back on their progress toward forgiveness. Opponents argue that only Congress can authorize debt cancellation programs.

Gov. Bill Lee's office made several personnel changes last week. His longtime policy director, Tony Niknejad, is departing to work in the private sector. He will be succeeded by Michael Hendrix, who has been a special adviser to Lee. Hendrix previously was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and senior director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. In addition, Alec Richardson has been named a senior adviser to the governor. On the communications team, Jade Byers has been named senior communications officer. Replacing Byers as press secretary is Elizabeth Lane Johnson, who previously worked for Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. Read the governor’s announcement.

Former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao was sentenced Tuesday to four and 3/4 years in prison for aiding and abetting manslaughter in the 2020 killing of George Floyd, Reuters reports. The sentence will run concurrently with the three and 1/2 years Thao previously received on a federal conviction of violating Floyd's civil rights. Thao, a nine-year veteran of the police force, was the fourth and final officer sentenced in the killing of Floyd. He held back a small crowd of bystanders while then-officer Derek Chauvin and two others subdued Floyd, who police suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill at a nearby store.

American Bar Association leaders briefed the Tennessee delegation to the ABA House of Delegates during a breakfast Monday morning in Denver. Among those speaking at the meeting were current ABA President Deborah Enix-Ross, House of Delegates Chair Gene Vance, ABA President-elect Bill Bay and incoming Board Secretary Marvin S.C. Dang. Later in the day, TBA Delegate and Belmont Law professor Lucian Dervan presented Resolution 502 before the House, and former TBA President and American Bar Endowment President Howard Vogel led a meeting of that body. See photos from the events. In other news from the ABA Annual Meeting, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke to the House of Delegates today and the ABA Task Force on Law, Society and the Judiciary issued its final report with specific recommendations for improving public trust and understanding of the judiciary. Read more about the programs being offered and proposals being considered by the House of Delegates this week in Denver.

President Joe Biden's new regulation restricting asylum access at the U.S.-Mexico border can remain in effect for now, a U.S. appeals court ruled yesterday. A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold a district judge's ruling that the regulation violated U.S. law by cutting off asylum for some migrants caught crossing the border without documentation. The appeals court allowed the restrictions to remain in place pending the outcome of the government’s appeal. The court also said it would expedite the appeal, Reuters reports. A challenge to the regulation was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups that argued it mirrored Trump-era restrictions that were blocked in court.