Lauren Sudeall will join the faculty of Vanderbilt Law School in summer 2023, the school reports. Sudeall is currently on the faculty of Georgia State University College of Law, where she is the founding faculty director of the Center for Access to Justice. At Vanderbilt, Sudeall will launch and direct the school’s Access to Justice Initiative as part of the George Barrett Social Justice Program. She earned her law degree from Harvard Law School, has clerked for a number of federal appellate court judges and worked for the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.

The five-member board tasked with overseeing Rutherford County’s Juvenile Detention Center has met three times so far and is working to better understand the center’s inner workings, WPLN reports. The board — comprised of Rutherford County Mayor Joe Carr, retired judge Steve Daniel, longtime juvenile court prosecutor Leslie Collum, pastor and attorney Michael McDonald, and school board member Claire Maxwell — has questioned what the center does to rehabilitate kids, and how many juveniles end up in adult facilities. It says it is trying to build a general understanding this year before it begins to review policies and procedures in the new year.

Indianapolis-based Barnes & Thornburg LLP has opened a Nashville office with longtime Bass Berry & Sims health care executive Eleanor Smith. The firm has named Smith as chief client officer, the Nashville Business Journal reports. Smith worked at Bass Berry & Sims for the last 17 years, serving most of that tenure as managing director of the firm's health care practice. Barnes & Thornburg has 22 offices across the country with a special focus on the health care market.

Free Legal Answers, the virtual legal advice clinic for qualifying users to post civil legal questions at no cost, last month surpassed a total of 250,000 questions answered since its launch in 2016. The program was spearheaded by former TBA President Buck Lewis, who was struck with the idea to connect pro bono lawyers with those in need of legal services after attending a series of meetings that addressed unmet civil needs around the state. “It just occurred to me that there were lawyers sitting in this hearing on BlackBerrys — they were BlackBerrys back then — emailing their clients,” says Lewis, a shareholder at Baker Donelson in Memphis. “Could we provide legal services that way for pro bono clients?” After working with his firm’s IT staff, he helped launch Free Legal Answers in 2011 and shared the code with colleagues in multiple states before working with the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service to make the program available nationwide. Since it began, more than 11,000 lawyers have registered to answer questions for users in 41 jurisdictions. The ABA Journal has more on the story.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and a coaltion of 25 states and the District of Columbia have filed an amicus brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzalez v. Google. The brief urges the high court to interpret Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act (1996) narrowly to ensure technology companies remain accountable to state consumer protection laws. It explains that the judicial expansion of internet “publisher” immunity under Section 230 has severely hampered their ability to remedy internet-related wrongs. The Attorney General’s Office has more on the story.  

The TBA Book Club will hold its second discussion event on Jan. 11, 2023, from 4 to 5 p.m. CST via Zoom. Members chose Jodi Picoult’s “Small Great Things” as the group’s second quarter book selection. The novel focuses on a Black labor and delivery nurse who is assigned to a child of white supremacists. The TBA will welcome author, poet and African American literature and cultural history expert Darius Stewart to the meeting as a special guest who will provide context and insight into the book. Former TBA Executive Director Joycelyn Stevenson will lead the discussion. Register for the event here.

Applications for the TBA’s 2023 Scaling Small program are due on Dec. 15. Scaling Small Law is a three-month-long advanced program for entrepreneurial lawyers, solo practitioners and newly formed solo/small firms. This comprehensive business education and development program offers training in business planning, marketing, solo/small firm finance and budgeting, client service and experience, ethical considerations, and outsourcing and leveraging technology. To learn more, check out the syllabus and application process. The program launches on Jan. 10, 2023.

The legal services sector saw relatively flat job growth in November, adding 800 jobs to the economy, according to the U.S. Labor Department. That makes it the smallest monthly gain for the year. Total legal sector jobs in November reached 1.18 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Read analysis from Reuters.

Husband and wife teams faced off against one another in the Knoxville Bar Association’s 16th annual Ethics Bowl last week. Congratulations to Elijah and Avery Lovingfoss who took first place. Both practice at the Knoxville firm of Brock Shipe Klenk. They will be presented with the coveted Ethics Bowl trophy at the KBA’s Annual Meeting on Friday. Other teams participating in the “Til Ethics Do Us Part” contest were Jason and Carol Anne Long, Summer and Greg McMillan, Katie and Nate Ogle, Kacie and Andrew McRee and Joy and Richy Robinson.

The Tennessee Attorney General’s Division of Consumer Affairs reports that scammers may be targeting homebuyers by phishing for personal information from title companies. The office recommends a number of steps to protect against fraud. If a phishing email or text message is suspected, individuals should report it immediately to local law enforcement, the Federal Trade Commission and the Division of Consumer Affairs. Get more information on the attorney general’s website.