The TBA Mentoring Committee will host a free virtual event from 3-4 p.m. CST this Thursday. The program will feature guest speakers J. E. "Buddy" Stockwell III, executive director of the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program (TLAP), and Rachel Rosenblatt, employment counsel with Zillow, who will talk about burnout, stress and services provided by TLAP. To RSVP for the event, email Ateia Aldridge.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp in the Eastern District of Missouri today blocked the Biden administration’s vaccine requirement for healthcare workers, finding the agency issuing the rule likely exceeded its authority. The ruling prevents the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from enforcing its vaccine mandate until the court can hear a legal challenge from 10 Republican state attorneys general. The group sued the administration in early November to block the CMS requirement, alleging it would worsen healthcare staffing shortages. Schelp’s ruling applies in Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota and New Hampshire. Yahoo.com has the story from Reuters.

Members of the public have submitted at least 17 proposals for redrawing Tennessee's state legislative and congressional districts, but the state legislature says it will not release them for now, the Tennessean reports. State residents are allowed to submit designs as long as they follow certain guidelines and meet deadlines. The House deadline for new submissions was Nov. 12 while the Senate deadline was Nov. 22. House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, said he thinks the public proposals should not be released until the House Redistricting Committee draft map is finished. "When that map is ready, then everything will be released at the same point in a hearing," he said. "That's the way the process has always worked." By contrast, Lt. Gov. McNally believes the maps should be made public and “anticipates they will be made public when they are discussed at a future meeting of The Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on Redistricting," according to a spokesperson.

Symptoms of depression and anxiety in Tennessee spiked following surges in COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to a new report from The Sycamore Institute. The report, which highlights the pandemic's widespread impact on mental health in Tennessee, found that the state saw overdose deaths increase by 44% in 2020. And though adults in the state fared better than the national average on many mental health factors, the state was higher than average when it came to deaths tied to mental health problems. The institute's policy director tells Axios that those contradictory findings might suggest a need to identify mental health issues before they become deadly.

The Tennessee Innocence Project has received a $300,000 grant from the Department of Justice to help it work with the Davidson County District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit. Tennessee ranks 18th in the United States for prison population by state, and has completed only 25 exonerations, a fraction compared to other states with well-established innocence representation and conviction review units. Tennessee Tribune has the story.

Effective Jan. 4, 2022, all business coming before the Knox County General Sessions Court Division V or Civil Court will be conducted on the third floor of the Old Courthouse, 300 Main Ave., Knoxville, TN 37902. Attorneys and litigants should enter the Old Courthouse through the main security portal and proceed upstairs to the third floor courtroom.

Wilson County lawyer Christopher Daniel Lins was reinstated to the practice of law yesterday. Lins was placed on inactive status in 2014. He sought reinstatement and the Tennessee Supreme Court found the petition satisfactory. He will be reinstated as of Nov. 1.

A recent episode of the “Today Explained” podcast explores the recent reporting by ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio into Rutherford County's juvenile justice system. The report found that the county has “a staggering history of jailing children” and employs an illegal filtering system for determining which children go to jail. Host Sean Rameswaram talks to NPR’s Meribah Knight, who discusses why the judge at the center of the investigation is still in charge of the juvenile court. Listen to “Ruthless County, Tennessee” on Spotify or on your favorite podcast app.

A federal jury yesterday found that pharmacy chain operators CVS, Walgreens and Walmart recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties, which helped fuel the opioid epidemic. It was the first such verdict against the companies, the Associated Press reports. The counties argued that the pharmacies created a public nuisance in the way they dispensed the pain medication. The companies maintained they had policies in place to stem the flow of pills and argued it was doctors who really controlled how many pills were prescribed. The amount of damages the pharmacies will pay will be decided in the spring by a federal judge.

Vanderbilt University Law School professor Ingrid Wuerth has been named a co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of International Law. She will share editorial duties for four years beginning in April 2022 with University of Michigan law professor Monica Hakimi. Wuerth focuses her work on foreign affairs, public international law and transnational litigation. She joined Vanderbilt in 2007, served as director of the International Legal Studies Program from 2009 to 2018, and then was appointed director of the Branstetter Litigation and Dispute Resolution Program. She was named the Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law in 2015 and was appointed associate dean for research in 2020.