Two lawyers recently were reinstated from inactive status. Texas lawyer Jodi Michelle Hansen was reinstated on Oct. 7 after being placed on inactive status in May 2012. Mississippi lawyer Jason E. Graeber was reinstated on Oct. 13 after being placed on inactive status in April 2012. Both filed petitions for reinstatement, which the Board of Professional Responsibility found to be satisfactory.

The Knox County Commission will set a plan in motion on Oct. 25 to appoint a successor to retiring Sessions Court Judge Geoffrey Emery, Georgia Vines writes in the Knoxnews reports. The individual selected will serve until a new judge is elected in 2022. Several candidates already have filed reports with the county election commission to start fundraising to run for the seat next year. They are former Knox County GOP chair and sitting magistrate Ray Jenkins; assistant district attorney Judd Davis; Republican Sharon Frankenberg; and assistant district attorney Sarah Keith.

Davidson County Juvenile Court Judge Sheila Calloway spoke to a group of students with the non-profit program "Be About Change" this weekend, the Tennessean reports. The organization is one of a dozen that partner with the juvenile court to place young people in diversion programs rather than jail. Between 2016 and 2017, Calloway says her court diverted a total of 4,700 youth from detention, with only 6% re-offending, she said. “These programs are what’s going to help save our kids." Calloway also told the group about a program for parents that helps them with custody issues and substance addiction.

The University of Tennessee has offered to reinstate a professor who was cleared of federal charges accusing him of fraud and hiding his relationship with a Chinese university while receiving NASA research grants, Knoxnews reports. In an Oct. 14 letter obtained by the paper, Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor John Zomchick offers Anming Hu a tenured engineering professor job, back pay, payment for an immigration attorney, and $200,000 over three years to reestablish his research program. Hu was arrested in February 2020 and charged with wire fraud and making false statements. The judge declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked in June. Prosecutors said they intended to retry the case, but the judge acquitted Hu last month.

A Franklin businessman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud in a 13-year bribery scheme, the Nashville Post reports. Gerard Francis “Jerry” Boyle admitted to engaging in the scheme during his time as chief executive officer of Nashville-based Correct Care Solutions, a health care company that operates inside correctional facilities. Boyle provided things of value (gifts, cash, entertainment, travel and campaign contributions) to Robert McCabe, the former sheriff of Norfolk, Virginia, who was been convicted of charges, in exchange for McCabe’s support for the company’s medical services. Boyle is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 25, 2022. He faces a maximum of five years in prison. McCabe will be sentenced in January and faces a maximum of 20 years.

A bipartisan committee assembled by President Joe Biden to study potential reforms to the high court released its preliminary findings yesterday, The Hill reports. The committee noted “considerable” risks to court expansion, including the potential to undermine the high court’s legitimacy. The lengthy “discussion materials,” which are broken up into five sections, explore the arguments for and against adding justices to the high court, as well as other potential reforms. The committee met again today to discuss the preliminary findings, which were criticized by some liberal members for its treatment of the court expansion proposal. Two conservative members today resigned from the committee, but did not publicly give a reason for their departure.

The federal judiciary is reviewing its conflict screening process following a Wall Street Journal report that 131 judges failed to recuse themselves from cases involving companies in which they or their family members owned stock, Reuters reports. According to a memo from U.S. District Judge Roslynn Mauskopf, who serves as director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, committee staff for the Judicial Conference, the judiciary's policymaking body, will be directed to eview the judiciary's processes to submit recommendations on ways to "clarify or improve" the conflict screening process. Mauskopf also reiterated the importance of complying with existing financial conflict of interest policies.

Attorneys for death row inmate Pervis Payne are asking a judge to disqualify the Shelby County District Attorney General’s Office from working their client’s case due to a conflict of interest, the Commercial Appeal reports. Payne’s attorney, Kelly Henry, claimed that Assistant District Attorney Steve Jones worked as a capital case staff attorney from 1996 through 1998, providing legal guidance to judges regarding death penalty matters at the same time as Payne's post-conviction and other proceedings were pending in the court. Jones said he did not work on the Payne case as a capital case attorney. The District Attorney General’s Office asked the court to deny the motion to disqualify it. An evidentiary hearing in Payne’s case is set for Dec. 13 to determine whether he is intellectually disabled, which would make him ineligible for the death penalty.

Lawyers Bobby Bramhall and Melia Jones are hoping to help college athletes secure endorsement deals with their new Nashville firm Athlete Licensing Company. The venture comes after changes to NCAA rules, which now allow college athletes to monetize their name, image and likeness (NIL). Bramhall, who serves as president of the company, played baseball professionally for seven years and later served as an assistant athletic director at Texas A&M University. Jones, the group’s executive vice president and general counsel, most recently worked in the Texas A&M University System Office of General Counsel and advised the Texas legislature on the state’s own NIL legislation. Other firms in the NIL space include Burr & Forman, which also launched an NIL practice group that includes two attorneys in Nashville.

Following a report by WPLN and ProPublica, the office of Gov. Bill Lee says judicial authorities should review the actions of Rutherford County Juvenile Court Judge Donna Scott Davenport. “We are concerned about the recent reports and believe the appropriate judicial authorities should issue a full review,” Lee’s press secretary, Casey Black, said in an email. The report, published last week, found that under Davenport’s lead, Rutherford County jailed nearly half of the children whose cases were referred to the juvenile court. It further claimed that many of the kids had been jailed illegally. WPLN has more on the story.