The Arts & Business Council of Greater Nashville's Volunteer Lawyers & Professionals for the Arts (VLPA) program will offer "Ask the Experts" Feb. 24 at 6 p.m. CT. The online event is a business and legal clinic for the creative community; a one-on-one consultation with an industry expert to get your arts-related legal, marketing or business questions answered. Register online and learn more about how you can get involved at abcnashville.org/vlpa.

Chattanooga District Attorney Neal Pinkston yesterday announced that charges in 11 cases will be dismissed after it was found that an informant had planted the evidence that led to the charges, the Chattanoogan reports. Pinkston said the informant, who was working with the Chattanooga Police Department’s Narcotics Unit, had planted the evidence “in the houses of potential defendants when the informant arrived to complete the illegal narcotics transactions.” His office is asking that all charges in those cases be dismissed immediately. Pinkston added that the public defender appears to be representing all the defendants, some of whom are still in custody on the charges. The Chattanoogan has a full list of the cases.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against the stock trading app Robinhood, almost immediately after it began restricting the trading of certain stocks, The Hill reports. Robinhood blocked its users’ ability to acquire new shares of stocks in companies including GameStop, AMC and BlackBerry. Prior to the restrictions, those stocks had been made popular by a Reddit forum that caused “unprecedented stock rise.” The suit was filed in the Southern District of New York and it claims the app “purposefully, willfully, and knowingly,” removed GameStop from the trading platform, which “deprived retail investors of the ability to invest in the open-market and manipulating the open-market.” Users on the Reddit forum had worked together to drive up the price of stocks that traditional hedge funds had shorted, which sent GameStop stock soaring more than 1,000% over the past several weeks.

Nashville attorney and former General Sessions Judge William Joseph Faimon passed away on Jan. 23. After graduating from Vanderbilt Law School, Faimon served in the CIA for 12 years. He began his law practice in 1959 and was elected a Nashville General Sessions Judge in 1982, where he served until 2006. Due to pandemic restrictions, a private service will be held by family. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Room in the Inn, P.O. Box 25309, Nashville, TN, 37202, or to the charity of your choice.

Nashville lawyer David Young Parker Sr. passed away on Jan. 23 after contracting the COVID-19 virus. He was 79. After earning his law degree from Vanderbilt Law School in 1966, Parker practiced law for 53 years, working for Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company, the State of Tennessee and GENESCO before entering private practice in 1975. Parker was also an adjunct professor at David Lipscomb College and served as a judge in Vanderbilt's Moot Court. He sat on the board of directors for the Tennessee Supreme Court Historical Society and was chairman emeritus of the Historical Committee and the Memorial Service Committee of the Nashville Bar Association. Donations in his memory can be made to the Second Harvest Food Bank or the Nashville Inner City Ministry. A private memorial service will be held for the family and a celebration of life will be held for the public in the future.

Tennessee Bar Journal columnists really deliver in the January/February issue. In his column, "Where There's a Will," Dan Holbrook writes about Purpose Trusts. If you haven't seen one you're not alone, but Holbrook explains them in detail. "A successful non-charitable purpose trust needs a sufficient purpose, enforceability and careful drafting," he writes. And what could be more timely than decisions by divorced parents about getting vaccinations for their child? Marlene Eskind Moses and Benjamin Manuel Russ walk you through it in their column, "Family Matters." John Day cautions in his column, "Day on Torts," that readers "contemplating whether the common knowledge-exception applies to a particular set of facts are urged to … see how Tennessee courts have applied the principle over the years." His column shows you what you need to know. Lastly, there are new workplace accommodation requirements. Edward G. Phillips and Brandon L. Morrow explain the Tennessee Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and what is crucial for employers to understand.

The TBA’s Tort and Insurance Law Section will host its 2021 Winter Forum on Feb. 3 from 9 a.m. until 12:15 p.m. CST. The forum will provide an overview of the ethical issues that attorneys face in conducting investigations and interviewing current and former employees of an opposing corporate litigant. The program will also feature a discussion of emerging legal issues on the enforceability of arbitration agreements and provide recent legal developments involving claims for health care liability actions. Members of the Tort and Insurance Law Section receive special pricing for the program, so join the section today!

Rep. London Lamar, D-Memphis, has filed a bill that would allow the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana without prosecution, Nashville’s NewsChannel5 reports. Two cities in the state have already agreed not to prosecute people caught with small amounts of drugs, but Lamar is calling for a statewide standard. "What we want to do is make sure there's a unified standard across Tennessee where no matter what county you're in, there's the same standard around criminalization and having the possession of marijuana," she said. HB0413 would not allow for the sale of marijuana.

One of the Republican legislators whose home and office were searched by FBI agents earlier this month says that agents confiscated all files and documents related to his campaign, the Associated Press reports. Rep. Todd Warner, R-Chapel Hill, divulged that information to the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance Ethics Commission in an email last week to explain why he couldn’t complete his latest campaign finance report on time. His correspondence gives the clearest indication to date that the federal investigation is at least partly campaign finance-focused. Federal authorities have not indicated what they are investigating after showing up to search the homes and legislative offices of Warner, former House Speaker Glen Casada, R-Franklin, Rep. Robin Smith, R-Hixson, and former Casada chief of staff Cade Cothren. Agents visited Warner’s business address as well.

Some operational changes within the state’s court system made to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic may become permanent, the Nashville Post reports. Appearing before the House Finance Committee this week, Administrative Office of the Courts Director Deborah Taylor Tate said the adoption of teleconferencing technology could continue even after the spread of the disease diminishes. Tate agreed with Rep. John Mark Windle, D-Livingston, when he said "the current court structure is from the time of Andrew Jackson,” adding that there must “be a better way to queue people and not take up all their time.” Asked by another committee member whether continuing to hold court virtually after the state of emergency ends is a possibility, Taylor admitted it was an open question. “These are issues that are going to be litigated,” she said.