The Hamilton County Health Department is reporting that people may have been exposed to COVID-19 at the Hamilton County General Sessions Court last week, News Channel 9 reports. In a statement, the department said the potential exposure happened in Judge Gerald Webb's courtroom, which the infected individual visited last Thursday from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. “Anyone who visited this courtroom on this day and time should monitor themselves for COVID-19 symptoms and get tested as soon as possible if symptoms appear,” said Health Department Administrator Becky Barnes. This is the second time this month that the Health Department has announced possible exposure at General Sessions Court. For more information, call the Health Department’s hotline at 423-209-8383 or visit its website.

A portion of a Tennessee law that bans abortions based on gender, race or prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome will go into effect after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state on Friday, the Tennessean reports. The state had asked that so-called "reason bans" be allowed to take effect while litigation continues against two comprehensive abortion-related bills signed this summer. Following the appellate order, abortion providers asked the Nashville-based U.S. district court to intervene and issue an emergency temporary restraining order that would keep the bans from taking effect.

Produced by the Dispute Resolution Section, this one-hour CLE offers attendees an opportunity to interactively converse about non-monetary issues that arise in family law disputes. The speakers — Chattanooga lawyers Randall Larramore with McWilliams, Gold & Larramore and Glenna Ramer with Ramer & Hedrickwalk — will walk attendees through a fact scenario, highlighting litigation tactics and strategy and discussing the process of negotiating a resolution. Special attention will be paid to the non-economic elements of the dispute. Read the fact scenario and sign up here for the Dec. 4 program.

Due to a new Nashville order restricting gatherings, Tennessee's House Republican Caucus has relocated its leadership meeting from a downtown hotel to the capitol, the Tennessean reports. The 73-member House Republican Caucus was scheduled to hold the meeting at Homewood Suites, where the group had rented a ballroom. But with new city rules limiting gatherings to no more than eight people, the meeting will be held on state property where the rules do not apply. Last week, the group gathered for a multi-day retreat. About 50 members attended, along with Gov. Bill Lee and other state officials.

The federal Board of Immigration Appeals has dismissed the appeal of Tennessee resident Friedrich Karl Berger, a German citizen who was ordered removed from the United States earlier this year on the basis of his service in Nazi Germany as an armed guard at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp. The board upheld a Memphis-based immigration judge’s decision from Feb. 28 that Berger was removable to Germany under the 1978 Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act. That law allows the government to deport those found to have provided assistance to Nazi-sponsored persecution. Berger has lived in the United States since the 1950s. He is now in his mid-90s. Since the 1979 inception of the Justice Department’s program to detect, investigate, and remove Nazi persecutors, it has won cases against 109 individuals. Read more about the department’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section.

The U.S. government executed Orlando Hall yesterday just before midnight after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a stay imposed by a lower court. He is the eighth federal inmate to be executed this year, Action News 5 reports. Hall was convicted of abducting and killing a 16 year-old girl while searching for two brothers who had stolen his money from a drug deal. Hall’s attorneys had sought to halt the execution over concerns that Hall, who is Black, was sentenced on the recommendation of an all-white jury. The Congressional Black Caucus had asked Attorney General William Barr to stop it because of the coronavirus.

Drew S. Days III, a lawyer who grew up in the segregated South, devoted much of his career to the cause of racial equality, and became the first African American to lead the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division died Nov. 15 at age 79, the Washington Post reports. His death was announced by Yale Law School, where he was a professor emeritus. Days spent decades seeking to advance the cause of civil rights from positions both inside and outside the government. He was a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund before being tapped by President Jimmy Carter for the DOJ role. He also served as solicitor general under President Bill Clinton. He joined the Yale Law School faculty in 1981 and taught at the university until retiring in 2017.

The Nashville-based Volunteer Lawyers and Professionals for the Arts is accepting applications for its Spring 2021 internship program for law students. Interns serve for a semester and perform a range of tasks, including handling client-intake calls, researching specific skills of volunteers, and matching clients with attorneys. Those interested should submit a resume and cover letter expressing interest to info@abcnashville.org. Learn more about the program on VLPA’s website.

Memphis lawyer James J. "Jim" Webb Jr. died Nov. 10 at the age of 63. A 1995 graduate of the University of Memphis School of Law, Webb began his career as a law clerk to Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Holly Kirby while she was on the Tennessee Court of Appeals. In 1997, he joined Crone & Mason, and then in 2010, moved to the Miles Mason Family Law Group. He was the senior associate attorney there at the time of his passing. Colleagues called Webb "one of the brightest, finest lawyers” and “one of the best people” they knew. Memorial donations may be made to the American Diabetes Association.

The Washington County Circuit Court Clerk recently announced the rescheduling of state general sessions court matters. Starting Monday, proceedings set for November have been postponed to February 2021. Proceedings for December have been postponed to March 2021. The clerk reported these measures are designed to “to keep everyone safe and give our hardworking clerks some flexibility in their staffing to be able to keep our courts running.” The delays do not apply to incarcerated defendants, who will continue to be brought from the jail on their assigned court dates. View the new schedule.