Former East Tennessee lawyer and state representative Arvin Harold Reingold died Sunday in Atlanta. He was 90 years old. A graduate of the University of Chattanooga and University of Tennessee College of Law, Reingold practiced law in Chattanooga with Ed Davis, who later became attorney general, as well as with Joe DiRisio, who was named a criminal court judge, and at Reingold, Powers and Schulman and Howell Clements. He retired in 2015. Reingold also served in the state legislature as a representative and was a municipal court judge in East Ridge for many years. Funeral services were held yesterday for family. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to B'nai Zion Synagogue, P.O. Box 3293, Cleveland, TN 37320 or CADAS, 207 Spears Ave., P.O. Box 4797, Chattanooga, TN 37405.

National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is Oct. 24 and the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office says it will collaborate with community partners across the state to provide drop-off locations for unused, unwanted or expired prescription medication. In announcing the effort, Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III said, “Safely disposing of prescription drugs keeps them out of the wrong hands and helps prevent drug addiction and overdose deaths.” Find a location near you.

The Women’s Advocacy Center in east Shelby County received a grant earlier this year from the Administrative Office of Courts and the Collierville Community Fund to develop and implement a parenting course for women who are divorced or separated from an abuser. The monthly seminars are available now. They cover issues such as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and are designed to help participants co-parent from a healthy place. After participants complete the four-hour course, the center files a certificate with the appropriate court. For more information contact the center, 901-896-9055.

The Tennessee Department of Health today released preliminary plans for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines throughout the state, the Nashville Post reports. The plan provides a framework for how the state will allocate doses among counties and prioritized populations, including health care workers and first responders, who would be the first to receive a vaccine. Next in line would be high-risk populations in long-term care facilities or congregate living settings, followed by child care workers, educators and individuals with chronic health conditions. Finally, the vaccine would be provided to essential workers and then ultimately to the general population. Distribution across the state would be based on population but an additional allotment would be reserved for initial demand in smaller counties and for the state’s emergency stockpile.

Produced by the TBA Public Education Committee, a new one-hour online CLE explores voting rights in Tennessee, including the case of Fisher v. Hargett, which deals with absentee voting in the 2020 election. Speakers include Committee Chair Amy Willoughby Bryant; Jacob Brown with Apperson Crump; Tricia Herzfeld with Branstetter, Stranch and Jennings; and Jeffrey Usman with the Belmont University College of Law. The committee also has developed an online resources page with information about registering to vote, finding polling places and tracking election results.

As the country moves deeper into the pandemic, legal considerations and questions continue to emerge. Two articles, published in a recent issue of TBJ Select, help you know what to expect and how to navigate. William Shults and Michael Caskey, in a follow-up from their prescient article in the March Tennessee Bar Journal and subsequent webinar, remind readers that it is "unlikely that COVID-19 will simply disappear overnight and there will be lingering ramifications of the virus in the legal field for years to come." Their article offers established authorities and sources to help navigate constitutional and contractual issues that might arise during this pandemic. In the second article, Judge Thomas Wright and S. Cole Wheeler dig into the potential areas of likely litigation for COVID-19-related lawsuits in both the private and public sectors.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr will visit the Memphis Police Department's Ridgeway Station tomorrow afternoon to talk about Operation LeGend, the Commercial Appeal reports. The government describes Operation LeGend as an effort to bring additional federal officers to combat violent crime in Memphis. It is named after a young boy who was killed in gun violence. Memphis and several other cities are participating in the initiative.

Three people with Better Days Tax Service in Memphis have been charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. after allegedly fraudulently obtaining $1.1 million from COVID-19-related economic injury disaster loans, the Daily Memphian reports. U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee D. Michael Dunavant announced the charges today, accusing the defendants of filing 401 fraudulent applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans for people impacted by the pandemic. The approved loans netted approximately $1.1 million. If convicted, each defendant faces up to 30 years in federal prison.

A poll worker in Shelby County was fired yesterday after he turned away voters wearing t-shirts and masks that said “Black Lives Matter,” the Commercial Appeal reports. While state law prohibits voters from wearing items with the name of a political party or candidate currently on the ballot into a polling location, statements like “Black Lives Matter” or “I Can’t Breathe” do not violate that law. “What he did was patently wrong and he was fired,” said Suzanne Thompson, spokeswoman for the Shelby County Election Commission. The worker was fired on the spot from the polling site at Dave Wells Community Center in Memphis after election officials confirmed the reports.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday declined to reinstate a law requiring first-time voters to cast a ballot in-person or show ID at the local election office before voting absentee, the Associated Press reports. The 3-0 decision maintains a lower court’s order last month. In Monday’s opinion, Judge Julia Smith Gibbons said “disrupting the new rules at this point poses significant risk of harm to the public interest in orderly elections.” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said the ruling, coupled with expanded eligibility, means “thousands of first-time voters should not be forced to risk their health in order to vote.”