Lawyer Well-Being Week kicks off today with organizations across the country coming together to raise awareness and encourage action across the legal profession to improve well-being for lawyers and their support teams. To promote the physical, occupational and emotional health of Tennessee attorneys, the TBA has created a Well-Being Resource Page and will provide activities and resources all week long to champion well-being.

First up this week, check out the 1-Click CLE Wellness Package, featuring important healthy and wellness topics like mindfulness, work life balance, ethics of healthy lawyering and more. Available online in just one click and worth six dual credit hours of CLE.

A new episode of the HealthyBar podcast is also available today. In this special two-part series, immediate past chair of the TBA's Attorney Well-Being Committee, Mary Griffin, speaks with current chair of the committee, Julie Sandine, and Lindsey O'Connell, a licensed mental health clinician with the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program (TLAP).

The Tennessee Supreme Court issued an order on April 24 allowing each judicial district to develop a plan to begin conducting additional in-person hearings. A number of districts have submitted plans and have been working with the court to make requested modifications. In addition to approving a plan for the 1st Judicial District, the court has approved plans for seven other districts: 3rd Judicial District, 14th Judicial District, 16th Judicial District, 17th Judicial District, 19th Judicial District, 27th Judicial District and 29th Judicial District. Until a plan is approved by the chief justice, all courts in the district are to operate under the Supreme Court's March 25 order.

The Nashville Bar Association has been holding a series of Judicial Town Halls as part of its COVID-19 resources. Sessions with Judges Joe Binkley Jr., Melissa Blackburn, Sheila Calloway, Angelita Blackshear Dalton, Lynda Jones and Gale Robinson, Amanda McClendon, and Philip Smith and Phillip Robinson, as well as Chancellors Anne Martin, Pat Moskal and Russell Perkins are now available. Upcoming sessions include Chief District Judge Waverly Crenshaw on May 4 and Public Defender Martesha Johnson on May 8.

Vanderbilt University Law School professor Caitlin “Cat” Moon is making national news for her efforts to recruit an “army of innovators” to keep the legal profession open during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since beginning to recruit legal tech professionals, she has amassed a group of more than 250 individuals who are willing to advise anyone looking to implement changes to keep courts, firms and offices open during the crisis. She also is “laser focused” on creating lasting change long after the pandemic is over, Above the Law reports. Moon, who is director of innovation design for the school’s Program on Law and Innovation (PoLI), says the biggest threat to lasting change is a quick return to normalcy without reviewing what worked in the pandemic and has value for the long term.

Support for online voting has increased sharply among the American public since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, according to a new American Bar Association survey. The survey also found that a vast majority of Americans are not willing to suspend freedom of speech or of the press during a national emergency. But just over half supported suspending freedom of assembly during such an emergency. The results are from the ABA 2020 Survey of Civic Literacy — the second annual survey carried out as part of the group’s Law Day celebration. Other topics covered included separation of powers, felon voting rights, Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, 19th Amendment to the Constitution and the Electoral College. Read more from the group.

The Federal Bar Association Chapter of Northeast Tennessee announced today that is postponing its event on the electoral college and the 19th Constitutional Amendment, as well as the judicial reception originally scheduled for May 8. For more information contact Emily McLaughlin, 423-928-0165.

An article in last Thursday's issue of TBA Today had an incorrect link for Bob Ambrogi's article on the “7 Ways The Pandemic Will Forever Change Law Practice.” Read the article here on Above the Law.

A story in Friday's issue of TBA Today incorrectly referred to the parties in a Tennessee Supreme Court opinion about the state Consumer Protection Act as being married. In fact, the two individuals are not related and have separate claims pending against hospitals in the state.

Several district attorneys general in Tennessee have questioned the constitutionality of Gov. Bill Lee’s executive orders, WPLN reports. Stephen Crump, 10th District attorney general, questioned whether it was constitutional to allow certain businesses to open while others remain closed, and said he would not enforce criminal sanctions against anyone violating an order. Craig Northcott, 14th Judicial District attorney general, said he has had "grave concerns" about the constitutionality of the orders from the start, but now thinks modifications are making them “increasingly vague and arbitrary,” the Times Free Press reports. Finally, Bryant Dunaway, 13th Judicial District attorney general, and Brent Cooper, 22nd District attorney general, expressed concerns and said they will not prosecute violations of the orders. Gov. Lee has pushed back saying, “Our executive orders have been clear, they’ve been legal, they’ve been constitutional and they’ve been put in place to protect Tennessee citizens."

Gov. Bill Lee announced today that all Tennessee inmates and correction staff will be tested for the novel coronavirus, the Tennessean reports. The move comes after more than half of the inmates and staff at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville tested positive for the virus, making it the third largest prison outbreak reported in the nation, according to The New York Times. Also today, Lee issued guidance to places of worship on how to return to in-person services during the COVID-19 pandemic, while urging them to continue remote services, according to U.S. News & World Report. On Wednesday, the governor announced mass testing for every resident and employee at a long-term health facility in the state, WATE reports.