Days before the start of the new legislative session, House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s chief of staff Scott Gilmer is stepping down, the Tennessean reports. A legislative employee since 2007, Gilmer has served as chief of staff to three House speakers including former Rep. Beth Harwell and Rep. Glen Casada. His resignation is effective today. He will join the Path Company as vice president for business development. Taking over for Gilmer on an interim basis will be Holt Whitt, who most recently served as the speaker’s director of legislation.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has declared she is cancer free, beating the disease for the fourth time after undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer this past summer, CNN reports. The 86-year-old justice, one of the oldest to serve on the court, offered the health update in an interview with the cable company this week. She previously fought lung cancer in 2018, pancreatic cancer in 2009 and colon cancer in 1999. Read the full interview.

Nashville’s Juvenile Court is making major management changes after four teens escaped from its detention center last year, Nashville Public Radio reports. The CEO of Youth Enterprise Investment, the company that runs the facility, and Davidson County Juvenile Court Judge Sheila Calloway told Metro Council members last night that they take responsibility for what happened and are working to tighten security. In a related story, News 4 reports that the city’s legal department is exploring whether to ask Youth Opportunity Investment to refund it for the costs of catching the escaped offenders. Nashville police say they spent $253,000 to catch the four.

Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, is stepping aside from his daily duties at the organization to launch CRC Advisors, a consulting firm that will fund conservative causes. One of firm’s initial projects will be a $10 million issue advocacy campaign to boost President Trump’s judicial picks, the ABA Journal reports. Leo will continue as board co-chair of the Federalist Society and says the new role is separate from his work with the society, which is nonpartisan.

The 2020 Report on the State of the Legal Market was released this week by Georgetown Law’s Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession and Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute, the ABA Journal reports. The report concludes that “revolutionary changes are afoot” in the legal services market and if law firms fail to take account of these changes, their future financial performance likely would be affected. Changes identified by the report include firms increasingly using nonlegal professionals for expertise on topics such as pricing, project management and technology; turning to alternative legal services providers for e-discovery, research, litigation support and document review; and investing in and using technology to improve legal work processes. The way clients interact with their legal counsel also is changing, the report says, with clients driving service providers to be more collaborative, adopt integrated technology platforms and deliver value-based pricing.

The State Comptroller’s Office has conducted an audit of Tennessee prisons and found more than a dozen policy breeches, the Tennessean reports. Among the audit’s findings, prison officials improperly reported and investigated allegations of sexual abuse; logged overdose, homicide and suicide deaths as natural deaths; failed to properly track offenders released on parole and probation; and failed to meet required staffing levels. The audit found these problems were widespread at both state-run and private prisons, and called for sweeping changes to policy and protocol.

Gov. Bill Lee says he’s hopeful the federal government will approve lump sum funding for the state's Medicaid program by this summer, the Tennessean reports. But he confirmed that officials have not given him a date yet. Tennessee filed a $7.9 billion block grant proposal with federal officials in November. If approved, state lawmakers would then have to vote on the final product. Lee said he is open to calling a special session of the legislature if one is needed.

Memphis lawyer Marie A. Washington received a censure from the Tennessee Supreme Court today. The court found that Washington violated a number of ethics rules, including failing to adequately communicate the terms of her fee agreement; applying to the court for payment of fees in excess of what was provided to her client; failing to notify the court she had been paid by her client for some of the fees included in her fee application; and failing to safeguard funds until the dispute with her former client was resolved. The court found that these acts violated Rules of Professional Conduct 1.4, 1.5, 1.15, 3.3 and 8.4(a)(c)(d).

Nashville lawyer Lewis Lyman Laska received a censure from the Tennessee Supreme Court today. The court found that Laska (1) improperly sought written discovery from non-parties through subpoena while representing himself in his own divorce proceeding; (2) informed one of the non-parties that they could face criminal action if they failed to properly respond to the subpoena; and (3) engaged in harassing conduct against the non-parties, which included a threat to file a disciplinary complaint against a non-party attorney to gain an advantage in his civil proceeding. The court found that these acts violated Rules of Professional Conduct 4.4(a)(1-2) and 8.4(a), (c) and (d).

West Tennessee Legal Services will hold its “Military Monday” legal clinic on Monday from 9 to 11 a.m. The event will take place at Starbucks, 2034 N. Highland Ave., Jackson 38305. The clinic provides general civil legal advice for U.S. veterans, military members and their families. For more information, call 800-372-8346. Then on Tuesday, Memphis Area Legal Services will hold its Vets Legal Clinic from noon to 2 p.m. at the Memphis Vet Center, 1407 Union Ave. Ste. 410, Memphis 38104.