Republican Rusty Grills won the special election last week to fill the vacant House District 77 seat in West Tennessee, the Nashville Post reports. Grills, a Dyer County Commissioner, will be sworn in when the legislature returns in January. He will succeed Republican Bill Sanderson, who stepped down in September to focus on his family and wine business. Grills won 85% of the vote, beating Democrat Michael Smith and several independent candidates.

Retired U.S. District Court Judge John Trice Nixon died last Thursday in California. He was 86. Nixon earned his law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1960 and worked in private practice and then as city attorney in Anniston, Alabama. He later joined the U.S. Department of Justice as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division. He returned to Tennessee to serve as staff attorney with the state comptroller, as a circuit court judge and as a general sessions judge. In 1980, Nixon was named to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee by President Jimmy Carter. He served as the court’s chief judge for seven years and took senior status in 1998. He assumed inactive senior status in 2016. Funeral arrangements are pending. The Tennessean has more on his life.

The Tennessee Bar Association will be closing at 1 p.m. CST tomorrow. The office also will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday for the Christmas holiday and there will be no TBA Today issues published on those days. The office will re-open on Friday at 8 a.m.

Memphis Area Legal Services will hold its Attorney of the Day Clinic this Thursday from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Volunteer attorneys will be in Room 134 of the Judge D’Army Bailey Shelby County Courthouse, 140 Adams Ave., to meet with pro se litigants and provide advice, counsel and referrals. Clients are seen on a first-come first-serve basis.

The TBA Environmental Law Section will hold its annual forum on Jan. 17 at the Tennessee Bar Center. The program will present timely updates on legal issues involving the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Gallatin Fossil Plant lawsuit, the recent Volkswagen settlement, ethics in environmental law and more. You do not want to miss this opportunity to learn from seasoned practitioners while networking with top players in the field.

So sorry to start this year off on a down note, but statistics will back me up on this: if you are reading this magazine a week or two into the year, you have probably already given up on your New Year’s resolution. According to HealthFacts.org, studies have found that only 8% of people keep their New Year’s resolutions. Why is that?

As a family law attorney and litigator, I’ve repeatedly engaged the services of forensic accountants as expert witnesses and as professional consultants in high asset cases. Like most of my attorney peers, I’m not an accountant, and until I read Miles Mason’s book cover to cover, I was perfectly happy to be in the dark when it came to arcane concepts like ERISA law, QDROs and vertical analysis.

People and businesses have attempted to avoid responsibility for wrongful acts for all recorded history. Adam blamed Eve.¹ Eve blamed the serpent.² The Nuremberg defense is frequently offered as an explanation or rationalization for misconduct in both the government and private sectors.³

People and businesses have attempted to avoid responsibility for wrongful acts for all recorded history. Adam blamed Eve.¹ Eve blamed the serpent.² The Nuremberg defense is frequently offered as an explanation or rationalization for misconduct in both the government and private sectors.³

The Tennessee Code provides, as an alternative to divorce, that parties may enter into a legal separation agreement. Specifically, the Code states “[a] party who alleges grounds for divorce from the bonds of matrimony may, as an alternative to filing a complaint for divorce, file a complaint for legal separation. Such complain shall set forth the grounds for legal separation in substantially the language of § 36-4-101 and pray only for legal separation or for such other and further relief to which complainant may think to be entitled.”¹