East Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett has asked Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to monitor retail prices of powdered baby formula and investigate reports of profiteers stockpiling formula to gouge prices. Burchett said yesterday that the state has been hit “the hardest” by the shortages and that "leaders need to make sure anyone who takes advantage of this crisis for profit is held accountable,” WBIR reports. The nationwide formula shortage has led other states to respond. On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a public consumer alert warning people about price gouging, saying her office was aware of reports that baby formula was being sold online for prices "far exceeding its retail value."

Gov. Bill Lee signed legislation into law yesterday to create an Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee's Howard Baker Center for Public Policy. He was on the UT campus to participate in a forum and the signing ceremony, WATE reports. Lee said the institute will be guided by a bipartisan board of fellows who “share an appreciation for the American system and the unique degree of liberty and prosperity that it provides." UT System President Randy Boyd focused his remarks on the institute’s potential for encouraging civil debate. “The bill is all about bipartisanship. Bringing in both sides of each issue together to have a civil discussion about things that they may disagree on but be able to talk about it in a way that is respectful, open and transparent.” Funded at a cost of $6 million, the program eventually will employ 50 staff.

The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has stripped a Tennessee police captain of qualified immunity for the 2018 fatal shooting of a mentally ill man, Tennessee Lookout reports. The court said that Lawrenceburg Police Department Captain David Russ is not protected from a civil rights lawsuit because his use of deadly force against Randy Thomas Groom was excessive and unjustified. The court found that although Groom was armed with a knife, held at his side, he did not pose an imminent threat to Russ or anyone else. The decision reverses a ruling from U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr., who had dismissed the lawsuit.

Livestreaming of federal appellate court arguments could outlast the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal judiciary told U.S. lawmakers, with all but one circuit court indicating plans to at least consider keeping the practice going. Reuters reports that U.S. District Judge Roslynn Mauskopf, the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, said the judiciary is working to determine to what extent remote access to oral arguments should continue post-pandemic. Before March 2020, only the 9th and D.C. Circuits had regularly streamed oral arguments online.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP recently received the 2022 Pro Bono Leadership Award from the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands. The award was presented at the Nashville Bar Association’s Law Day Luncheon on May 6. The award recognizes firm leadership in pro bono service during the previous year. In 2021, the Nashville office volunteered 4,245 hours and launched a new clinic to provide accessible and affordable business-oriented services to Black-owned businesses and nonprofits. Bradley Pro Bono Counsel Tiffany M. Graves said the firm is proud of the recognition and congratulates the Nashville attorneys who contributed their time to pro bono service.

The TBA is hosting its Spring CLE Blast during the whole month of May! Whether you are catching up on CLE or starting to meet your 2022 requirements, our packages are designed with your convenience in mind. Choose from two CLE packages that you can watch on-demand from the comfort of your own home or office. Package 1 offers eight dual hours of credit while Package 2 offers seven hours. Earn 15 hours of CLE when you purchase both! Need to customize your learning? Visit cle.tba.org to access more than 250 on-demand programs. Whether you need one hour of CLE or 15, we have a curated list of options by hour, topic and practice area. And don't forget that all of your 2022 CLE can be taken through approved distance learning courses.

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw has denied Robbie Starbuck’s request for an injunction that would stop his official removal from the Republican primary ballot for the 5th Congressional District, Tennessee Journal reports. The Tennessee Republican Party removed Starbucks and fellow candidates Morgan Ortagus and Baxter Lee after finding the three did not meet Republican “bona fides.” In his order, Crenshaw wrote that the “Court may never know” why exactly Starbuck was removed from the ballot, but that he was not entitled to a preliminary injunction.

Baker Donelson has promoted Meagan Nebel as its first director of lateral recruiting and integration, the Nashville Post reports. Based in the Nashville office, Nebel will look outside of the firm to recruit new employees, working directly with external recruiting firms and others. She joins a team that includes the firm’s first chief growth officer, Mark Carlson, who works with firm leaders to identify potential law firm mergers and small groups of partners from other firms to bring on. "Growth is imperative to our strategy and the continued success of Baker Donelson," Carlson said in the release.

The Tennessee Supreme Court in December amended Rule 8, RPC 7.6 and deleted Rule 44 regarding intermediary organizations. In April, the Knoxville Bar Association requested the court clarify that neither the amendment nor the deletion alters Rule 8, RPC 5.4(a)(6), which allows an attorney to pay a non-profit intermediary organization “a referral fee calculated by reference to a reasonable percentage of the fee paid to the lawyer by the client referred to the lawyer by the intermediary organization.” The court granted the KBA’s request and today issued another amendment to the rules. Read the order.

Nashville firefighter Joshua Lipscomb has been suspended from his job without pay one month after he sued the department for violating his freedom of speech, WPLN reports.  Lipscomb, a comedian, is better known for his stage name and Twitter handle Josh Black. He was suspended last month for tweeting that Metro’s use of new license plate readers would lead to over-policing of Black and brown communities and referring to members of Metro Council as “white supremacists.” Lipscomb’s lawsuit says the department’s internal policies are “vague and overbroad” and that the three-person disciplinary panel receives no training or supervision. He was again suspended last week for taking sick leave without a doctor’s note and filed an amended complaint calling the latest suspension retaliation for his lawsuit. He is seeking compensation for nearly a month of lost pay and a declaration that these policies are unconstitutional.