TBA's Law Firm in a Box offers insight on artificial intelligence (AI) for lawyers. See white papers on "Vetting AI for Attorneys" and "VR, AR, and AI in a Real Law Firm." These, and other tech and law practice tips, are part of a collection of hundreds of resources available to TBA members. Check them out in the Law Firm in a Box's Technology Section.

As your TBA Law Office Technology & Management Section chair, it is my privilege to thank you all for your past and continued support of our section. In 2023, the Law Tech Section held its annual forum virtually and touched on important topics to include using technology to advance your practice, what role ChatGPT AI will play in legal document creation, a deep dive into remote ADR and the ever-popular "Bill & Phil Show" with Bill Ramsey and Phillip Hampton.

For this year’s programming, we have worked hard to bring quality Law Tech programming to various regions of Tennessee and started our Law Tech Lunch & Learn Series in December 2023. The series has held in-person seminars in Nashville, seeing the return of the “Bill & Phil Show,” and in Knoxville, covering best practices for attorney cybersecurity and guiding clients through a cybersecurity attack. The section most recently held a live, virtual webcast this month, "Harnessing ChatGPT and Generative AI in Your Law Practice," which features Memphis attorneys Lucian Pera, Zack Glaser and Greg Siskind. Big thanks to our outstanding speakers, hosts, TBA Staff members and all the attendees that made our programming such a success.

On behalf of our executive council, thank you for being a part of our section. We are actively seeking recommendations for future programming and speakers. If you have thoughts or ideas for future section initiatives, please do not hesitate to contact me.

— Jamie Durrett, TBA Law Tech Section Chair

Thank you for your support of the Disability Law Section this bar year! It’s been a busy year, led by section Chair Robyn Ryan. In October, the section held its yearly forum in person for the first time since 2019 at the Bluegrass Yacht & Country Club in Hendersonville. The event featured a course focused on preparing a successful GRID case, a conversation with a vocational expert, a DDS/OHO update and an ethics course designed to help you "un-stick" stuck cases. These sessions were led by Disability Law Section members, including Robyn Ryan, Emma Webb, Forrest Jackson and Chris George. If you missed the event, no worries, the sessions are available on demand in our TBA CLE catalog. You also can connect with section members at one of our roundtables that take place periodically throughout the bar year. The next one is scheduled for May 23, where we will discuss some of the highlights from the NOSSCR conference. RSVP here!

Thank you for being part of the Disability Law Section. If you have thoughts or ideas for future section initiatives, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Memphis attorney William Michael "Mike" Richards, age 77, died on March 12 after a long illness. Following his graduation with distinction from Rhodes College (then Southwestern), he obtained his law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School. He practiced law for 50 years at the Memphis law firm Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC. Richards served as vice president of the Tennessee Bar Association and president of the Memphis Bar Association Young Lawyers Division. Services were held March 19 at the Lord’s Chapel, located on the grounds of Elmwood Cemetery, 824 S Dudley St, Memphis 38104. Memorials can be made to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

On-demand videos from this year's Construction Law Forum are now available for purchase in the CLE Course Catalog. Topics covered include contracts, dispute resolution, liens, the Prompt Pay Act, ethical considerations for each of these topics, and a legislative update. As a member of the TBA Construction Law Section, you always will receive a discount on CLE programming produced by the section.

Check out the individual videos or purchase the convenient 1-click CLE package. 

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and the Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon joined other mayors across the country to proclaim March 4-8, 2024, "Divorce With Respect Week.”[1] These mayors recognized that choosing an out-of-court divorce process is better for families and helps to transform the way families resolve conflicts by engaging in “problem-solving” rather than “positional” negotiations.[2] Over 500 professionals (attorneys, mental health and financial) throughout the country participated in offering free 30-minute consultation sessions with individuals asking about the process to untie the knot.[3]

The nationwide effort educated the public about the collaborative divorce process as an alternative to mediation and litigation for those couples who want to divorce in a civil, respectful and fair manner.[4] The collaborative divorce process involves professionals with experience and knowledge in specific disciplines to help the parties obtain a successful outcome on all levels of legal, financial, emotional and parenting, without the threat of litigation.[5]

The process begins with the parties and lawyers entering into a contract entitled the “Participation Agreement.” In Tennessee, the agreement must contain these three provisions: 1) the parties forgo seeking the intervention of the court in the collaborative family matter while the parties are using the collaborative process, 2) the parties jointly engage any professionals, experts or advisors serving in a neutral capacity, and 3) the lawyers must withdraw from the case if one or both of the parties choose to terminate the collaborative process and moves the matter into litigation.[6] Additionally, the process in Tennessee requires that both parties make timely, full, candid and informal disclosure of information related to the collaborative family law matter without formal discovery, and update the information that has materially changed and/or becomes available.[7] During the process, the parties must sign a joint sworn complete financial statement with statements that are not filed with the court but retained by the parties and counsel. The Collaborative Divorce process is the only alternate dispute resolution option in Tennessee that requires complete financial disclosure before signing any settlement agreement.[8] This collaborative divorce process allows couples the ability to maintain privacy and confidentiality and control the process. The parties choose their own collaboratively trained attorneys and jointly hire the neutral professionals needed for their case. Through a multidisciplinary team approach, the couple can make creative and educated decisions about their future.[9]  

The multidisciplinary team includes two collaborative attorneys, a mental health neutral (child specialist if children are involved) and a financial neutral. The collaborative attorney provides honest, voluntary and good faith disclosure of information, disqualifies themselves and their firm if either party chooses to terminate the process and move into litigation, and commits to strive for solutions considering all the family members’ interests. The mental health neutral or divorce coach meets with the parties individually, determines whether they each need their mental health professional, helps educate the parties in communicating and managing emotions, facilitates the four-way meetings, and helps the team understand each other. Their role is not therapeutic but to identify emotionally charged issues and educate the attorneys about those difficult issues. If children are involved, sometimes, a child specialist is part of the team to articulate the needs and concerns of the children and help formulate parenting plans. The financial neutral oversees the data collection for financial disclosures, runs projections with the parties and makes unbiased assessments of their options.[10]

The collaborative divorce process is not for everyone, especially in cases involving a strong history of domestic abuse, mental illness, substance abuse or complete inability to communicate or trust the other party.[11] However, where the parties are emotionally intelligent, display empathy, and want to save time and money, lawyers should counsel them on the collaborative divorce process. Those lawyers who spend the time to be trained collaborators, and who want to engage in a paradigm shift from being in charge to helping clients find solutions that work well for the entire family, will see problem-solving at its finest and sound results for the family.[12] Collaborative lawyers who handle collaborative cases have more job satisfaction, less stress, greater client satisfaction and no accounts receivable.[13] So get trained as a Collaborative Divorce Lawyer, join a collaborative practice group in your area and plan to be part of the nationwide effort at next year’s Divorce With Respect Week.

You might think your voice will not make a difference, but think again. Over the years, a small group of judges and lawyers who cared about the state of the law in family cases wanted to change the laws. We encourage you to get involved in the section where you practice because you may not realize that a few people can impact and improve the laws.

Each section of the TBA has an executive committee or council. The Family Law Section is unique because it had an executive council and a “Code Commission.”  The Code Commission, formed in the early 1990s, was comprised of law professors, judges and lawyers who saw the need to change the status quo and be proactive with family law legislation. The members practiced throughout the state and were dedicated to meeting once every other month on Sunday afternoons at the TBA headquarters, then a house on West End Avenue, to discuss, deliberate and draft legislation for the TBA to consider. The members arrived around lunchtime with their codes, treatises and relevant research to spend three hours discussing the family law trends of the country, statutes of other states and how to improve the family law statutes in our state.

The Code Commission was initially formed under the leadership of the TBA president, and some of the original members included attorney Mary Frances Lyle, Judge Jim Martin, Judge Don Ash, Judge Connie Clark, Jean Crowe, professor Janet Richards, Amy J. Amundsen, Sarah Sheppeard and Jocie Wurzburg. Attorney Mary Francis Lyle was chair and would report the Code Commission’s proposed legislation or comments on bills to the Family Law Section Executive Council. After the executive council discussed and voted on the proposals, they were provided to the TBA leadership and the TBA lobbyist, Steve Cobb. Some of the significant pieces of family law legislation passed in the last 30 years have been attributed to the hard work of the Code Commission.

The members of the Code Commission saw a need to reduce costs to the litigants, reduce the judge’s time devoted to ex parte injunctions and reduce the level of animosity between two highly charged parties. Before 2001, practitioners who filed a complaint for divorce for their clients had to file for ex parte injunctive relief and recite in the complaint the “bad acts” of the other party, which heightened the level of animosity between the parties. The party then addressed the court with a request that the other party should not, in part, dissipate marital assets, threaten their spouse or make disparaging remarks about them in front of the children or to their employer, relocate out of state with the child during the pending of the divorce or drop them from insurance policies. After studying the statutes of other states, this group drafted what is known as the “Temporary Mutual Injunction.”[1] The statute has been updated to include hiding, destroying or spoiling any evidence electronically stored, and discussions are ongoing to expand the temporary injunctions consistent with new technologies and actions of the parties.[2]

When interest groups such as the Dads Against Discrimination (DADs) advocated for the presumption of joint custody, Circuit Court Judge Don Ash testified before the legislature against the presumption of joint custody. Judge Ash was writing his thesis on parenting plans modeled after the Washington state statutes. Through efforts of the Code Commission and others, the legislature adopted the “Parenting Plan” statute after a one-year pilot project.[3] The Parenting Plan and its requirements offer a different approach to dispute resolution in child custody and visitation matters.[4]

When companies offered their employees new financial products and those employees divorced, there was little guidance on classifying, valuing and distributing those assets. The Code Commission members reviewed the laws and cases in other states and drafted amendments to enlarge the definition of marital property to include stock options, whether vested and unvested, retirement benefits, and other employment-related benefits that accrued during the marriage.[5] The group clarified the definition of substantial contributions by a spouse to the separate assets of the other spouse to provide a roadmap for practitioners and judges when deciding these issues and drafted language consistent with case law on the dissipation of assets.[6]

Mary Francis Lyle and the late professor Janet Richards lobbied the Code Commission to add transitional alimony, the support awarded when the spouse did not need to be rehabilitated but needed financial assistance to transition from being married to a single life. From their efforts and those of the Code Commission, a fourth type of alimony was available for the courts to consider when determining the issue of alimony, along with a new alimony statute that clearly defined each type, duration, modifiability and other facets.[7] This statute reiterated that a homemaker or parent is of equal dignity and importance as economic contributions to the marriage, explained the need for a comparable standard of living post-divorce, and clearly defined the four types of alimony.[8]

This group drafted the Parental Relocation statute[9], which was enacted because custodial parents were moving out of state with their children, and the law at that time permitted them to relocate with their child without determining whether the other parent had substantial involvement in the child’s life. This Parental Relocation statute provided guidance to the parents and courts on the standards and burdens of proof needed to oppose a relocation with the child by the custodial parent. However, in 2018, the statute was amended not to consider the parents' involvement before the court determines whether the move is in the child’s best interest.[10]

After Lyle’s retirement, attorney Jeffrey Levy became the chair of the Code Commission, and further developments occurred, including addressing the mental health records of parents going through a divorce. Through the efforts of the Code Commission, the group proposed language to amend the custody statute to provide guidance on the request of Rule 35 mental evaluation, the release of mental health records during a custody case, and the dissemination of the records through a protective order.[11]

After Levy retired, attorney Jason Hicks became the chair of the Code Commission. In 2020, the Code Commission was dismantled, and the Family Law Section Executive Council (EC) absorbed its duties. Attorney Siew Ling Shea is the legislative liaison between the EC and the TBA, specifically, the association's government affairs team of Ashley Harbin, Brad Lampley and Berkley Schwartz. The EC is comprised of judges and lawyers, and the council meets virtually once or twice a month to assist the team with bills filed in the legislature and, at times, provide proposed legislation for the TBA leadership to consider. 

In 2021, the EC drafted property and alimony statute amendments. Its members saw a need to provide the courts with guidance and flexibility in allocating responsibility for paying marital debt, including attorney’s fees and expenses incurred in a divorce proceeding. By codifying the factors used to distribute marital debt enunciated in the Tennessee Supreme Court case, defining marital debt and separate debt, and codifying the factors provided in the Tennessee Supreme Court Rule in awarding attorney fees and suit expenses in divorce cases, litigants now realize that even when they are separated, the debts incurred, including their attorney’s fees and suit expenses, are marital and seeking attorney’s fees will require added measures.[12] The amendments require litigants to divulge the amount paid in fees, sources of fees, reasonableness and necessity of fees as an additional factor for the court in distributing property and in awarding attorney’s fees and suit expenses.[13]

The Code Commission and now the EC are asked to comment on many bills and rules related to family law. Throughout the years, the Code Commission and EC have remarked on the original child support guidelines and its amendments, grandparent visitation statute, Rule 40A, and more recently, pet custody legislation and the deregulation of the licensing requirement of court reporters.

We would appreciate your involvement and input. Getting involved builds networking opportunities and enhances your legal skills and knowledge. Reach out to Section Chair Lisa Gill to volunteer and help to improve the practice. The Family Law Section also needs volunteers to research, write and continue to publish the Alimony Bench Book, a treatise in existence for 22 years; write articles for the Family Law Connect e-newsletter; review bills, research other states’ statutes and case law and draft legislation; and educate the public and legislature about specific areas of the law. Many more hands and minds may help us accomplish more. No matter what practice area you are involved in, TBA sections are essential to improving law practice in Tennessee. Your voice and actions can make a difference!

Amy J. Amundsen is an experienced family law litigator, and now provides attorneys with virtual legal and business consulting services. She also offers mentoring and coaching for attorneys to enhance their legal career, as well as office management services.  

Amundsen has a virtual collaborative divorce practice and is a member of the Memphis Collaborative Alliance (MCA) and the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP). With her many years of experience litigating and working with professionals from other disciplines, she provides her collaborative clients insightful advice and recommendations to meet their interests. She is a diplomate in the American College of Family Trial Lawyers (ACFTL), an organization limited to the top 100 divorce lawyers in the U.S., and is a fellow in both the International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL) and American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML). Amundsen serves on the Tennessee Bar Association Family Law Section Executive Council where she assists in drafting family law legislation and from 2001-2021 assisted in the annual publication of the Tennessee Bar Association Alimony Bench Book distributed to Tennessee judges and lawyers.

She also is a Rule 31 family law mediator and a family law arbitrator, trained through the AAML. Amundsen currently serves as co-chair of the AAML Arbitration Committee and member of the AAML Continuing Legal Education, Legislation, and Collaborative and Mediation committees. She has served as the president of the following organizations: Memphis Bar Association, Leo Bearman Sr. American Inn of Court, The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law Alumni Chapter, and Tennessee and Memphis Bar Association Family Law sections (two terms). She also has served as chair of the Memphis Area Legal Services Campaign and the 2019 University of Memphis Law Pillars of Excellence.

Judge James G. Martin III served two terms as 21st Judicial District Circuit Court Judge in Williamson County, Tennessee. Prior to taking the bench, Martin graduated with honors from Vanderbilt University in 1971 after a distinguished undergraduate career and service in the United States Army.  Martin then practiced law in middle Tennessee from 1974 to 2008, primarily focusing on civil litigation with an emphasis on family law.  

While sitting as judge in Williamson County, Martin continued to serve his community through work on several task forces with the Tennessee Bar Association and the state of Tennessee. Notably, he worked to revise the statutes and rules that govern the practice marriage and family law. He also served as presiding judge for the 21st Judicial District Recovery Court from 2014-2022. Since returning to private practice, Martin has resumed his focus on general civil and family law matters and has established a strong mediation practice as a Licensed Rule 31 Mediator.

The Lawyers' Association for Women - Marion Griffin Chapter will hold its Annual Meeting and Awards Banquet on April 11 from 6-8 p.m. CDT at the Music City Center in Nashville. Click here for more information and to register.

Sullivan County lawyer Nicholas C. Cooper was reinstated to the practice of law recently after being on inactive status for more than five years. The Tennessee Supreme Court notes that Cooper was placed on inactive status on May 3, 2011. The Board of Professional Responsibility found the reinstatement petition to be satisfactory and recommended the court approve it. Cooper was reinstated as of March 12.

The Petitioner, Patrick Marshall, appeals the Lake County Circuit Court’s summary dismissal of his petition for writ of habeas corpus relief. Based on our review, we affirm the summary dismissal of the petition.