The 17th Annual Napier-Looby Bar Foundation (NLBF) Barristers’ Banquet and Awards Program was held yesterday in Nashville. The annual event honors distinguished attorneys and judges and supports NLBF's law school scholarships and charitable efforts throughout the year. Awards were presented to Chancellor Russell Perkins, who received the Alexander Looby Lifetime Achievement Award; Dannelle F.W. Whiteside, vice president for legal affairs and organizational strategy at Austin Peay State University, who received the J.C. Napier Trailblazer Award; and Davidson County General Sessions Court Judge Marcus Floyd, who was presented the Justice A.A. Birch Outstanding Service Award. The late Judge Richard H. Dinkins was honored at a reception immediately preceding the banquet. See a photo from the event.

TBA’s Legislative Updates podcast is new with TBA lobbyist Berkley Schwarz and Adams and Reese attorneys and TBA lobbyists, Brad Lampley and Ashley Harbin. This week they discuss HB1804/SB1690 which establishes a presumption of joint custody; HB2710/SB2254, the TBA conservatorship bill; and HB2644/SB2633, which cleans up some current laws relating to adoption and foster parents. Legislative Updates airs each week on the TBA’s Facebook page. It is also released as a podcast on the same day and can be found on the TBA’s website or wherever you listen to podcasts.

To commemorate Black History Month, Judge Curtis Collier, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and three of his law clerks — Carrie Brown Stefaniak, Erienne Reniajal Lewis and Rachel Elaine Noveroske — wrote an op-ed for the Chattanooga Times Free Press highlighting historical cases that demonstrate some of the ways African American history is inextricably intertwined with American legal history. 

Memphis Area Legal Services Inc. (MALS) has announced that retired judge Loyce Lambert Ryan has joined the organization as interim executive director following Cindy Ettingoff's departure. Lambert Ryan served as a Shelby County General Sessions Criminal Court judge for over 20 years, retiring in 2022. MALS has also appointed Gortria C. Banks as chief operating officer. Banks joined MALS in August 2023 after serving as associate executive director of the Community Legal Center. Banks is a graduate of the University of Memphis and a retiree of Shelby County Government. Read the full press release.

The Tennessee Supreme Court on Feb. 23 suspended 24 attorneys for failure to pay the annual registration fee; 10 of them also failed to file proof that client funds are held in an IOLTA-compliant account. View the fee suspension order and IOLTA suspension order. See the list of all lawyers suspended and reinstated for fee and IOLTA violations in 2024 or access all administrative suspensions dating back to 2005.

The American Bar Association yesterday declined to grant full approval to JD-Next, rejecting a proposal to put the alternative law school admissions program on par with the LSAT and the GRE, reports Reuters. The ABA's Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar instead approved a recommendation from its standards committee that the program should not yet be deemed a "valid and reliable" predictor of an applicant's law school grades. Daniel Thies, chair of the standards committee, noted that "more data and more study be gathered" before deciding whether the JD-Next program meets the standard. An ABA-commissioned report found the exam "cannot be evaluated with the present data."

The federal Department of Education Department yesterday zeroed out loan balances for nearly 153,000 borrowers, who borrowed $12,000 or less, have been paying their student loans for at least 10 years and enrolled in the Biden administration's Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan which launched last summer, National Public Radio reports. Republican lawmakers have tried to stop the SAVE plan, arguing it is outside of the administration's authority and criticizing the president for campaigning for votes with the new policy. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the administration is "using the negotiated rulemaking process [under the Higher Education Act of 1965] to come up with a debt relief plan that will positively impact Americans and give them an opportunity to get back on their feet." 

Memphis attorney Jennifer L. Sneed will serve as the Tennessee Bar Association Young Lawyers Division (YLD) president in 2026-2027. Her election was uncontested. After taking office as vice president at this summer's TBA Convention, she will become president-elect in 2025-2026 and then take over the YLD's leadership in June of 2026. Sneed has served as West Tennessee Governor for the YLD for the past two years. She earned her law degree from The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law and serves as the director for legal/estates for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital — ALSAC. She has been recognized at the local, regional and national levels, and currently serves as a board member of the Ben F. Jones Chapter of the National Bar Association, the Community Legal Center and REACH Memphis college preparatory organization.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has named Jonathan Mayer as its first official focused on artificial intelligence (AI) as the department grapples with the potentially transformative affects of AI on federal law enforcement and the criminal justice system, Reuters reports. Mayer is a professor at Princeton University who researches technology and law and will advise Attorney General Merrick Garland and DOJ leadership on issues related to emerging technologies, including how to responsibly integrate AI into the department’s investigations and criminal prosecutions.

The Petitioner, Joseph Floyd, appeals from the denial of his petition seeking postconviction relief from his convictions of driving under the influence (two counts) and reckless driving. He received an effective sentence of eleven months and twenty-nine days, which was suspended after service of seven days. In this appeal, the Petitioner argues that trial counsel was ineffective in failing to call his ex-girlfriend as a witness at trial and claims she would have established that the Petitioner was not the driver at the time of the offense. The Petitioner also argues the post-conviction court erred in denying relief because the court initially “advised [the Petitioner] that it would accept an affidavit of [his exgirlfriend] as a substitute for live testimony” and later denied the Petitioner relief for failure to produce witnesses at the evidentiary hearing. Upon our review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.