We hope to see you on Oct. 18 for the TBA Creditors Practice Annual Forum in Nashville! We have a stellar lineup of speakers and topics for this year's program. The day will begin with a hot-topic presentation by Zack Glaser on artificial intelligence (AI) and its advantages, limitations and ethical considerations within the legal sphere. He will discuss specific use cases for LLMs, AI and machine learning in the creditors rights industry, including document management, litigation analysis, e-discovery and general productivity. Dan Puryear will present on charging orders and theories of successor liability, and Walt Winchester and David Anthony will follow with a session discussing the use of contractual and statutory liens to increase likelihood of payment. The day will end with a presentation by Griffin Dunham and Gray Waldron providing tips that debtors' lawyers don't want creditors to know. There will be a networking reception immediately following the program offering wine, beer, soft drinks, snacks and more. 

Reserve your spot by registering today.

The Tennessee Supreme Court suspended 18 attorneys on Monday 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 2023 or access all administrative suspensions dating back to 2005.

The TBA's Affinity Consulting Webcast Series will offer three CLE programs this fall on the subjects of digital signatures, document management and retention, and client data. On Sept. 14, Jeff Schoenberger will host a seminar on Digital Signatures. On Oct. 11, Paul Unger will speak on a common-sense and ethical approach to Document Management and Retention. And on Nov. 14, Danielle DavisRoe will discuss Client Data and how to create fillable PDFs and questionnaires. Visit each program webpage for registration and more info or visit the TBA's online CLE Course Catalog to explore other offerings.

The Tennessee Supreme Court issued an order yesterday conditioning reinstatement of Rhea County lawyer Lee R. Thurman on completion of required CLE hours. Thurman filed a petition on Aug. 23 seeking reinstatement of his law license. The Board of Professional Responsibility reported it was not opposed to reinstatement but the Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education reported that Thurman was not compliant with CLE requirements. The court gave Thurman until Oct. 12 to satisfy those obligations or said it would dismiss his petition.

The Tennessee General Assembly adjourned sine die after reaching an agreement with Gov. Bill Lee to pass three bills aimed at public safety, the Tennessean reports. Before adjourning the special session, the Senate agreed to a House amendment requiring local courts to update records in the state’s background check database within 72 hours, a House amendment funding the Department of Safety’s ad campaign on gun safety and a House amendment for mental health workers. Republican and Democrats expressed frustration that the session is over. “I’m very disappointed that we didn’t get more done in this special session,” said House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland. “In the House, we had a lot of bills that got left on the table that I hope will still be taken back up in January to help families in Tennessee be safer.” House Minority Leader Karen Camper, D-Memphis, said, “People expected us to do something to make the public safer. We did nothing.”

Tensions between Republicans and Democrats were apparent after adjournment Tuesday afternoon, leading to confusion and shoving on the chamber floor. As House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, attempted to leave, Reps. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, and Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, confronted Sexton at the speaker's dais, holding handmade signs as the speaker exited the chamber. In related news, Davidson County Chancellor Anne C. Martin ruled Monday afternoon that recent House rules banning signs from the chamber's galleries and committee rooms will remain blocked, saying that the plaintiffs had shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims the new rule violated the First Amendment. The General Assembly will reconvene on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024.

Two lawyers recently were reinstated to the practice of law in Tennessee after being on inactive status. They are: Montgomery County lawyer Dillon E. Barker and Shelby County lawyer Zipporah Williams. Read about their specific cases in the Tennessee Supreme Court orders linked above.

NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judge. Officers arrested T’Shaun Jones, who had been on supervised release, after he fired shots outside his house and fled inside. Under a plea agreement, the district court imposed the agreed-upon ten-year sentence, which was above the Guidelines range. Separately, Jones faced resentencing on his supervised release because the firearm offense violated his supervised-release conditions. A different district court imposed a 24-month sentence for this violation—half to run concurrently with his firearm conviction and half to run consecutively.

Jones challenges both the ten-year firearm sentence and the 24-month supervised-release sentence. Because the district courts properly calculated Jones’s Guidelines range for the firearm offense and imposed a reasonable sentence for the supervised-release violation, we AFFIRM.

Over the last several days, the Tennessee Supreme Court has reinstated 13 lawyers who had been suspended for failing to complete annual continuing legal education requirements in 2022. View the Aug. 25 order, the Aug. 28 order and Aug. 29 order or see the list of all those reinstated online.

A new study at the University of Minnesota found that low-performing law students scored 45% higher on final exams when given access to artificial intelligence, reports Reuters. Researchers compared the final exam scores of 48 students in two courses: Introduction to American Law and Legal Reasoning and Insurance Law. The students first took the final without AI, then took a different final using GPT-4, the latest large language model from Open AI. They found that GPT-4, which produces human-like text based on user prompts, vastly improved student performance on multiple-choice questions. Higher performing student scores were about 20% lower when using GPT-4. The use of GPT-4 did not improve essay scores in either group.

SILER, Circuit Judge. This matter comes before us on remand from the Supreme Court of the United States. All four Defendants were found guilty of maintaining a drug-involved premises. Sylvia Hofstetter was also found guilty of conspiring to distribute controlled substances, distributing controlled substances, and money laundering.

After we affirmed the convictions, the Supreme Court decided Ruan v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2370, 2375 (2022), clarifying the applicable mens rea for an unlawful distribution charge, and remanded the case. Defendants now argue that the district court erred regarding the jury instructions for the maintaining-a-drug-involved-premises charge, and Hofstetter further argues the district court erred as to the instructions for her distribution-of-a-controlled-substance and conspiracy-to-distribute-and-dispense-controlled-substances charges.

Defendants’ arguments are unavailing. The district court’s instructions were not plainly erroneous regarding the maintaining-a-drug-involved-premises and conspiracy-to-distribute-and-dispense-controlled-substances charges. Moreover, Hofstetter’s argument regarding the instruction for the distribution-of-a-controlled-substance charge is foreclosed by United States v. Anderson, 67 F.4th 755 (6th Cir. 2023) (per curiam). We affirm.