A Celebration of Life service for former Judge R. Leon Jordan will be held June 28 at 10 a.m. CDT in the Howard Baker Jr. Courthouse, 800 Market St., Knoxville 37902. Jordan was confirmed to the federal bench in 1988 and served as senior U.S. district judge from 2001 until late 2023. He died in February at age 89.

Financial disclosures for 2023 from eight of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices were released today. Justice Clarence Thomas listed luxury travel paid for by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Brett Kavanaugh reported six-figure advances on book deals. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor reported royalty income from their books of $250,000 and nearly $90,000, respectively. Jackson also reported the gift of four Beyonce concert tickets, from Queen Bey herself, valued at more than $900 each. The Associated Press and The Hill have more on the disclosures, which include rental properties, teaching fees and artwork.

State Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain, and Rep. Greg Vital, R-Harrison, co-sponsored an appropriation request in Gov. Bill Lee's $52.8 billion budget to secure $200,000 in state funding to support the McNabb Center. The Hamilton County Herald reports that the funds will allow the center to expand into Chattanooga and provide outpatient mental health services for military service members, veterans and their families in southeast Tennessee. “The McNabb Center provides vital mental health resources to those who have served our nation,” Hazlewood says. “This funding will ensure these potentially life-saving services are available to these heroes in Hamilton County.”

A new episode of the NashVillager Podcast from Nashville Public Radio highlights the Tennessee Supreme Court and how it works. Listen to it here.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Tuesday released its annual report on hate and extremism, reports the Tennessee Lookout. The report, which has been published since 1990, found a record increase in white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ+ groups in the United States last year, documenting 835 active antigovernment groups, up 133 from 2022’s count, and 595 hate groups, an increase of 72 over the previous year’s figure. The report also found that Christian "dominionism" and antisemitism are on the rise. One area in which the report documented a decline is in the militia movement, which diminished after hundreds of prosecutions following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) has announced the hiring of Justin Bailey as general counsel. Bailey was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee from September 2008 to October 2013. He then spent four years as litigation counsel for International Paper, before joining FedEx Freight as a senior attorney in June 2017. In December 2020, he was named senior counsel at FedEx Freight. In April 2022, he was made associate general counsel of compliance at Varsity Spirit. The Commercial Appeal has more.

In October 2023, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s administration announced that the Office of Community Safety had been awarded a nearly $2 million Department of Justice grant to develop a “Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative.” With three years of funding, the initiative would “take a public health, community-focused approach to address the root causes of violence in Nashville’s most vulnerable neighborhoods.” Nearly eight months later, and as Nashville enters the historically violence-prone summer, the project is still in its early stages and has made little progress, according to The Nashville Banner.

According to new data from the Department of Labor, the U.S. economy added 272,000 jobs in May, and the unemployment rate rose slightly up to 4%, reports The Hill. Economists had predicted an additional 185,000 jobs and maintaining April's 3.9% unemployment rate. The Federal Reserve will vote next week on interest rates. The central bank has maintained rates at a range of 5.25% to 5.5% since July 2023 in an effort to curb inflation, which fell to 3.4% in April from its 40-year high of 9.1% in June of 2022. “After a lower-than-expected April jobs report, the labor market bounced back, revealing its ongoing strength,” Joe Gaffoglio, president of Mutual of America Capital Management, said in a statement.

Join your colleagues in Memphis June 12-15 for the TBA's Annual Convention, the largest annual gathering of the Tennessee legal community. This year’s convention theme “A Bridge to the Future” reflects the historic role lawyers play in society, while looking ahead to how technology will affect the legal profession for years to come. Online registration for the TBA's Annual Convention closes at 11:59 p.m. CDT on June 9. Only on-site registrations will be accepted after that point. There are a limited number of hotel rooms available in the room block.

Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning book and Academy Award winning movie "To Kill a Mockingbird" has rekindled interest in the role lawyers play in leading their communities. This highly interactive three part series, taught by Doug Blaze and Buck Lewis — founders of the Institute for Professional Leadership at UT Law — will examine the lynching scene on the porch of the jail, the trial and the final scene on the Finch porch after an attempt on the Finch children’s lives. Sessions will take place virtually on July 31, Aug. 28 and Sept. 19. The full program qualifies for 4.5 dual hours of CLE. Register online for Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.