Well-Being Week in Law kicks off today with an emphasis on physical well-being and staying strong. Goals include engaging in regular activity, adopting good diet and nutrition, getting enough sleep, limiting addictive substances, seeking help for physical health when needed and trying out a new physical activity. Get suggestions for implementing today's goals and inspire others by posting about your efforts with the hashtag #WellbeingWeekInLaw. Stay tuned for more well-being tips and resources throughout this week.

The Tennessee State High School Mock Trial Championship team from the University School of Nashville (USN) placed an impressive seventh place in a field of 48 teams at the National Mock Trial Championship held in Wilmington, Delaware, on May 3 and 4. USN defeated teams from Alabama, Connecticut and Wisconsin. Their one defeat came from the team from Pennsylvania, who went on to win the national championship. Margot Ross received a Top 10 Best Attorney Award, as well as the Best Defense Advocate Award at the Tennessee State competition in March. The team is coached by Nashville attorneys Ned Hildebrand with Dunham Hildebrand, Ben Raybin with Raybin & Weissman PC and Maureen Timoney Joyce. The team's faculty advisor is Wilson Hubbell.

St. Ives (aka St. Ivo) is recognized as one of the two “patron saints of lawyers” of the Catholic Church, the other being the better-known Sir Thomas More. Russell Fowler writes about the saint who led a life in the belief that faith and justice are intertwined.

TBA’s annual Big Shrimp legislative reception at the law firm of Spencer Fane followed TBA Day on the Hill, giving TBA leaders and members a chance to meet with legislators and their staff in a casual setting to continue conversations on topics important to the profession.

Linda Warren Seely, TBA's Access to Justice committee chair, reviews Ashley Wiltshire's Everyday Justice: A Legal Aid Story, which chronicles the creation of what we now know as Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands.

Tennessee Bar Association members who have died recently are memorialized.

Read about the lawyers who have recently been reinstated, disbarred, suspended, censured or transferred their licenses to disability inactive status.

In this Access to Justice-themed installment of The Legal Life, read updates on Legal Services Corporation funding, ABA and TBA Days on the Hills, progress on TBA's ATJ initiatives, as well as TBA updates, including an introduction to our new assistant executive director.

A number of lawyers have been reinstated to active or inactive status after being suspended for various administrative violations. They include 14 who had been suspended for CLE violations: 12 in 2023, one in 2022 and one in 2017; 14 who had not paid the professional privilege tax: 13 in 2023 and one in 2020; and 30 who had not paid the annual Board of Professional Responsibility fee: six in 2024, 15 in 2023, three in 2022, two in 2021, one in 2020, one in 2019, one in 2018 and one in 2009. See updated lists at the links above.

The Defendant, Benjamin L. Bradford, was convicted by a Gibson County Circuit Court jury of first degree premeditated murder, first degree murder in the perpetration of theft, and destroying, tampering, or fabricating evidence. See T.C.A. §§ 39-13-202(a)(1)-(2) (first degree murder) (2018) (subsequently amended), 39-16-503 (2018) (destroying, tampering with, or fabricating evidence). The jury imposed a sentence of life without parole for each of the first degree murder convictions and merged the judgments. The trial court imposed a fifteen-year sentence for destroying, tampering, or fabricating evidence, to be served consecutively to the life-without-parole sentence. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions. We affirm the judgments of the trial court.