Belmont University College of Law has announced the winner of its third annual Legal Fiction Workshop. This year’s winning entry is “An Uncomfortable Familiarity” written by Ally Hicks, a 3L student at the school. The piece follows an attorney as she navigates a complicated case that brings up traumatic memories. The winning entry was selected by an outside community reader, Nashville lawyer Wendy Harkness, through an anonymized review process. Harkness said that “from the first sentence, the imagery grabbed the reader’s attention and held it through the tale's satisfying end” and that the story “adeptly captured the very real compromising situations in which attorneys occasionally find themselves.” The writing workshop is conducted over the spring semester as an extracurricular activity for a limited number of 2L and 3L students, and is taught by Professor Kristi Arth.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and Healthline.com has a new Mental Well-Being Hub to provide holistic, actionable and useful resources for those looking to achieve their mental health goals. Among the many organizations that have resources for the month are the National Council for Mental Health, National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Anxiety & Depression Association of America. 

Legal Aid of East Tennessee (LAET) is seeking a full-time staff attorney for its Cleveland or Chattanooga office. This is an entry level position with the ideal candidate having three years of experience or less as well as a demonstrated commitment to high-quality legal work and equal access to justice. Candidates must be admitted to the Tennessee Bar or admitted to the bar of another state with the ability to waive into Tennessee. Salary is dependent upon experience. To apply, submit a letter of interest, resume, three references and writing sample by email to Deputy Director Deborah Yeomans-Barton. dyeomans@laet.org. Deadline is June 15. See the full posting on TBA’s Job Link.

The U.S. State Department yesterday announced the launch of a new program to gather and analyze evidence of war crimes and other atrocities allegedly perpetrated by Russia in Ukraine, Reuters reports. In a statement, the State Department said the Conflict Observatory will encompass documentation, verification and dissemination of open-source evidence of Russia's actions in Ukraine. Reports and analyses will be made available through the observatory's website. President Joe Biden has accused Russia of "major war crimes" while the Ukrainian government says it has identified more than 10,000 possible crimes.

Officials with the Tennessee Democratic Party say they will host three gubernatorial debates ahead of the upcoming August primary election, the Associated Press reports. According to a news release, Democratic candidates Jason Martin, Carnita Atwater and JB Smiley Jr. will participate in all three of the debates which will take place on May 26 in Knoxville, June 21 in Nashville and July 12 in Memphis. Whoever wins the August primary will face off against Republican incumbent Gov. Bill Lee, who is running for a second term. WBBJ TV.com has the story.

U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger has struck down a Tennessee law requiring businesses to post special signs if they allow transgender individuals to use a bathroom of their choice. The move comes after she issued a temporary halt to the law soon after it was signed. A challenge to the law was brought by the ACLU on behalf of Nashville business owner Bob Bernstein, who owns Nashville coffee shops Bongo Java and Fido. Trauger's decision rejected state arguments that the law does not target transgender individuals and does not prohibit anyone from using a restroom of their choice. Instead, she wrote: “Transgender Tennesseans are real. The businesses and establishments that wish to welcome them are real. And the viewpoints that those individuals and businesses hold are real, even if they differ from the view of some legislators or government officials. While those government officials have considerable power, they have no authority to wish those opposing viewpoints away.” WPLN has the story.

An unresponsive female inmate at the Silverdale Detention Center died this week, Chattanoogan.com reports. On Monday at approximately 2 p.m. EDT, Hamilton County Emergency Medical Services was called to the Silverdale facility in response to a medical emergency where a 53-year old female inmate was found unresponsive. She was transported to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead. At the request of the Hamilton County District Attorney’s Office, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office is conducting an investigation.

Whoever wins the race to be the next Hamilton County district attorney — either John Allen Brooks or Coty Wamp — will be able to refashion the office if experienced prosecutors and staff depart the office with the change of administration. Chattanoogan.com reports that the first person to leave following the defeat of incumbent District Attorney Neal Pinkston is prosecutor Andrew Coyle. His last day will be May 27. Coyle says he has been asked to join the law firm of Patrick, Beard, Schulman & Jacoway, where former prosecutors Lance Pope and Kristen Williams are also on staff. “Being a prosecutor is incredibly rewarding and provides such a sense of job achievement," Coyle said. "I will miss it tremendously." 

The TBA Leadership Law (TBALL) Class of 2022 stopped in Memphis this week for its third session of the year, “Issues in Community Leadership,” held at Burch, Porter & Johnson. Day one speakers included Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, Butler Snow attorney Ed Stanton, Paul Young with the Downtown Memphis Commission, Dorcas Young-Griffin with the county’s Division of Community Service, and attorneys Bruce McMullen and Van Turner, who gave a presentation on the legal work behind the takedown of several confederate statues in the city. Programming concluded on Tuesday with a presentation from W.J. Michael Cody, who helped represent Martin Luther King Jr. during the Memphis sanitation strike, and a tour of the National Civil Rights Museum. The next session will take place in conjunction with the TBA’s Annual Convention in Nashville next month.

You’ve met our CLE crew, now it’s time to meet our Membership Team! Linda Murphy, our Receptionist and Membership Coordinator, is the friendly voice you hear when you call the TBA. A longtime member of TBA team, Linda is skilled in the ways of troubleshooting and getting our members where they need to go. In the movie about her life, Linda says her younger self would be played by Kristen Bell, while her older self would be played by Candace Bergen. The #TeamTBA series offers members a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the TBA and how each staff members makes the association run. Check back every Wednesday for a new staff profile in TBA Today and on the TBA's Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.