For the ninth year in a row, the Tennessee Supreme Court is recognizing Attorneys for Justice, honoring all attorneys who provide at least 50 hours of service annually. The recognition program was created to encourage more attorneys and law offices to provide pro bono services to those who cannot afford legal costs, with a goal of increasing statewide pro bono participation to 50%. See the list of current Attorneys for Justice on the Supreme Court’s website.

The Supreme Court today overturned decades of affirmative action programs used in the admissions process by colleges and universities across the U.S. The Hill reports that the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, invalidated admissions practices used by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, finding that they did not comply with the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. Roberts wrote, “Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping and lack meaningful end points.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned the dissenting opinion, stating that the ruling’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment is “grounded in the illusion that racial inequality was a problem of a different generation. ... Ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal.”

A federal judge issued a temporary partial injunction a Tennessee’s law banning certain gender-affirming care for transgender minors. The law, which was set to take effect July 1, would have banned transgender youth from accessing puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy, reports WPLN. Judge Eli Richardson wrote that limiting gender-affirming care for transgender children, but not for cisgender or intersex children, “imposes disparate treatment on the basis of sex.” The state argued that gender-affirming treatment does not improve mental health, but the judge’s ruling refutes this argument. The Daily Memphian reports that Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee to reverse the preliminary injunction and notified the court that it would appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Knox County lawyer Keri Elizabeth Rule was reinstated to inactive status from disability inactive status on June 23. The Tennessee Supreme Court ordered that Rule stay on inactive status until further order.

The Tennessee Supreme Court reinstated two lawyers to the practice of law in Tennessee on June 22 after they were on inactive status for more than five years. Knox County lawyer Michael T. Gilmore was reinstated after being on inactive status since August 2014. The court made the reinstatement effective as of June 5. Kentucky lawyer Susan Michele Wilson was reinstated after being on inactive status since April 2012. The court made her reinstatement effective as of June 8.

The Tennessee Supreme Court suspended 16 attorneys last week for failure to pay the annual registration fee; seven 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 Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association recently held elections during the TTLA Annual Convention. Go here to see a complete list of the new TTLA Board of Governors. On Wednesday, the TTLA announced that Carey Acerra will serve as president for the 2023-2024 term. Acerra, a Memphis attorney, replaces Mark Chalos of Nashville who served as president from 2022-2023. Chalos now assumes the role of immediate past president and Danny Ellis of Chattanooga advances to the office of president-elect.

California-based Clarkson Law Firm is launching a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging the artificial-intelligence company that created popular chatbot ChatGPT violated the copyrights and privacy of countless people when it used data scraped from the internet to train its tech, reports Law.com. The 151-page complaint was filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and claims that ChatGPT scrapes personal information on the internet without consent while also gathering user data. In addition to user information, the lawsuit alleges the company gathers identifying information from users’ devices, browsers and social media.

The Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association has named Memphis attorney and TBA member Carey Acerra as the new president of the TTLA. Acerra graduated from the University of Memphis in 1997 magna cum laude and received her law degree from the Cecil C. Humphrey School of Law at the University of Memphis in 2004. Read more about Acerra and see the full TTLA Board list in this release from the group.

Nashville attorney John W. Dalton III died on May 23 at age 57. A Nashville native, Dalton graduated from the University of Virginia and earned a law degree at the University of Tennessee. Dalton worked as an attorney with the legal offices at TennCare and the Department of Health, but spent most of his career as senior counsel for the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter,  advising clients from Memphis to Mountain City on complex matters involving employees of the state’s agencies and higher education institutions. The family asks to consider a donation to Second Harvest Food Bank of Nashville or the Governor’s Early Literacy for Children program in Dalton's memory.