By William O. Shults with assistance from Michael Caskey

“Even with modern antiviral and antibacterial drugs, vaccines and prevention knowledge, the return of a pandemic virus equivalent in pathogenicity to the virus of 1918 would likely kill greater than 100 million people worldwide. A pandemic virus with the [alleged] pathogenic potential of some recent H5N1 outbreaks could cause substantially more deaths.”¹ 

Most mental health professionals serve primarily as therapists to clients and patients. A smaller yet substantial number dedicate their practice solely to forensic evaluation, thereby avoiding multiple role situations. Among the majority, though, a potentially serious ethical conflict arises in assuming dual roles as both treating psychotherapist and expert witness or forensic evaluator in a client’s child custody litigation. 

We are now more than halfway through our current TBA fiscal year, so I’d like to give you an update on the work of your Bar Association during my term as president. Our focus this year is increasing and enhancing benefits to all members through programming, technology and internal development. There are many highlights worthy of mentioning. 

Joel Cohen is a distinguished New York lawyer who prosecuted with the Organized Crime & Racketeering Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York for several years and then went into private practice with the firm of Stroock, Stroock & Lavan LLP, where he specializes in white collar criminal defense. 

In Tennessee Criminal law, can otherwise minor infractions turn into something really serious?  Yes — when they are “aggregated.”  In a case decided by the Tennessee Supreme Court on Nov. 13, 2019, Denton Jones learned about aggregation the hard way.¹  Between April 28, 2014 and May 12, 2014, Mr. Jones committed a series of what could have been misdemeanor thefts.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”¹ Yet Will Rogers observed, “The Income Tax has made more Liars out of the American people than Golf has.”²

Taxation of income has always been controversial, especially in Tennessee.

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