The Tennessee Bar Journal was born in early 1965, and according to the Tennessee Bar Association’s membership database of more than 13,000 lawyers, nearly 200 of you were also born in this notable year. Yep, nearly 2 percent of you have a similar timeline, with all the related growing pains, as this magazine. It’s easy to see what the Journal has been doing all this time — better than a Pinterest account, we have every bit of it documented in black and white (and later, in color!). If only you could look back at documentation of your 50 years with such ease.

Kindergarten

While you were enjoying that last carefree summer before entering kindergarten, as your mothers were buying your blue and red reversible fold-up nap mats and rectangle metal lunch boxes and thermoses, Joe W. Henry Jr. was sworn in as president of the Tennessee Bar Association at its 89th annual convention at the Sheraton-Peabody Hotel in Memphis. The Board of Governors included 20 men and one woman, Virginia Maddux Moore.

Earlier that year the five-year-old Journal — which was quarterly and measured 6 by 9 inches, featuring random scenic Tennessee sites on its covers — included articles on the Tax Reform Act of 1969, Tennessee Civil Procedure and Tax Planning. Of note was a detailed account of how the TBA Auxiliary spent its money, written by its secretary, Mrs. John P. Colton Jr. “Lawyers, Where Is Our Money Going?” begins: “How many times have you asked your wife, ‘What did you do with all that money I?gave you just the other day?’”

In May the entire issue was consumed by the “Manual on Fees and Charges Including Suggested Minimum Fee Schedule of the TBA.” ($30/hour was the going rate for most areas.)

Then, as now, the president was afforded a forum for his opinions with a regular column, and Henry wrote about unification of the bar in Tennessee, which he called “the number one priority objective of this administration.”

“We have come to realize,” Henry wrote in August 1970, “that the aims and objectives of the organized bar are thwarted, its role as the articulate and influential spokesman of the legal profession is retarded and its effectiveness is diltued and diminished when its organization is purely voluntary and does not include a substantial percentage of the profession.”

That Journal included “Highlights of the New Rules of Civil Procedure,” written by two very fresh-looking guys, Jerry Phillips and Don Paine. The Minutes of the 89th Annual Convention were also published, including a resolution by the board denouncing actions of William Kuntsler while defending the Chicago 7. They were charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot and other charges related to countercultural protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

In November 1970, Henry wrote about “the need to strengthen the judicial selection process,” and a letter from Gov. Buford Ellington dated Sept. 17, 1970, says he appreciates the TBA’s suggested plan “to constitute the Board of Governors as a Judicial Qualifications Committee and that it investigate and screen, from a standpoint of qualifications ... all those under consderation for judicial appointment and report back to the governor,” listing each candidate as “not qualified, qualified, well qualifid or exceptionally well qualified.” Ellington wrote that he “would prefer that whenever a vacancy arises, the Bar Association would submit to me as Governor a list of three names of candidates it considers to be qualified.” He wrote that he would choose from the list unless “circumstancecs exist which I consider exceptional, I expressly reserve the right to consider and appoint someone whose name may not appear on the list.”

In a subject perhaps even more far-reaching than judicial selection, an article, “Computer Bookkeeping – Sans Computer,” by Samuel F. Fowler Jr., describes a cutting-edge time-keeping system. This involved a tedious series of hand-recordings in tenths of hours, written onto slips of paper, which went from a box on the attorney’s desk to a bookkeeper, who worked up the numbers from there. “When you add slips to the box, you add the dollar value of the slips to the control sheet; when you remove slips you deduct the dollar value of the slips removed. The value of the slips in the box should always balance with the control sheet.” Each month the box is reconciled blah blah blah you get the idea and hopefully you will look less hatefully at your computer next time it crashes. It is still better than the Box.

As this class headed to high school, most were probably just considering “what they wanted to be when they grew up.” But not LeAnn Mynatt, who was on the Farragut High School mock trial team. There was no “deciding.”

“I didn't decide [being a lawyer was] what I wanted to do,” she says now. “I just always knew it, even as a teenager.” Mynatt practices with Baker Donelson in Knoxville.

High School

By November 1982 some time after you had taken the SAT or ACT, completed your essays and mailed your college applications (using an envelope and stamp), the TBA instituted an award in honor of Joe Henry, who of course had in the interim since being TBA?president become a respected Tennessee Supreme Court justice. The award was to be presented for the best article written in the Journal each year. It is still given today.

As you were nailing down your college decisions in early 1983, John C. Tune was president of the TBA. During this time the president’s column and all news items were in a sister publication, Tennessee Lawyer, a newsletter that came out in different months than the Journal. In January, Tune briefly apologizes in his column for talking about himself as he reported that he had been out for about seven weeks recovering from surgery for a recurrence of a malignancy. He then focuses on upcoming plans for the association, elections, annual convention, and the two new hires he is very proud of (Gil Campbell as executive director and Gary Hunt as assistant executive director/CLE director and publications editor).

But before your graduation that spring, dear 50-year-olds, President-elect John B. Waters had written of Tune’s death in the April 1983 Lawyer, saying Tune had “served energeticly as President of the Tennessee Bar Associaion and although all of us who worked with John knew he had cancer, I was always impressed that John’s concern was to make us feel comfortable about being with him while knowing about the cancer that was ultimately to cause his death.”

No women were on board then (although Rebecca Thomas was secretary/treasurer in the late 1970s through 1981), but that summer Nancy S. Sellers of Murfreesboro became 4th Distrtict governor and Karen D. Brock of Knoxville was president of the Young Lawyers Conference (what the Young Lawyers Division used to be called). Women made continual headway — Julie N. Jones of Nashville was secretary/treasurer from 1990 to ’93, followed by Kathryn Reed Edge also of Nashville. In 1998, Pamela L. Reeves of Knoxville became the first woman president of the TBA (soon followed by Edge).

The Journal’s new editor, Hunt, upgraded the paper and covers and began writing a column. In his first, he outlines some of the TBA’s challenges and the legal issues of the day:?“merit selection, evaluaton of judicial candidates by local bar associations, free legal services to the poor, client security funds … interest money on trust accounts being used for public service projects, quality of CLE programs ... specialization, mandatory CLE and whether lawyer advertising helps or hinders the delivery of legal services.”

College

About the time many of those born in 1965 were set to graduate from college and figure their next move, I was interviewing for a new position at the Tennessee Bar Association: the director of communications, which included editing its bi-monthly magazine. That fall, in October 1987, as these new law students were sitting through grueling hours of Civ Pro, I arrived at the TBA to find that our database was in a big metal box on legs with drawers called the “Cardex,” and there were new computers using something called the Orange System. It was cutting edge, folks! Computers were not connected to each other and no one had heard of the internet — they were connected by the “Adidas Network,” whereby you put the information on a floppy disk and ran it in to the other person’s office.

By this time women had come a long way in the law, and the Journal was reporting them with their real first names and not Mrs. MansName.

Don Paine was TBA president at the start of that year (1987) and in his January/February column he outlined the duties of the TBA’s eight staff members (we now have more than 20). Duties included “operating the computer and word processing equipment.” He also covered more weighty matters in an article, “The Tennessee Supreme Court’s Approval of Selected Federal Rules of Evidence.”

Soon after, Theo James Emison Jr. became president; one of the cornerstones of his presidency was more public relations for the legal profession. The thinking was if the public only knew what all we were doing, they would like us better. In his column he explained that a firm had been hired that would “combine public service and paid announcements as well as feature stories placed in newspapers across the state.” He also announced the formation of the TBA’s new political action committee, LAWPAC, which is still active today.

On page 4, in the News section of the January/February 1988 issue, the story “TBA Board Votes to Back Missouri Plan” explains that the “21-member board debated the issue thoroughly and then voted — although not unanimously — for the measure, with the recommendation that a process for review of the justice’s performance be written into the law.” The story notes that at the time “Tennessee’s five Supreme Court justices are elected by the public for eight-year terms in partisan, contested elections.” Emison is quoted in a Commercial Appeal article that “proponents basically felt you get better judges that way.”

On the Journal page immediately before this, Emison’s column asks, “Is the Missouri Plan for Tennessee?’ In it he explains in detail why he voted against the plan. That’s right — the president voted against what the majority ruled and then he wrote about it in the Journal. [I had been at the TBA less than four months at the time and was present at the board meeting where this issue was debated. In this, my first witness to lawyers working out differences, I will never forget how gracious everyone was, how each person yielded the floor to those of opposing views, and how at the end of it they were all still friends. I was baffled by this. And then?I watched integrity in action as Jim Emison stood in the front yard of the grand old house, which served as the association headquarters, in front of TV cameras to explain the TBA’s position for merit selection. He did not rail against the vote or mention who or why the vote was not unanimous. He represented the TBA and did what he had to do. I never talked to him about how difficult that must have been, but it sure made an impression on me.]

The Journal’s News section in January/February 1988 included a report on the numbers from the first year of mandatory CLE in the state. The new director of the program, David N. Shearon, described the chaotic scene to enter all the hours into computers (using the Orange System!) in time for the end-of-year deadline. Ultimately, 125,986 hours were accounted for by 11,366 attorneys, he reported.

Law School

For those 1965 babies who plowed straight through to law school, they would have graduated about 1990.

“Before I entered law school,” Nashville lawyer Todd Panther says, “I asked Tom White to let me spend the summer at Tune Entrekin & White for no pay — carrying his briefcase, emptying trash, organizing files, etc. I was hooked from the start and have been with Tune Entrekin & White ever since.” Panther says he counts White as his role model.

“When I thanked Tom for giving me my first break, he told me, ‘When I was a young lawyer someone gave me a break, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to give someone what I was given.’”

Dan Berexa, who practices with Cornelius & Collins LLP in Nashville, credits Don Paine with redirecting his career path from law enforcement to civil litigation. “I absolutely loved his evidence class,” Berexa says. “He was a gifted teacher, had a brilliant mind and was a very kind person.” When Berexa began as an associate he says, “Tom Carlton took me under his wing; I have had the good fortune to work with one of the most talented trial lawyers in Tennessee for over 20 years,” he says. “Coincidently, he is celebrating his 50th year of practicing law.”

Some took a longer route to the law, like Sean Hunt, who practices in Memphis now. Working as an engineer first, he says he came back from a vacation to realize no one had even noticed he had been gone. He knew then he wanted to do somehing else and while considering graduate programs, his aunt — his role model and a lawyer in St. Louis — visited him for the holidays.

Although most people may not know the exact moment they knew, Hunt does. “I first knew that I wanted to be a lawyer on Dec. 26, 1990,” he says.

By this time, the Journal had possession of a shiny new Mac 2 computer that could do some shockingly awesome things with a quick-turnaround. It was dubbed “the Magic Twanger” by Executive Director Gilbert R. Campbell Jr.

The Journal kicked off 1990 with a theme issue about chemical dependency, addiction, codependent attorneys, what signs to look for to help someone. John W. Wheeler of Knoxville was TBA president, writing about the Tennessee Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (TLCL) program. This was the forerunner to the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program (TLAP). 

The next month William J. Harbison was on the cover in an article that told of his rise from lawyer to a justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court and then at that time, his return to private practice. This is one of my favorite covers and interviews; he was a very kind man.

Also that year, the Journal reported that the percentage of female law students nationwide dropped from 42.9 percent to 42.7 percent in the previous year. This was the first time in 20 years that it had decreased even this small amount. Minorities made up 14 percent of first-year enrollment.

“The job market was tight in 1990,” Russell Adkins, a lawyer with Wilson Worley Moore Gamble & Stout PC in Kingsport, remembers. “I received my job offer three days before my law school graduation. I was so grateful to have a job that I still haven’t left.”

Hunt, who worked before law school and graduated in 1993, says it was “a fairly tough market then as well. My fellow classmates at Vanderbilt coined a phrase that they said would ensure we would all get a job after law school. It was: ‘Welcome to McDonald’s, may I help you?’”

The July/August 1990 issue carried the “Interprofessional Code of Cooperation” between doctors and lawyers — as well as articles on patent law and animal law (“The Tennessee Law of Squirrels, Robins, Snakes, Cats, Raccoons and Elephants,” by Lewis L. Laska).

Later that year if these new lawyers were paying attention they would have seen the article “The Trailblazers,” where I had the humbling honor of interviewing Erma G. Greenwood of Knoxville (admitted to practice in Tennessee in 1943), Selma Paty Cash of Chattanooga (1947), Anne H. Schnieder of Jackson (1948), and Osta Underwood (1936), Rebecca Thomas (1939) and Martha Craig Daughtrey (1968), all of Nashville. (Read this at http://tinyurl.com/lm8b9b4)

The story quoted the Tennessee Attorneys Directory, which reported there were 1,552 women practicing law in the state in 1990 — 16.6 percent. This was considered a great stride.

With Daughtrey joining the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1990 as the first woman to do so, it marked a significant change. The Journal reported on the new court, which also included new members E. Riley Anderson and Lyle Reid, who began as chief justice. They were appointed under the “modified Missouri Plan,” or “Tennessee Plan.” Others on the court that year were Frank F. Drowota III and Charles H. O’Brien. Reid said “the challenge of the Court of the ’90s is to affect the mandate of the Tennessee Constitution, which says that all citizens shall have ‘right and justice’ in the courts  without ‘sale, denial or delay.’ [This] demands a judicial system which is independent, administered by judges who are hard working, disciplined, conscientous and at least a bit courageous.”

The ‘Real World’

The way things were when this group got out of law school have changed in many ways, of course. But some things are the same. For one, Tennessee Solicitor General Andrée Blumstein was appointed to the Journal Editorial Board in 1994 (becoming chair in 2003) and she is still serving on it today. In 2014 when she was appointed solicitor general, she too became a “trailblazer,” as she is the first woman in that role.

Other things that are the same: “I remember the collegial and welcoming nature of other lawyers in Upper East Tennessee,” Russell Adkins says. “I am pleased to say that has not changed one bit.”

Hunt had a similar experience where he was in Chattanooga at the time but sees a shift with time and technology.

“Everyone was so nice and so helpful,” he says. “All the lawyers got together on Mondays for motion days and I got to know everyone. It felt like a community.” It’s not that way now, he says, “possibly because those motion days don’t happen that way anymore and email and other electronic forms of communication tend to make us more distant with each other. That personal contact is lacking.”

What was the buzz in the practice when they started? Hunt recalls that in 1993 “the Tennessee Supreme Court had just adopted comparative fault and we were all scrambling trying to figure out how to apply it.”

Mynatt remembers cutting and pasting — with scissors and glue — EPA or OSHA regulations that she photocopied from the Code of Federal Regulations. “The use of computers, the internet and cell phones has changed the flow of what I do 100 percent,”?she says. “I can review a regulation’s preamble from the comfort of my desk, not the bowels of (the old) UT Law library.”

Mynatt points out the changes in environment law since those days, when in 1990, the federal superfund environmental law had been in place for 10 years. “Companies, and courts, were just beginning to comprehend the onerous nature of ‘strict, joint and several law’ in an environmental context. Today, all companies understand that,” she says.

The March/April 1998 Journal featured “Superfund:?Locating the Liability Landmines,” by William D. Evans. “The practice of environmental law in particular has evolved significantly since then,” Mynatt says.

Today

Turning 50 is hard for some people — black balloons, depression, regret for lost dreams. For others it’s definitely a positive.

Nashville lawyer Kim Stagg sees wisdom in living these five decades: “Knowing and embracing simple lessons such as appreciating your heritage and knowing that getting involved and giving back not only makes you a better attorney, but more importantly, a better person.”

And for some, being 50 is a downright celebration.

“I am a stage-four cancer survivor,” Mynatt says. “Therefore, the old adage, ‘it beats the alternative’ is more than a glib cliché to me. Turning 50 IS what’s good!”

And that’s the way the Journal is looking at it, too. Happy Birthday.

SUZANNE CRAIG ROBERTSON has been editor of the Tennessee Bar Journal for 27 of its 50 years.