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SPOTLIGHT: Access to Justice Advocate
Ian P. Hennessey, London & Amburn, P.C.
In early 2014, inspired by the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services’ faith-based referral model program, Ian Hennessey submitted a draft proposal to the KBA’s Access to Justice Committee to create a faith-based initiative in East Tennessee. The idea behind a faith-based initiative is twofold – first, that the pastors of congregants who are experiencing problems have an opportunity to spot legal issues that may be related to a problem early on, but may not have the tools to recognize such issues. Second, once pastors are trained in how to spot such issues, there should be a referral network where the pastor could confidently send a congregant for help. Ian’s information-gathering continued through 2014, and after much discussion, the KBA’s Access to Justice Committee officially formed a subcommittee to continue this work in early 2015. The subcommittee’s goals were to set up a training for clergy and develop the referral network. Ian was, and continues to be, the primary contact point for this network, which continues to function mostly behind the scenes. Once clergy has been involved with a clinic or a training, they then “know who to call” when issues come up. The project’s major goal for 2016 was to begin holding “Saturday Bar style” clinics that would be open to the public without income requirements, and the first clinic was held May 7, 2016 at First Baptist Church. A second clinic was held December 3, 2016, and the goal was then set to hold four clinics for 2017. Through a continued successful clinic partnership with Legal Aid of East Tennessee, who administers the clinics and provides insurance coverage, that goal was met for both 2017 and 2018, and is on track for 2019. Clinics are currently being scheduled for 2020. Ian is a consistent clinic volunteer, and when listing “practice area” on the attorney sign-in sheet, almost always writes “Whatever Kathryn tells me to do.” Ian has said that it’s been rewarding, now five years in, to now have others citing and using Knoxville as a model for services in their own communities, and that it will be interesting to see how the initiative evolves over the next five years. He receives great satisfaction in both serving and in witnessing how other attorneys have become invested in volunteering for this initiative over and over again without fanfare.
SPOTLIGHT: Access to Justice Advocate
J. William Coley, Hodges, Doughty & Carson, PLLC
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In 2014, KBA past president Bill Coley expressed enthusiastic interest for Ian Hennessey’s proposal to create a faith-based legal outreach initiative in East Tennessee. By January 2015, the Access to Justice Committee had created a subcommittee for the project with Bill as co-chair. Bill set to work as liaison with his congregation at First Baptist Church, setting up a “soft launch” clergy training event in fall 2015 and then working with the church to host the first “Saturday bar style” clinic on May 7, 2016 in collaboration with Legal Aid of East Tennessee. The clinic enjoyed good turnout and was well received by clients, volunteer attorneys, and the church staff. A second clinic at a different church was held December 3, 2016, and a goal was then set to hold four clinics for 2017. Through a continued successful clinic partnership with Legal Aid of East Tennessee, who administers the clinics and provides insurance coverage, that goal was met for both 2017 and 2018, and is on track for 2019. Clinics are currently being scheduled for 2020. A process was developed whereby attorney and student volunteers can sign up through a form on the KBA’s website. A copy of the registration automatically goes to several people, including Bill Coley. It’s typical of Bill to reply to the registrant with characteristic enthusiasm, thanking them for signing up and telling them he looks forward to seeing them at the clinic. Bill has been present at most of the clinics, and is a gregarious ambassador, introducing attorneys who don’t know each other, encouraging conversations, and in between all this, meeting with the clients needing help with various issues. His optimism and energy are infectious.
SPOTLIGHT: Access to Justice Advocate
Allison J. Starnes-Anglea, Lincoln Memorial University- Duncan School of Law
Allison Starnes-Anglea, Director of Career Services at LMU Law, has a passion for service. Allison has served as the Director of Career Services for LMU Law School since 2017 and has been a KBA member since approximately 2011. In 2018, she was acknowledged as an Attorney for Justice by the Tennessee Supreme Court. Her activities include frequent attendance at the monthly KBA Barristers Veterans’ Legal Advice Clinic, serving on Knox County's foster care review board, East Tennessee Lawyers Association for Women, providing pro bono advice to victims of human trafficking through GrowFreeTN, sitting on the board for Court Appointed Special Advocates of East Tennessee, and guiding LSU law students through their career realities. In 2019, Allison took on a new mission: to ensure law students of low income were professionally dressed. She solicited donations of suiting and professional bags from attorneys in the community and opened a Career Closet to LMU law students in need of professional clothing. The Career Closet has a "take what you need, leave what you don't" policy and many students were able to outfit their summer employment wardrobe completely free of charge. Because of this passion and commitment, participating low-income students face one less barrier to the job market. They are professionally dressed, confident, and prepared to work hard. About the school's mission-driven law students, Allison says, "My job is to ensure their professionalism. In this case, that meant identifying their need, finding a way to provide, and giving them hope that their work will speak for itself. If a student tells me, 'I'm the first person in my family to go to college. I have never owned a suit and can't afford one, but I have an interview next week,' then you can bet I'm going to find that student a free suit. They did the hard part, they admitted they needed help. I'm not afraid to see what I can do to set them up to succeed." Allison's commitment to service is shown not only through traditional pro bono work, but by setting up the future of our industry to believe that they can achieve their goals. For the majority of LMU students, that means working as a public servant or for a non-profit. Many of the students who accessed the closet will spend their summers working without pay for places like Legal Aid of East Tennessee, YWCA of Oak Ridge, the DA and PD offices, and our court systems. Allison's Career Closet outfitted over 20 law students in spring semester 2019 and houses over 300 items of professional clothing, all generously donated by the bench and bar. For this work, we congratulate and recognize her.
SPOTLIGHT: Access to Justice Advocate
Alex Brinson, East Tennessee Children's Hospital
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Alex is a true advocate for access to justice. He is the sole staff attorney at the Children's Health Law Partnership (CHLP) at East Tennessee Children's Hospital (ETCH). When Legal Aid of East Tennessee received the grant for starting the CHLP and Alex was asked to staff the project he jumped right in and made it all happen, with the help of Cathy Shuck, VP and General Counsel at ETCH. Alex started on January 1, 2018, and hit the ground running. Almost immediately, he set up meetings with every department in the hospital and explained the importance of resolving legal issues as an aid to solving medical issues. Very quickly, Alex was able to build up a full caseload.
When he started at Children’s Hospital, Alex had no knowledge of many of the areas of law required to resolve his new clients' problems. Since then, Alex has not hesitated to accept difficult and complicated cases that require learning new areas of law including education law, Medicaid, Food Stamps, conservatorships, and termination of parental rights, among others.
In addition to the case work at Children’s Hospital Alex planned and presented a CLE program to the Knoxville Bar Association (KBA) about Health Law Partnerships. He had an article published in the KBA monthly magazine, DICTA.
His nominator feels Alex is an impressive new advocate who has forged a true collaboration to meet the legal needs of the most vulnerable patients at ETCH and thus is worthy to be recognized.
SPOTLIGHT: Access to Justice Advocate
Cathy Shuck, East Tennessee Children's Hospital
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Cathy Shuck is not only a leader in the KBA, serving as Executive Editor of DICTA, she was also instrumental in this past year in establishing a Children's Health Law Partnership (CHLP) at East Tennessee Children's Hospital (ETCH), were she serves as Vice President of Legal Services and General Counsel. The CHLP grew out of a collaborative application between ETCH and Legal Aid of East Tennessee to the Trinity Health Foundation. When Trinity awarded funds to start the CHLP Cathy was “all in” and immediately mobilized to find great office space for the LAET lawyer who would be on site and worked with LAET’s technical department to ensure the lawyer had state of the art ability to access technology to support his work. The CHLP opened its doors at ETCH on January 1st of 2018 and has helped close to 100 children and families in the past year.
Cathy's commitment convinced the CEO of ETCH of the value of the CHLP and gained his support. Cathy's coordination of the establishment of the CHLP office and integration of the LAET attorney into the medical team at ETCH was integral to the project's success. Cathy has also served as a spokesperson for the project in the legal and larger community, including working with LAET to participate in a CLE for Knoxville attorneys on HLPs. Without this commitment of Cathy and of ETCH to provide access to a lawyer for their most vulnerable clients, the CHLP could not and would not be a success.
SPOTLIGHT: Access to Justice Advocate
Wade M. Boswell, Attorney at Law
Wade Boswell was licensed to practice law in Tennessee in 1968 and since that time has provided reliable legal service to many clients in a varied area of practices. A member of the KBA Bankruptcy, Senior, and Solo Practitioner & Small Firm Sections, Wade has also served on the KBA’s Fee Dispute Resolution Committee and the Professionalism Committee. Since volunteering at an Access to Justice Committee sponsored Faith and Justice Clinic in September 2017, Wade has volunteered at four more Faith & Justice Clinics and all four 2018 Pro Bono Debt Relief Clinics sponsored by the Bankruptcy Section. His quiet, reassuring manner and broad legal knowledge have made him an important member of the volunteer team for each of these clinics. According to friends, Wade views his service work as an expression of his faith and humanity and should be recognized for serving faithfully, quietly, competently, and without fanfare.
SPOTLIGHT: Access to Justice Advocate
Brennan M. Wingerter, East Tennessee Appellate Litigation, PLLC
Brennan Winegerter has done multiple pro bono petitions for unaccompanied minor children in East Tennessee. She is a tireless advocate who has also done several appeals and amicus briefs in criminal cases on a pro bono basis over the past two years. Brennan is a New Orleans native who moved to Knoxville in 2009 to attend the University of Tennessee College of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude with a concentration in Advocacy & Dispute Resolution. After graduation, she served for three years as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Gary R. Wade on the Tennessee Supreme Court. Brennan founded her law firm, East Tennessee Appellate Litigation LLC in January 2017 and she teaches Legal Writing at the LMU Duncan School of Law.
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SPOTLIGHT: Access to Justice Advocate
J. Spencer Fair, London Amburn, P.C.
On September 7, 2016, the first free Veterans Legal Advice Clinic took place at the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office on Liberty Street. This clinic has been going strong on a monthly basis ever since then and has become one of the most recognized collaborations between Legal Aid of East Tennessee (LAET) and the Knoxville Bar Association (KBA).
The proposal for the Veterans Legal Advice Clinic came from Buck Lewis of Baker Donelson after he had participated in a similar clinic in Memphis. Spencer Fair of London & Amburn, volunteered to take the lead in figuring out how to create a similar project in Knoxville. Spencer spoke with the Memphis clinic organizers and then coordinated with LAET, the KBA, the veterans services community, and the Public Defender’s office to get the monthly clinics organized.
Since the first clinic two years ago, there have been 86 attorneys who have volunteered and dozens of law students from the UT College of Law and the LMU Duncan School of Law. Each month, the Veterans Legal Advice Clinic provides free legal advice to between 10 and 30 veterans from our community and in the past two years, more than 350 veterans and their families have received legal advice. While most of these veterans live in Knox County, others have traveled from Blount, Loudon, Sevier, Anderson, Union, and Jefferson counties to have the opportunity to speak with an attorney about their legal issues.
Since helping to get the clinic started, Spencer has attended nearly all of them. He currently serves as the co-chair of the Barristers Access to Justice Committee after seeing the impact pro bono activities like this clinic can have on members of our community. When asked why he continues to volunteer at the clinic, Fair said, “I volunteer because I want to help veterans who have made significant sacrifices for my family and me.”
SPOTLIGHT: Access to Justice Advocate
Joy Radice, U.T. College of Law
Joy Radice selected to lead UT Legal Clinic
This article came from the UT College of Law press release of July 2, 2018.
The University of Tennessee College of Law welcomes a new but familiar face as the director of clinical programs.
Joy Radice, a recently tenured associate professor at the College of Law, began as director of the UT Legal Clinic effective July 1. She succeeds Interim Director Penny White, who has led the clinic since 2015.
In her role, Radice will oversee nine clinics that operate through the UT Legal Clinic – which is the oldest continuously-operating legal clinic of its kind in the United States. White will continue to serve as professor and director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution.
Radice is a 2003 Harvard Law School graduate and a 1997 Princeton University undergraduate. She began work with the UT College of Law in 2012 teaching in the Legal Clinic’s advocacy clinic and working with students in criminal, housing, and juvenile courts. Her areas of expertise and scholarship focus on criminal law, criminal procedure, prisoner reentry, and expanding civil legal services to fill the access to justice gap.
“We’ve been privileged to enjoy such strong leadership for the Legal Clinic throughout its 71-year history at the College of Law,” Dean Melanie Wilson said. “Penny White’s expertise and dedication have raised the standard, and her commitment is undeniable. We so value her contributions to the clinic and to our college.
“Likewise, Professor Radice’s expertise guiding the clinic’s expungement work has been invaluable. Joy is a thought leader in matters related to access to justice. Her lauded scholarship, her desire to transform student learning, and the experience she already has in guiding our clinical students will allow for very smooth transition of responsibility.”
“I am certain the Legal Clinic will continue to serve our community well under her guidance,” Wilson said.
Since coming to the University of Tennessee, Radice has headed the UT Legal Clinic’s expungement effort – providing free and needed services in Knoxville and East Tennessee rural communities. Her expungement work has also led to legislative reform and directly influenced her scholarship.
Through her involvement with a statewide group that helped reform Tennessee juvenile expungement law, Radice was influenced to write “The Juvenile Record Myth,” an article published in the Georgetown Law Journal. The article critiques the juvenile confidentiality, sealing and expungement provisions in all 50 states.
Additional scholarship by Radice has been published in the Emory Law Journal, Colorado Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, and Columbia Journal of Race and Law.
Radice said as the Legal Clinic’s new director, she’ll look for ways to enhance the clinical opportunities for students “so that they are ready to hit the ground running in their legal practice.”
She also aims to provide more training to expand students’ pro bono experiences, engage students in contributing to legislative reform, and create opportunities to make legal services more accessible to those who often must go without representation.
“We have a vision for expanding the clinic’s reach to more underserved communities in East Tennessee,” Radice said. “By examining our success and engaging more faculty and alumni in our mission, we can duplicate our mobile legal clinic model in other areas of legal practice. And while serving more people, we can provide students with an invaluable learning experience.”
Between 45 and 60 law students work each semester with the Legal Clinic for either one, three, four or six hours of course credit.
SPOTLIGHT: Access to Justice Advocate
William Gill, LMU Duncan School of Law
Professor William Gill works tirelessly to ensure undocumented and disenfranchised individuals receive fair access to, and treatment within, our justice system. In addition to shaping the young legal minds of our Lincoln Memorial University law students, Professor Gill is an active volunteer and advocate for the immigrant community. He volunteers regularly through Catholic Charities Office of Immigrant Services, serves on the Knoxville Bar Association’s Access to Justice Immigration Subcommittee, aids the Community Legal Center’s Immigrant Justice Program in Memphis, volunteers with Volunteer Immigrant Defense Advocates, and offers pro bono advice to the Spanish-speaking clientele of our own Legal Aid of East Tennessee.
Professor Gill’s commitment to selflessly protecting personal and civil liberties in our community is clearly demonstrated in his response to the recent ICE raid in Morristown. Well after business hours the day of the raid, Professor Gill responded to the call that a large ICE raid had taken place in East Tennessee and legal assistance was needed immediately. He spent that evening and the rest of his weekend providing pro bono legal aid to dozens of scared families. Without his help, many of these families would have been lost in our complicated legal system. He worked tirelessly all weekend to protect the interests of others, and arrived at work Monday with a smile on his face.
Professor Gill was recently recognized by the American Immigration Lawyers Association as a MidSouth “Pro Bono Champion”!
In addition to his commitment to protect the civil liberties of immigrants, Professor Gill is a well-liked colleague and professor. He graduated with his J.D. from Emory University and teaches Academic Success and Legal Writing for LMU. Professor Gill’s academic and professional bio can be found here: https://www.lmunet.edu/academics/schools/duncan-school-of-law/faculty-staff/faculty/william-gill.