JD Journal » Nashville

Pagan NC Mother Cries Foul When Son Comes Home From School with Bible

rebneely — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:39:36 +0000

At least it’s not pornography.

But that’s not what a Buncombe County mother had to say when her son came home from his fifth-grade class at North Windy Ridge intermediate school in North Carolina with a Bible.

American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal Foundation, the state’s largest civil liberties group, says the school went too far.

The mother of the fifth grader, Ginger Strivelli, says her son got the bible from North Windy Ridge school in Weaverville in recent days from a box left by the Gideons International group. Strivelli, who is a pagan, doesn’t feel the school should give any religious materials to students.

She was quoted as saying in the huffingtonpost.com article: “It’s totally inappropriate they think they can get away with this. It’s absolutely unbelievable and their attitude is ridiculous.”

However, school officials are of the mind they did nothing wrong. Principal Jackie Byerly said she got approval from the superintendent after the Gideons asked to leave Bibles at the school.

Students were not required to take Bibles, county schools spokeswoman Jan Blunt said. They were told by teachers that the books were available in a box in the main office.

In reference to the Gideons, Blunt was quoted as saying: “They don’t talk with students. They’re not allowed to make a presentation. They quite literally drop off a box and leave them there. They are not handed out at all.”

Per Katy Parker, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal Foundation, that would be fine at a high school.

The ACLU of North Carolina is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to preserving the guarantees of individual liberty found in the Constitution and laws of the United States and the state of North Carolina. Hot issues the organization concentrates on include racial justice, free speech, the death penalty, human rights, religious liberty, reproductive rights, student and youth rights and voting rights.

The Legal Program has traditionally been the ACLU’s most successful avenue for protecting and enhancing the constitutional rights and civil liberties of North Carolinians. The Legal Program responds to every request it receives and for matters that do not involve civil liberties. The ACLU of NC Legal Foundation works diligently to defend civil liberties such as privacy rights, religious freedom, free speech, and equal protection under the law. On many occasions the ACLU of NC stands alone, often against the prevailing sentiment of public opinion, in its vigilant defense of these fundamental freedoms.

Gideons International, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, is an evangelical Christian organization dedicated to distributing copies of the Bible in over 94 languages and 194 countries of the world, most famously in hotel and motel rooms. The organization was founded in 1899 in Janesville, Wisconsin, as an early American parachurch organization dedicated to Christian evangelism. It began distributing free Bibles, the work it is chiefly known for, in 1908, when the first Bibles were placed in the rooms of the Superior Hotel in Superior, Montana.

Occupiers are Finally Getting a Taste of Their Own Medicine

chelsei — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:26:00 +0000

We have all said from the beginning that while the goals of the Occupy Wall Street crowd were not wrong, their tactics have been quite lacking. Wall Street didn’t necessarily cause the horrid collapse of the American economy, they’re just trying to figure out a way to profit as much as they can from it. Although at times it may seem like the right thing, or the only thing, to do, wagging your finger at Wall Street isn’t doing us a whole lot of good, because of the legal structure they’ve built up to protect it.

Occupiers may be slightly angry at Wall Street or corporate America, but it’s ”the law” that will be in charge of actually stopping their movement, because it’s not like they can’t fight back. The police have already shown the people in Oakland what they are capable of. City ordinances, curfews, and unsympathetic judges are the people and the things that can turn Occupy Wall Street into something much worse than it already is.

But maybe, just maybe, the protesters are starting to understand what the true power is. And if they can get some fully trained lawyers on their side, they may have a shiny bit of hope.

During their fight with the law, members of the Occupy Nashville may have had an actual victory they can celebrate. The Tennessee reports:

State officials capitulated to Occupy Nashville protesters Monday and agreed to stop arresting people for violating a newly imposed curfew on Legislative Plaza. A federal judge said regulations created last week in response to the protest were ”not legally” put forward by Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration.

The state back down in the face of a federal lawsuit filed Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee on behalf of Occupy Nashville. The lawsuit alleged that the arrests and the new regulations were violations of the protesters’ First Amendment rights. The ACLU requested a temporary restraining order. State attorneys did not object at a hearing Monday afternoon, and U.S. District Judge Aleta A. Trauger granted the request.

We are allowed to talk as much as the want to about how much the rules are skewed and how we don’t want to follow them, but they’re still rules, and we have to follow them. They can be bent, but they can never really be broken. So, for once in their lives, they’re going to have to play by the rules. This change for them is going to happen very slow, and definitely in small increments. Change will happen at a ballot box or a courthouse.

This change can happen with severe perseverance, and a lot of patience. But that is something that lawyers can help them with. Lawyers are very good and relentlessly keeping up with an issue for years and years, long after the fact that the protesters have gone home.

Nashville Law Firm Scandal

jim — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 02:17:39 +0000

A prestigious law firm in Nashville is dealing with a scandalous lawsuit. The law firm, Willis & Knight, claims that former managing partner, Tyree B. Harris IV, stole over $200,000 from the firm and used the money to cut the cost of his child support that he was ordered to pay each month. The firm was already suffering because of the deaths of both law firm founders and this scandal is only continuing to bring the law firm down.

Willis & Knight is a well-known law firm in Nashville because they have taken on some high-profile cases over the years. The law firm has dealt with major desegregation cases, law violations, and federal investigation cases. Robert L. Delaney, a representative for Willis & Knight during the lawsuit, is deeply saddened for the firm. He says, “For a law firm with that kind of history and heritage to lose its driving forces and now be engaged in this kind of lawsuit makes me sad.” The lawsuit shows that the firm has been unable to pay rent since 2010 and owes over $50,000.

A retired lawyer and best friend of the late Al Knight, John Wagster, is the one who started the lawsuit. He says that he chose to do this for his best friend who recently passed away. Al Knight retired in 2006 due to his health condition. Wagster says, “This issue in the lawsuit is whether he (Harris) improperly took money from the law firm that was not his.” He also says, “The position in the lawsuit is that he did, and that he did it pursuant to a plan of his to cheat the mother of his child out of child support.”

While Harris faces these allegations, he continues to deny that any of this is true and plans to sue partners at the firm. Harris says he was shocked to learn about the allegations made and is in disbelief over the lawsuit. When asked about the payment he received, Harris says, “This money was distributed exactly in a manner to which the partners agreed. No different at all.”

In the lawsuit, there are claims that Harris received a fee, which consisted of around $335,000. Harris claims that he put the money into the trust account of the law firm instead of the usual operating account. The three partners at the law firm had apparently made an agreement that they would split the money between them. In late January, Harris wrote out a check from the trust account, which was written out to himself for the approximate amount of $225,000. Money is not supposed to come directly out of the trust account of a law firm.
Delaney says, “The allegation is that the money was withdrawn in the fashion it was withdrawn not only to avoid paying legitimate expenses of the law firm, but also to create a circumstance where the income was not immediately recognizable to the court in the child support matter Mr. Harris was involved in.”

Nashville Chosen for Global Law Firm’s Offices

jim — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 01:28:14 +0000

Nashville, Tennessee has been chosen as the location for a global law firm’s offices per the firm’s announcement this past Tuesday. The firm’s back-office functions will be combined in this office, which signals yet another shared-services center coming to the region. The law firm, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLC announced that the center will handle information technology, human resources, and other non-legal professional services for its 14 offices across the world, including the company’s headquarters in New York.

The new center is slated to open in the fall of 2012, with 150 employees working there. The employees will be a mix between relocated employees and some local hires. The law firm is looking to rent a space that has roughly 30,000-40,000 square footage of working space and is currently in the hunt for a building. The company has said that they have no timetable for picking a location within Nashville.

“We’re excited,” said Jeff Hite, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce’s business recruitment director. “It’s a good win for Nashville.”

Local officials from Nashville have been in discussions with the law firm about its selection of a site for roughly six months. The talks included incentives offered by the state, Metro, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The types of incentives and amounts of those incentives have not been decided upon yet according to local and state officials. Nashville was the winning city, which was on an original list of 300 United States cities when the search began. The list of 300 cities was then narrowed to a dozen for further study to be conducted and then narrowed again to a final four before Nashville was named the winner. The final four sites were toured by representatives of the law firm so that an informed decision could be made. According to Sean Whelan, the firm’s Chief Financial Officer, Nashville won out because of affordable housing, a concentration of educational institutions here, cultural amenities and favorable tax rates.

“We really wanted to find a place that was attractive to our employees,” he said, noting Nashville was the top choice of a focus group of Pillsbury Winthrop employees.

The reason for announcing plans for the firm’s center in Nashville roughly one year ahead of its scheduled opening is because the firm wanted its employees to learn of the center and determine whether or not they would choose to relocate to Nashville. Whelan, along with the firm’s Chief Information Officer, will relocate to Nashville in order to oversee the startup and operations of the new center. In 2010, Loews Hotels opened a 40,000 square foot center in Nashville that performs the same duties as the law firm’s center. Representatives from the firm talked with management of Loews Hotels working in Nashville to get their thoughts about working and living in Nashville.

Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan Announce Nashville Office

todd — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:34:10 +0000

Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP revealed today that they will be opening an office in Nashville, bringing in Nashville attorneys Natasha L. Blackshear and Dennis Nunez.

This will become the 13^th office nationwide for the firm, which is well known for being one of the country’s largest minority-owned law firms.

“I am pleased to join forces with such a respected minority-owned law firm,” said Blackshear. “Gonzalez Saggio & Harland brings the considerable resources of a nationwide law firm to bear on public and corporate finance matters in Nashville, Memphis and across the state of Tennessee.”

Blackshear worked as a venture capitalist at Council Ventures LP for five years and as a senior associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Corporate Valuation Consulting division.

Registered patent attorney Dennis Nunez brings four years of experience in intellectual property law to the firm. Nunez graduated with honors from the Chicago-Kent College of Law, specializing in intellectual property law.

Dickinson Wright Swallows Up Stewart Estes

Erik Even — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:05:46 +0000

Detroit’s Dickinson Wright PLLC is expanding into Nashville, picking up Stewart, Estes & Donnell’s 19 lawyers. The merger brings the total number of Dickinson Wright attorneys to 260.

Additional lawyers will join the firm soon, Dickinson Wright announced.

Stewart, Estes & Donnell was founded in 1971, and has one location in downtown Nashville. Dickinson Wright was founded in 1879, and has lawyers in more than 40 practice areas.

Thomas Donnell Jr., managing member of Stewart, Estes & Donnell, says the merger was a natural progression for both firms.

“We are combining with a firm that has a national reputation, well established relationships with clients in Tennessee and an interest in doing business in the South,” he said.

Dickinson Wright has seven offices, five of which are in Michigan. The firm also maintains an office in Washington, DC, plus an office in Macau. The firm was ranked 177th largest in the United States by number of attorneys by the National Law Journal in 2007, and was the second-largest Detroit based firm on the NLJ’s list of the 250 largest law firms in the US.