Last week, I had to go to the Davidson County Courthouse to file some garnishment pleadings. With the adoption of e-filing and suspension of in-person court proceedings, filing garnishments is really the only reason I set foot in the building.
Here’s what trial court advocacy in Davidson County looks like in late 2020: Lawyers arguing via video conferences, but in the courtroom. pic.twitter.com/S8OAH8I0vK
Once upon a time–well, about a year ago–I’d spend nearly every Friday morning there, on the fourth floor, checking in on all of the Chancery Court dockets.
Some days, I’d have a case in every courtroom, carefully timing my arrivals so that I could cover all four. On other days, I might just have one case, but I’d linger and roam the halls to see who was there and what cases they had. It was a great way to catch up with other lawyers, talk about our cases, watch interesting hearings, observe how the judges handled issues, and, really, just stay connected to what was going on (i.e. gossip).
But, last week, it was so strange, to be back in that building and it all be so quiet.
Welcome to January 21, 2021, the first full day of the Joe Biden administration. It’s also an interesting time for law firms…
Most law firms announce compensation plans this week. The first week of the year is generally spent winding down last year’s financials. The following week is spent distributing bonuses.
This third week, though, may be the most important. It’s when the new year’s salaries are announced. Associates and partners alike sharpen their advocacy skills, to explain away last year’s billables and to demonstrate how this coming year will be the biggest one yet. And, of course, that they deserve a big raise.
If you’re a lawyer in a “discretionary” system (i.e. you advocate to a “compensation committee” for a higher salary), you have limited arguments available. In fact, the presentations generally focus on two metrics: (1) I promise to bill more hours; and/or (2) I am raising my billable rate.
Neither of these are particularly good outcomes for clients.
Unless there was some external factor that limited hours (illness, leave of absence, COVID), where can a lawyer find 100-200 more billable hours in 2021? Is the lawyer simply going to work harder? Maybe. In other cases, the lawyer will just pad their time and that letter that took a “0.3” in 2020 now becomes a “0.5” letter.
And, sure, inflation or more experience can justify an increase in an hourly rate, but is the increase really based on that, or has the lawyer just figured out that a $15 increase multiplied by 1,800 hours equals $27,000 more in profit?
When a rate increase is based only on a new calendar year, it can lead to unjustified results.
Law firm leadership has no incentive to push back on these issues. More hours and higher rates mean more money to them too. In short, the fox is in charge of making sure the barn door is locked.
All I’m saying is, clients, watch your bills next month.
Despite the pandemic and overall concerns about the economy, legal rates are going up. In March, we all talked about how commercial real estate, transactions, and law firm profits were dead. But, locally, that hasn’t been the case.
In general, law firm hourly rates are rising. The pessimist would say that law firms are increasing hourly rates to offset the reduction in actual hours billed. The optimist would say that the commercial economy is as strong as it ever was and that rising rates reflect the market.
Get your insolvency news from McLemore Auctions. I love getting the weekly emails from McLemore Auctions that show all the cool stuff being auctioned, usually via a going-out-business liquidation. In fact, one of the biggest mistakes I made during the pandemic was to show my children the website, which has resulted in a few really strange family purchases.
I got into an epic bidding war on behalf of my 7 year old for a Pink Ergonomic Kawaii Style Gaming Chair:https://t.co/4K0gfDsNjy
A few weeks ago, I noted the concept of “funeral by auction” after seeing how frequently the fixtures and assets of many Nashville restaurants end up being sold on the McLemore site. In fact, based on my review of today’s Nashville Post, it seems like the McLemore website may be the earliest public notice that some local businesses have closed.
And, yes, it really stinks to be shopping for deals on gaming chairs, and you see the cafe where you proposed to your wife being sold off, piece by piece.
Remember to shop local. I cringe when I see a local restaurant on the McLemore website. It’s often because I hate to see a small business owner give up, and I feel a little guilty thinking about the last time I spent my money at that local business.
This restaurant closure really hurt. Yesterday, the Nashville Post reported that Woolworths on Fifth was closing. Woolworths was a beautiful restoration of the historic lunch counter where many brave African American students and leaders took a stand to demand equality in our city.
I frequently took guests there for lunches over the years, and I was always proud to share that history. I also worry what’s next and whether the future operators will respect the history of the site.
My first job as a lawyer was on Second Avenue in Nashville.
This was in 1999, and my future boss had me come to the office to interview on a Saturday morning (partly to avoid the suspicion of the lawyer I would be replacing).
At the time, I didn’t know much about downtown Nashville, since most of my trips to Nashville were either to Opryland as a kid or driving on I-40 on the way to law school in Knoxville.
I had clerked one summer in Nashville at the Tennessee Attorney General’s office, but, back then, Second Avenue didn’t have much to attract folks in their mid-20s. In 1999, the vibe was Gatlinburg-esqe, with a Hooters, Mere Bulles, Graham Central Station (three stories of bars, each with a different theme), a palm reader, The Wild Horse, and other tourist-centric places that catered more to out-of-town grandparents.
I got the job, and I spent about 8 years on Second Avenue. A lot changed during that time.
Before Fan Fair moved downtown, the big show was Dancin’ in the District, which was set up in Riverfront Park. My office window was a perfect vantage for these shows; I saw Kanye West (with a then unknown John Legend on the piano), the Strokes, and many others, from about 500 feet away. It’s strange to think about all the big-time, national acts that performed at these free concerts to such relatively small audiences. Part of that, of course, was that, back then, hardly anybody wanted to go downtown.
Watching the 2007 July 4 celebration.
In fact, in the early 2000s, that lack of “busy-ness” was part of what I loved about downtown Nashville. On a Friday night, we’d hit 6-7 Broadway honky tonks (generally via the back doors in the Ryman alley) looking for any bars with a crowd, which we rarely found. Needless to say, there were no “all points” pedestrian crossings downtown in 2005.
Enjoying country music at our favorite, the Second Fiddle.
As a lawyer, there was always a bit of unease about being in a “Second Avenue” office, especially as that part of downtown started to take shape as an entertainment district. The tallest building on Second Avenue was 4 stories high, and no white collar firms would dare move in next to a karaoke bar.
Things really got bad in 2005 when Fan Fair became CMT Fest and moved downtown. During this all-day and all-night music festival, my very serious lawyer phone calls were always at risk of interruption by country music and–definitely worse–the pre-show sound checks at the “River Stage” in Riverfront Park (generally, 5 second snippets of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” played over and over and over in the days before the festival).
The CMT Fest move was a spark for downtown’s growth. Before that, people just didn’t go downtown at night. There was wasn’t much to do and not much interest in what there was. This single event showed 50,000 folks (and countless others watching on TV) how awesome the historic downtown venues were.
This process was accelerated in 2010, when the Nashville Flood hit, and the buildings on Second Avenue flooded and many were then sold and renovated for new uses. Nashville’s overall recovery from the Great Recession was far quicker than other cities, and the rebuilding (and, yes, the developer opportunities) resulting from the devastation of the flood caused a rapid growth in downtown property investment and in tourism.
And, out of nowhere, people saw downtown Nashville not just as a “night out” option, but as a vacation destination. Maybe it was the TV show, but, in 2014 or so, you couldn’t even get in the door (front or back) at the old honky tonks. And, where there’s a happy tourist, there will be no shortage of a honky tonks willing to sell them a $6.50 Coors Light. As a result, dozens of new bars took over any available spaces downtown. Tootsies even built a new Tootsies on top of the old Tootsies.
Soon, all the Second Avenue lunch places and the ground-level offices were turned into bars and gift shops, while the upstairs offices were converted into condos and, later, AirBnBs.
In fact, in 2015 or so, the new owners of my old office building converted it into a residential condo building with a tourist-centric snuff shop on the ground floor.
I moved to a different firm in 2008 on the “business” side of downtown, and, personally, got married and had kids and just stopped going downtown very much–if ever–at night. When I did go downtown, I was always amazed at the crowds. Just an oppressive amount of people that, frankly, made me wonder who all these people were and where they came from.
Locals began to avoid downtown, and local media had fun mocking the bachelorettes and references to the “It City.” It became a sort of estranged relationship, and that always made me sad to see.
The Nashville bombing on Christmas morning was a tragedy on all levels. A senseless, terrible act that risked many peoples’ lives and absolutely destroyed their homes and businesses. Some of the businesses destroyed–like Old Spaghetti Factory and The Melting Pot–had been there when I walked to that first job interview in 1999.
Both had held on through all of the ups and downs on Second Avenue and three different recessions, and then this happened.
As I watched the news coverage all day on Christmas, I’d see my old office building, with broken windows and blown open doors. It made me profoundly sad, as a human being and as a resident of Nashville. These buildings on Second Avenue are part of our city’s history, having made it through thousand-year floods, fires, and wars.
Market Street (AKA 2nd avenue) looking north from Broadway 1897. Praying we can save as many structures as possible. Assessment tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/UWmThQYqNv
And, maybe this is just typical New Year’s Eve sentimentality talking, but I’m also sad on a personal level that the Second Avenue that I first visited 20 years ago is gone and most likely will never come back.
The entire city of Nashville has changed so much in the past 7-10 years, and it sometimes feels like, if you don’t drive down a certain street for a few months, that, when you do, you’re going to see something old gone and something new being built, whether it’s downtown, Music Row, or even far away places like Madison. There hasn’t been an end in sight, and the Nashville Post must be running out of ways to report that the old “price per square foot” real estate sale records get broken on a monthly basis.
Maybe my broader sadness for Second Avenue is a feeling of loss over the city that I first moved to, over that office I was sitting in when that jerk opposing counsel yelled at me, or the places Lena and I went when we were dating. (Cue the Dan Fogelberg music now.) Maybe it’s a bit of maudlin loss for that version of me who walked cautiously past the Lazer Tag place while rehearsing for that job interview. Maybe it’s sadness that we live in such a divisive world where somebody felt compelled to bomb a building for political reasons.
I’m hopeful that these old buildings can be saved. At the same time, I’m also a realist, and I remember all the day-to-day structural and mechanical issues that arose in that 150+ year old building that I worked in. In my old conference room, the floor was so un-level that, if you lifted your feet off the ground, your chair would roll to the side.
If that’s the case, then, I hope this isn’t just another in a long line of disasters to hit Nashville and lead directly to investors’ property-prospecting and redevelopment. I hope our city leaders do what they can to protect the character. I’m hopeful that, instead, our state and federal governments will offer aid to the businesses and people affected.
I’m hopeful that, whatever happens on Second Avenue, that there aren’t a row of glass fronted condos and high rise offices there someday. I hope it’s never shiny or, worse, fancy.
I hope that Second Avenue comes back strong and serves as a vibrant rebuke to this despicable act. And, when it does, I hope that it preserves some of that unique charm that it’s had all these decades.
I hope it never becomes a place where big law firms want to move to.
Some people have told me that 2020 was a strange year to start my own law firm, and I tell them that I wished I’d done it sooner. Or, at the very least, while there was some Paycheck Protection Program money available…
Law Firm Financial Planning during COVID. This Nashville Business Journal story, The 20 Nashville law firms with the largest PPP loans, reported that local law firms received more than $48.8 million in COVID related loans.
I’ll steer clear of the optics of the city’s largest and most prestigious firms getting such large payouts. I mean, c’mon, it’s free-ish money and complicated paperwork. That’s sort of a lawyer’s super bowl, right?
All kidding aside, I am confident that all these law firms also instituted financial austerity measures, hiring freezes, and other cost-saving measures to account for the new economic reality and, further, many plan to return most, if not all, of the funds.
And it isn’t just Nashville firms dealing with all this. These are questions law firms all over the country are getting.
"I don't know why lawyers have an image problem," lawyers say. "I don't know why people don't respect us for all the good we do." https://t.co/HXeGViwdOP
To the critics, I guess I’d remind them that law firms are businesses too, with actual employees and vendors and landlords. The fact that these are “big” law firms doesn’t mean that they don’t need financial assistance any less than a small or solo shop.
And, per today’s news, Boies Schiller Flexner (the big New York firm that received $10MM in PPP funds) announced it was offering a $20,0000 “welcome” bonus for new associates.
Similarly, in today’s Nashville Post, I’m seeing that one of our local big firms at the top of the PPP list announced a bevy of new lawyer hires. So, maybe things are turning around, and the next story will be about how firms are paying it back.
Some quick hits on this quiet Wednesday before Thanksgiving…
Tennessee Court of Appeals takes judicial notice of Google Maps. Yesterday, the Tennessee Court of Appeals expressly approved a trial court’s taking “judicial notice” of Google Maps to prove distance in trial proceedings.
(Note: Judicial notice is an evidentiary concept that means, basically, when a fact that is so well known and accepted that the court to accept the evidence as true without a full demonstration of proof of the underlying facts.)
The Court wrote: “Google Maps reflects the efforts by Google employees to provide an accurate representation of geography. The company’s business incentive to produce accurate maps is obvious. Furthermore, it is not as though Google Maps is a dubious new novelty. Google Maps has been relied upon by courts across jurisdictions for a number of years now, to say nothing of the general population.” The Total Garage Store, LLC v. Nicholas C. Moody, 2020 WL 6892012, at *11 (Tenn.Ct.App., 2020).
Some people claim that Tennessee Courts are, generally, reluctant to embrace new technology. Reasonable minds can differ, but this shows that courts will embrace technology when it makes obvious common sense.
It also doesn’t hurt that the opinion originated from one of the State’s “younger” and tech-savvy Chancellors…
Now, how are we doing with Zoom hearings?
I’m just gonna say as a 30 year attorney these Zoom depositions, Zoom mediations, and Zoom hearings are awesome. I don’t need to be in the same room to read a person. Chalk it up to experience, but I’m not missing in person. I may never leave the office. Zoom trials? Maybe.
I remain a little torn on this, and I’ll say that it depends on the Judge. With an active, engaged judge, you get 100% of the same focus, attention, and competency via a telephonic or video hearing. I’ll do a hearing via Zoom with those judges every time.
But, with a judge who is checked out and not paying attention, it’s easier for that judge to coast through, and it’s harder to get their focus and attention when you’re not personally in the same room. More judges than you’d think fall into this category.
Like so many other things in the law, the judge’s demeanor and interest (in the case, in the law, in where the lawyer is from, etc.) are the ultimate wild-card as to whether a client is going to get justice.
Tennessee sues Apple, Inc. over unfair and misleading information about iPhone updates and battery life. Last Friday, the Tennessee Attorney General filed a Complaint against Apple, Inc., alleging a violation of the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act over the iPhone’s “unexpected shutdowns” and “throttling” issues occurring in 2016 and 2017.
From the Complaint, it’s unclear how many Tennessee users are impacted and how much in damages are being sought. The full Complaint can be found here:
You’ll note that the final line of the Complaint contains a reference to “Ethicon’s unlawful trade practices,” which suggests that Attorney Generals are just like the rest of us, when it comes to recycling form pleadings.
One day, I will read one of my briefs while getting ready for oral argument and not find a typo, but today is not that day. #AppellateTwitter.
Lots of parents (especially mothers) have talked about the struggle to effectively practice law from home with kids in the house. In my house, I spend the five minutes before a call or a Zoom hearing telling, bribing, begging my children to be quiet, stay in their room, etc.
But, who knew that the real time-wasters were our law partners?
If this report is to be believed, maybe the “heightened productivity” lawyers enjoy at home results from an unhealthy lack of separation between work and home…
I need to work on my work/life separation because currently the only indicator "work" hours have ended is I switch from coffee to wine and then continue working
Today marks the 8 month mark of when, basically, people started taking COVID seriously.
On March 10, 2020, I had travelled to Louisville and was staying at the gorgeous and totally empty Omni Hotel, to interview for the open Louisville Bankruptcy Judgeship. That was on a Tuesday, and, on Saturday, my family was scheduled to depart for a spring break Disney Cruise.
(Spoiler-alert: Neither the job nor the cruise happened.)
In fact, on the drive back to Nashville, I coordinated my wife buying $400 of frozen pizzas and toilet paper, and I pondered stopping at Gander Mountain in Bowling Green to buy pre-apocalypse weapons and ammo.
(Spoiler-alert: The pizzas and toilet paper did happen, but the Anthony armory remains stocked only with hand-to-hand combat accessories.)
But, early in the COVID crisis, the email started running stories about law firm pay cuts in Tennessee, with mentions of specific law firms. Yeah, it’s legal news, but it also felt like it was none of my business.
Plus, it led to two things: (1) Local lawyers started gossiping about other law firms’ financial stability (which was a terrible look, considering people lost jobs); and (2) Other law firms who really, really needed to take a hard look at their financial decisions and consider smart cuts may have elected to do nothing, in order to stay out of the news. Lose / Lose, right?
This is probably the Bankruptcy Lawyer in me talking, but a few financial adjustments made on the precipice of the biggest economic crisis of our era shouldn’t be considered a bad thing. Trust me, the law firms I’d be most worried about right now are the ones who haven’t changed their financial model at all.
In other questionable financial planning news… During the COVID crisis, I bought a boat.
My debtor bankruptcy lawyer friends tell me that an ill-advised boat purchase is Step 3 in a five-step process for a potential bankruptcy filing. Great news for the Anthony household, right?
All of these are spot on. In the past month, I’ve participated in 2 – 3 video hearings, and I’ve seen pant-less people and also background art that I would describe as “tasteful nude ballerina” art.
Yes, I dreamed of being a judge. Yes, I’m from Memphis and love Memphis. Yes, I’m an award winning Best of Bar, Super Lawyer, Best Lawyers in America Bankruptcy Lawyer.
That would be an awesome job, in a community that has an incredibly large volume of financially distressed consumer debtors who really, really need a smart, progressive, creative judge. Talk about a place where a civic- and policy-minded judge can really make a difference and change lives…
But, it’s not going to be me.
Some of you may know this, but I was invited to interview in December 2019 with the Merit Selection Panel in Memphis for Judge Paulette Delk’s recent bankruptcy judgeship vacancy. The interview–to put it lightly–discouraged me from submitting my name for another vacancy so soon. (And, side note, I’ve already switched jobs recently.)
Judicial Diversity Matters. There were probably dozens and dozens of reasons I didn’t make the final round (and the ultimate pick was an absolute home run). But, based on the content and vigor of the questions to me, I discerned that, maybe, a white male (and, also, from Nashville) wasn’t their first choice (or choices 2 through 5, either, for that matter).
And, if true, they were absolutely correct (though I still question the “vigor” with which the questions were presented to me–yikes). Long before my interview, I’d been talking about the lack of judicial diversity.
We live in a time of monumental awareness of these issues, but our judiciary doesn’t always reflect the diversity of the communities that it serves. If we’re going to seize this moment and truly work for equality and true representation, isn’t this something that we should always factor into decisions?
When people have the power to hire, grant partnership, or appoint to a position, isn’t that a better consideration than “His dad is friends with _______” or “He goes to the same church that I do” or “He is an ‘opportunistic’ hire”? That’s called “affinity” hiring. Don’t do that.
I’ll go one step further: I think law firm clients need to think about this as well. When a client hires a law firm, are clients asking about diversity? Are clients challenging law firms to take a hard look at their internal policies? Do clients care about diversity and, if so, how are they expressing that to law firms?
I don’t perceive this to be a trend in our local legal community. Don’t get me wrong; everybody talks about diversity, but, in the end, lawyers and law firms focus mostly on the bottom line, traditional ways of doing things/hiring, and a social/cultural network that tends to promote the status quo. How can we change this?
Real change in the legal profession will not happen until clients start pushing these issues as well. Clients can vote with their dollars. If these issues are important to clients–and they should be–clients can force this discussion and impact the profession. If you’re a potential client and you care about this, ask prospective law firms what they do to promote diversity, whether in hiring or in the community.
This is a way to get more people of color into judicial spots. Clients, demand diversity in staffing your work. Make it a priority. Law firms will listen. With more opportunities for meaningful legal work and assignments, lawyers from under-represented backgrounds will gain experience that will change the trajectory of their career. Law firms are full of talk when it comes to diversity; real change requires that clients make it a priority.
The Bar Exam has been canceled (sort of). July is usually bar exam time in Tennessee (as well as all over the country). Like nearly everything else about our lives, the bar exam is going to be drastically different in Tennessee in 2020.
Bad News / Super Good News – The September Bar Exam is canceled. Instead, Tn will be giving an online bar exam Oct 5-6. Protects health of test takers and helps insure the competency of new lawyers. It’s a win win in difficult times. pic.twitter.com/OG73D9K2qj
As a result of this Order, Tennessee bar applicants now–for the first time ever–have the option of taking a private, online exam. As you can see from the responses to the Tennessee Supreme Court Justice’s tweet (really, people?), no decision is going to please everybody.
It’s either too much of a departure from tradition (for the older crowd) or too little of a change to the status quo (for the progressives).
Twitter can be pretty awful.
Speaking of how it’s impossible to make everybody happy. As law firms are trying new models as they pivot into the new world, this tweet spoke to me on a DNA level:
A wise person once said to me that trying to implement change in a large law firm was not like trying to turn the titanic but more like trying to turn a huge flotilla of smaller boats all at the same time… https://t.co/412yihn3tu
This is absolutely true. A law firm is generally full of highly critical (in a good way), smart, risk-adverse know-it-alls (in a bad way). I’ve seen hotly contested arguments about what soda to stock in the law firm kitchen. Good luck with your nimble pivots, managing partners.
Diversity Matters. The past few months have provided eye-opening lessons about privilege and opportunity for so many of us. Especially those in leadership positions at law firms.
In early June, I started to receive all the Black Lives Matters marketing e-blasts, so I know that many law firms recognize the PR benefit of supporting this movement.
But, I also know these law firms and judge them on their actions (as well as their words).
Law firms, what are you doing about diversity? And not just the 2020 associate class. I’m talking about the future years’ classes too. What support are you providing to nurture and provide opportunities to current law students? What about college students from non-privileged backgrounds who want to be lawyers? What about your staff (both present and future)? What educational or institutional policies are you introducing to your practices in response? What are you doing to support the movement in your community?
Separately, am I–personally–doing everything that I can? Are you?
Bankruptcy can be a great practice: (1) a mix of litigation and transactional work, (2) a small and usually friendly bar, (3) interesting statutory and constitutional questions, (4) it's code-based but very unscripted, and (5) when the process works, it can really help people.
Bankruptcies are heating up in the Middle District of Tennessee. Every day, I’m getting calls for representation on a new creditor bankruptcy case filed in Nashville.
Tennessee Courts get yanked into the 21st Century. This week, I’ve had two telephonic court hearings. They’ve both been a little strange.
On one, I called the Clerk’s office, who then gave me the Judge’s cell phone number. When I called the Judge on her cell phone, she was pretty clearly on a walk outside.
On the other, the court set up a call-in line for the docket call, with about 25 attorneys waiting for their specific matter to be called. When my matter was called, about 6 attorneys all spoke at once.
When my matter was over, I stayed on the line and listened to the next argument (on mute) to see how it flows and to plan for when I have to conduct my own complicated hearing. I learned that there is definitely an art to effective presentation via a phone call. Also, it was weird, just silently lurking. A Bloomberg news reporter listened in on a similar court hearing, and she described it as “uncomfortable and oddly voyeuristic.”
Personally, I’m not looking forward to more telephone or video hearings. I go to court a lot, and there’s so much you pick up by physically present in the courtroom, whether it’s a good read on the judge’s demeanor that day, on opposing counsel, or just the ability to be physically present when you’re making a huge argument for a client.
There is simply so much that goes into oral argument, and there’s so little of that in a phone call.
Zoom. Maybe we don’t need to see each other. Speaking of how technology maybe doesn’t always make things better, when all this first hit, everybody wanted to do a Zoom call. But, then, after a week of seeing the decorations in everybody’s guest bedroom, we sort of figured out that all this could have been done via conference call.
Personally, I can’t decide where I look: at who is speaking; at myself (which I’m usually doing); or directly at the camera. Bonus points to the participants who just leave their camera off the whole time.
Either way, I guess I fall in the middle on this app. In some situations, it makes sense to be able to see the person and get a read of their social cues or to establish a rapport. For example, I represent a large class of clients on a matter, and I like to communicate with them via video so they can see me and my team.
Slack. I acknowledge that I sound like a curmudgeon. So, to counteract that, I’ll provide a whole-hearted endorsement of Slack, the real time messaging platform. It seems like a really effective and well-done way to manage work teams.
Side-note: If you’re navigating all of this, I can’t recommend the Lawyerist website enough, as well as the Lawyerist podcast. It’s run by a group of very smart lawyers, and they constantly talk about remote work, law firm management, and law tech and innovations.
I really enjoy all that they do on that site to educate lawyers.
New Developments versus Custom and Habit. It’s hard to tell how much of this is temporary or here to stay. Some part of that answer will depend on the Court leadership forcing all counties to fully embrace the new rules, policies, and technology.
Yesterday, we were figuring out how to get a garnishment form notarized with all of us spread out over town. One of the lawyers on the e-mail chain correctly pointed out that Tenn. R. Civ. P. 72 and the brand new Supreme Court Orders allow for /e/-signatures and declarations in place of a notarized signature.
This was a garnishment, though, in a very small county, one that probably hasn’t read the Order from last week, and where the front desk clerk would take one look at the form, see the lack of a notarized signature, and potentially reject the filing.
This is what makes collections so different than other aspects of the law. Once you get the judgment, instead of dealing mainly with a judge, you’re mostly dealing with court clerk staff. You can be technically and legally correct, but, if you don’t follow their habit and custom?
Long story short, we got it notarized. Our goal wasn’t to be right. It was to get our garnishment issued.
My hope for all of this is that the Administrative Office of the Courts establishes a commission to look at all these issues and to anticipate as many of these issues that could arise in the future. And I hope that they don’t just pick the usual same people from the usual same big law firms to participate. Those lawyers don’t talk to clerks. They don’t file e-file documents. They don’t go to court on all kinds of matters.
The decisions that are being made today may set the policies and procedures across the state for years, and it’ll be interesting to see what changes implemented during this pandemic become the new custom and practice.
Creditors Rights 101 
