For the sake of transparency, and before you all accuse me of being an AI-In-Law-Technology shill based on yesterday’s post, here’s an interaction I had with Claude today, when a citation in a response didn’t look quite right to me…
Uh, yes, that’s a good catch. The statute literally doesn’t say what the prior response said it did.
Always remember, “Don’t Trust and Verify.”
A few weeks ago, while researching a complicated legal issue, I asked Claude AI to take the first pass before I dug in.
Yes, it’s controversial for a lawyer to admit to using AI at all, but it shouldn’t be. Claude is really good and, frankly, as good as (or better than) your standard issue first-year associate. Having said that, though, you have to treat Claude’s work with the same cautious skepticism that you’d apply to a first-year associate’s work. (My motto? “Don’t Trust and Verify.”)
Here’s why I found Claude’s sources to be eminently trust-worthy…
Yes, in vetting the sources, it was revealed that I am the brains behind the robots! This is either very flattering or terrifying. For now, I’ll accept the compliment.
For 3 years, lawyers have been bombarded by vendors selling AI. Every task, application, or product is AI based or enhanced (and priced accordingly). The future of law is now, and it can be yours for just $755.00 per seat.
At last week’s Tennessee Bar Association Convention and Technology Showcase, every CLE panel related to the use of artificial intelligence. At ClioCon, every exhibitor had some sort of “AI!” product to sell. When I open an app on my computer, I am constantly asked whether I want AI’s help.
Don’t get me wrong; AI is awesome technology, with capabilities that actually match the hype (well, mostly).
But there’s been an equally fervent backlash in the legal profession about the traps presented by the use of AI.
I hear all of that, but, after approaching it with a skeptical mind, I’ve been blown away by AI’s capabilities and believe that it can make competent, smart, careful lawyers better and more efficient at their jobs.
Having said that, though, what about the lawyers who don’t use the AI in competent, smart, careful ways? Let’s ask the Chief Judge for the District Courts in the Western District of Tennessee…
Continue reading “Recent District Court Opinion out of Memphis “presents a study in the perils” of “unchecked use of AI” (and possibly $48,240 in sanctions)”In the last 7 days, I’ve seen not one, but TWO news stories about law firms renting larger and fancier office spaces.
Maybe it was just a slow news week, but I didn’t realize that was something that justified a news story. (Is it not Super Lawyers or Best Lawyers (TM) season yet?)
Regardless, we’ve come a long way since the days of COVID, when law firms offered “flex” work arrangements, allowing lawyers and staff to work from, well, wherever they wanted to (as long as the work got done). It made financial sense (allowing some firms to downsize, reduce costs, and eliminate those wasteful “corner” offices, in favor of uniform office sizes and more collaborative space) and also met a younger generation of professionals (i.e. the non-old-white guys) where they were at.
Law firms are creatures of tradition, and, as Colliers‘ recently released 2026 Law Firm Trends Report shows, it hasn’t taken long for the old timers to summon the associates back to to their desks. By the end of 2026, Colliers predicts that law firms will expect staff to spend up to 70% of the work week in the actual office.
As for Nashville, Colliers notes the rapid (and rabid) influx of global law firms into the market, which has increased competition for the best office space. Per Colliers, Nashville’s average Class A “asking” rent is $40.40 per square foot.
Having seen the insanely high hourly rates that these new law firms are injecting into the local market, I have no doubt they can afford it.
It seems that we’ve returned to flashy addresses as a signifier of the quality of legal services. The argument for this old fashioned approach is, of course, that “opulent physical spaces suggest success and prestige, which will result in more work from clients.” Said another way, “our marble encrusted tables and leather bound volumes will strike fear in the hearts of enemies and admiration from clients.”
And, yes, the above link takes you to a post by me from 2021, bragging about my WeWork office and how the then-new trends in lawyer office space and lower overhead were so wonderful. (Yes, I’m biased.)
Oh well. The Nashville legal market continues to evolve. But expensive offices, long term leases, and more time at your desk to pay for all that? No thanks.
A few weeks ago, a Nashville lawyer posted a picture on his LinkedIn page. He was visiting his big firm’s Miami office, taking all-day depositions. He posted a picture from the conference room, showing the view out the window.
In the picture, past the visible reflection of the rows of fluorescent lights, you could see people in the distance, having fun on the beach.
Local Nashville news has been abuzz about the huge tax bill faced by Lower Broadway’s Acme Feed & Seed for the 2025 tax year. Located at 101 Broadway, at the start of the historic Broadway honky-tonks and overlooking the Cumberland River, it’s a prime property on a stretch that has continuously set (and re-set) new records for property values.
For the past 5-7 years, asking prices for Broadway honky-tonks have reached unimaginable heights. You can buy Jelly Roll’s bar for $100Million. Jon Bon Jovi’s is being offered for $130Million.
That’s great for the property owners’ balance sheets, but it’s bad news when the Metro Nashville Assessor starts paying attention. (Increases in tax appraisals generally mean higher taxes.)
2025 Metro Real Property taxes come due later this week, and, if this past week’s news is any indication, nobody is more worried about their 2025 tax bill than Tom Morales, the owner of Acme Feed and Seed.
As a result of the recent re-appraisals, for 2025, the property is appraised at $50,049,200, a huge jump from 2021’s value of $9,577,900.
The tax bill? $589,259.28 (and has not yet been paid).
The public response has been mixed. Lots of people won’t ever feel sorry for somebody whose property value goes up $40+ million dollars (and would fetch far more in a private sale), but those people are missing a key point: Tom Morales doesn’t own the property, per the Quitclaim Deed.
Why, then, would a renter care about the property taxes?
My guess is that he probably signed a triple net lease (often written as “NNN”).
In simple terms, a triple net lease is a lease where the tenant pays not just “base” monthly rent to the landlord, but also all of the property’s operating expenses: real estate taxes, insurance, and common area or maintenance costs. In short, the landlord owns the building, but, per the lease, the tenant agrees to pay all of the expenses of the building, usually in 1/12th increments throughout the year as “additional” rent.
If you don’t work in the commercial leasing realm, it probably blows your mind to think that, as a tenant, you’d be responsible for all of the expenses of a property. Why not just buy the building yourself?
It’s a common leasing structure. From the tenant’s perspective, they can operate out of property, without the cash, credit, or long-term obligations of purchasing an expensive building. Acme Feed and Seed may not have had the credit (or desire) to own a $50 Million property, but it can get it via lease. And what a property it is: On New Year’s Eve, nearly 250,000 people rang in the new year at Acme’s front door, with TV and media coverage you can’t buy.
From the owner’s perspective, a deal like this ties up lots of cash or credit on an fixed asset, but, at least, they don’t come deeper out of pocket for the operating expenses. It sounds like a great deal, sure, but being a landlord still carries risk. Ever hear of a bar going out of business and being vacant? Who pays the mortgage, taxes, and expenses in that situation?
At the end of the day, a commercial lease is a contract, and the two parties are free to agree to whatever they want in a lease. They can allocate taxes, insurance, and maintenance responsibilities in any way, and a Tennessee court will hold them to that bargain, no matter how unfair the unforeseen results can be. A contract will be enforced according to its plain language.
With that in mind, for any tenant considering a triple net lease on a property with potential for this sort of wild change, I’d recommend that the tenant consider a provision to mitigate the risk this could happen.
No landlord would be willing to voluntarily bear this tax increase, especially if the tenant retains all of the use and benefit of such a valuable property. (From the landlord’s perspective, the tenant is, now, paying under-market rent, as if the building was still worth a paltry $10Million, right?)
Instead, this lease could have included a provision that allows the tenant to opt out and terminate the lease, if the tenant could prove this increase in the tax cost was a material change. In that situation, the tenant would have an option to get out of the lease and, on the other side, the landlord would be freed from “the burden” of being bound by an under-market lease and could, then, attempt to enter into a new lease based on the $50MM valuation or capture the value via sale. (In short, the landlord would probably happily terminate the lease and see what the free market says about all of this.)
Without that, a tenant can only hope the landlord will pitch in and help with this cost. If I had to guess, all of this hit the local news after the landlord declined to pay the tax bill.
Broadway has changed a lot since Acme first opened their doors 15 years ago. Even the best commercial real estate attorneys could not have foreseen this when drafting this lease, but it’s something to think about on the next honky-tonk lease.
One of the frustrating parts of being a lawyer (there are many) is that, sometimes, you can’t get your case set for hearing as fast as you (or your client) would like it to be. The legal system moves at its own pace, and it’s generally not built for speed.
This is especially true in mid-March (spring break) and mid-October (fall break/judicial conference), when court dockets might be unavailable or closed.
Time is money for my clients, and they tend to want to get in front of the judge as soon as possible. One or two weeks of closed dockets can add 30-60 days of delay.
Under Tennessee law, if a defendant in a lawsuit fails to respond or otherwise defend “as provided by these rules,” the plaintiff can get a judgment by default. See Tenn. R. Civ. P. 55.01. This generally means that, after service of a lawsuit, a defendant must file an answer within 30 days. If they don’t, you file a motion saying that and, generally, you win.
For years, I had this theoretical question: If a plaintiff filed a motion for default prospectively–before the answer deadline had expired–and, if the defendant failed to answer by the 30 day deadline, would a judgment by default be entered?
This spring, I got my answer.
I had a case where defendant’s answer date was approaching, but the court’s motion calendar showed dockets in late March…and then mid-May. Yikes!
The deadline for my defendants to answer was March 15. March 14 was the deadline to get my Motion for Default heard on that last, March 28 docket. Should I file a day early (and see if they file an answer) or should I wait?
I got my clarity: My Motion was denied, with the text of the order noting that my motion was filed “twenty-nine days after Defendants were served.” As a result, the Motion “was untimely since less than thirty days elapsed between the date of service and the date Plaintiff filed its motion.”
In the end, then, it didn’t matter that the defendants never filed an answer, including between the filing date (March 14) and the scheduled hearing date (March 28). The original motion was premised on a condition that had not yet occurred.
As a result, upon receipt of the order, I filed a new Motion on March 28, set it for May 15, and got my default judgment then.
The practice of law is “form” driven. That means that, once a lawyer drafts a really good document, she tends to go back to that document the next time that same issue comes up.
This is particularly true with foreclosures in Tennessee.
Tennessee statutes strictly define what must be included in a foreclosure advertisement at Tenn. Code Ann. § 35-5-104. As a result, a smart foreclosure attorney might start with an old form foreclosure notice, but then compare that against the statute’s checklist, and use that revised document as a form for all of his future foreclosures. (A dumb attorney would just run with whatever is in the form–or what AI says–and not doublecheck it against the law.)
With a little bit of detail work on the front end, a savvy lawyer has a form document that will guide him for years…until the law changes.
This week, I and the Tennessee Bankers Association taught a class for the Knoxville Bar Association called “Modernization of Tennessee’s Foreclosure Laws“, which tracked the foreclosure law changes that went into effect on July 1, 2025.
The TL;DR version is that the newspaper publications have been reduced from 3 times to 2 times and, now, foreclosing parties must post the notice with a “third-party internet posting company.” See Tenn. Code Ann. § 35-5-101.
If you are updating your form, however, you need to dig in on that other statute. There’s a discrete change in the sale notice requirements.
It’s at Tenn. Code Ann. § 35-5-104(a)(7), which adds that the sale notice “shall…[i]dentify the website of the third-party internet posting company that posts an advertisement pursuant to § 35-5-101(a)(2).”
I’m posting this warning because, candidly, I didn’t catch this change in my first reading of the new statutes. Instead, when I was preparing my first “post-July 1” sale notice, I went online and read other recent advertisements, to see what changes other law firms had made on their forms.
In doing that, I noticed this text in many of them: As of July 1, 2025, notices pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated § 35-5-101 et seq. are posted online at https://foreclosuretennessee.com by a third-party internet posting company.
That’s weird, I thought. Why are they saying that? That’s when I dug in on § 35-4-104 and found that little change.
Non-judicial foreclosures in Tennessee are tricky. You have to comply with both the letter of the statute exactly and with the terms of the relevant lien instrument. In short, you have to be awesome at paperwork.
Big-picture compliance with the changes in Tenn. Code Ann. § 35-5-101 is easy. This post is a reminder that there’s a very little change in Tenn. Code Ann. § 35-104 that could have a big impact on your sale.
What’s in a name?
There’s a scene in Season 6 of Mad Men that considers this question.
After the merger of “Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce” with their rival, “Cutler Gleason and Chaough,” the partners meet to decide on a name going forward. The secretaries are confused: the official name is “SCDP-CGC,” but many are answering the phones with “Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Cutler Gleason and Chaough.”
Both are mouthfuls. Every alternative considered is offensive to the partners in different ways. Some don’t like the order of the names. Some don’t like that the deceased partners remain in the title. Some partners don’t like that their own name (or initial) isn’t on the list. Some are just awkward and impossible to say. Every solution is worse than the one before.
In the end, they decide on “Sterling Cooper & Partners,” which is perceived as the least offensive choice (well, except to “Sterling” and “Cooper”).
This reminded me of law firm names.
Law firms have been, generally, named after a few of the lawyers in the firm. Maybe they are the founders and first partners. Maybe they are the rainmakers. Maybe adding a last name to the list is way to recruit the next generation of leaders.
Even though the rules of professional conduct no longer require law firms to use lawyers’ last names, law firm names are still, typically, just a list of last names. And, yes, it can be a mouthful, when it exceeds 3 or 4 names. When I’m typing it out for a letter, all I think about is the back office drama that went into the 7th partner getting his or her name added and how, maybe, that partner is going to fight whoever tries to be the 8th name. When a partner has a hard to pronounce name (like “Chaough”), I wonder if that was a mark against his or her partnership candidacy.
Over the past few decades, as partner ranks have grown, law firms have started to get inventive. In some cases, no matter how many actual partners there are, the firm simply has 2 or 3 partner names listed, following the Mad Men concept of annoying most of the partners equally.
Some mega firms go even more scaled back, using branding that highlights only 1 or 2 names. Sure, lots of people know “Skadden Arps,” but did you know it’s actually “Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP” and that none of Skadden or Arps or any of them are still at the firm?
Having said that, though, if you are reading this blog, you’ve probably heard of Skadden Arps, right? That’s good branding. If you call and ask for Mr. Skadden (or even Mr. Flom), they aren’t there anymore. But, you can be sure that whoever takes your call is going to be very well educated, have great credentials, and will be very expensive and litigious. That’s the “Skadden Arps” way.
I get it. Sometimes, a random assortment of last names has meaning in the market. When you’re a brand name with market cachet, you tend to want to keep that name.
There has been chatter over the past 4 months about the potential demise of Neal & Harwell, PLC, a Nashville litigation law firm that’s been around for more than 50 years. It has been historically regarded as a premier litigation firm in Nashville, based, largely, on the reputation of Mr. Neal and Mr. Harwell. At first, it was second-hand and unsubstantiated whispers, then, about a month later, founding partner Mr. Harwell left for a new firm, and then, over the following weeks, lawyers slowly started leaving for other firms.
Today, the Nashville Post reported that 20 of the remaining Neal & Harwell lawyers will join Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP. Womble Bond Dickinson was founded in 1876 in London and has 37 offices all over the world. The picture in the Post’s article is of Womble’s Nashville office managing partner, who has a “202” area code and who is based in both Washington DC and in Nashville.
I don’t know much about Womble Bond, but I remember that it’s one of those big law firms trying to get in on Nashville. I’m sure it’s a great move for all involved, and we’ll be seeing Womble Bond lawyers on the court dockets soon.
I may be biased, but I’ve never liked the long list of last names as a corporate name. Sure, sometimes there’s value (see above), but, sometimes, it’s just about ego, tradition, and lack of creativity. Not to mention that it’s a practice that favors old white guys.
We’ve seen lots of lawyers jumping firms over the past few years, which has included a number of named partners (who are discretely removed from the name), but I can’t remember a founding captain of a firm switching firms and leaving his name behind. Has that ever happened?
Notwithstanding my general dislike of last names as law firm names, I’ve been secretly hoping that one or many of the lawyers at the old firm would decide to simply keep the name and continue practicing as “Neal & Harwell, PLC” for years to come. It’s a brand built with 50 years of effort from many lawyers–and not just Mr. Neal and Mr. Harwell. Lots of unnamed partners have carried that flag for decades, and, just because they weren’t in the name, it doesn’t mean that they didn’t help build up that name.
Did they shut it down when Jim Neal (a huge legal figure) passed away? (No) Are there lawyers all over the country who think of great litigators in Nashville, have no idea about any of this, and will simply tell their Tennessee clients to call the “Neal & Harwell” firm? (Surely)
None of this is my business, and I don’t even know if keeping the old name was possible. (Maybe the Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit it.) As somebody who left a firm and has suffered through many e-mail iterations over the last 5 years, maybe I’m just biased about keeping the old name and prefer to avoid the hassle.
But I would have considered it. That name meant something. RIP, Neal & Harwell. You were always a pain in the neck to have litigation cases against, and I respected you and your attorneys.
In the nearly 5 years after leaving my old law firm, I’ve opened 807 new matters.
That is a lot of files.
In fact, it’s so many that I was reluctant to mention it. For many lawyers, opening a lot of files is a negative thing, an indication that you run a high volume, “small” matter firm. The true honor, some would argue, is working on a very small number of very large, complex cases.
I won’t debate the different philosophies. After taking a leap of faith and leaving a big law firm to start a brand new, solo-focused firm, I’m just grateful that there have been at least 807 times that a client has said “I need David Anthony’s help on this” and called me.
And, sure, I’ve handled a lot of small files, like the dozens of times I’ve sent a demand letter and nothing else. Many have been big: File No. 797 was to foreclose on a notable Nashville commercial property valued at $120 million. File Nos. 227 to 274 were when a big bank client found out I had left and told my old firm to send me every open case I had touched while working there.
In retrospect, I should have left earlier. Some of my hesitation was, candidly, fear. Fear of whether I needed to be at a big firm to be taken seriously. Of whether I needed all the bells and whistles of a big firm. Whether clients would trust me if I started my own firm. Whether my phone would ring.
I was way off, but I’ve got mouths to feed and needed to be careful. You never know what the future holds. Some lawyers leave a big firm with a few boxes of files, but no plan on how to get more.
When younger lawyers ask me for advice, I tell them that there are things you can do early in your career that prepare you for long term success. That client development and professional development go hand-in-hand. Being a very good lawyer is the baseline expectation, but what really builds a career is the ability to connect with your clients, to understand their business and needs, to inspire trust, and to care enough to deserve that trust.
I tell clients too often: “You don’t have to worry about this any more. Your problems are now my problems.” That is absolutely not the most healthy approach to work/life balance (see the part in that post about my late night ER visit). Having said that, your clients can tell if you are just pushing paper around to satisfy your law firm’s billable hour requirements.
You have to practice law with a purpose. Be the attorney who goes the extra mile, who communicates more, and who makes the client look good. Impress the clients when you send the simple demand letter, and then they’ll call you on the big foreclosure.
Lawyer (and lawyer business coach) Lee Rosen has a great post about this, “Associates: You are Going to Leave.” In short, prepare to leave, long before you would ever leave.
After I left the old firm, I never looked back. I never needed to. I was lucky, but I also think we can create our own luck, with preparation and being bold when presented with opportunities.
Around this time of year, I always promise that I’ll share stories and advice about starting your own firm. I invariably get busy with work and then don’t post as much as I intended (this post was actually scheduled for about 2 weeks ago, when I opened File No. 800).
Oh well, maybe this year will be different. A disclaimer: While writing this, my paralegal opened File No. 808, and a client emailed me File Nos. 809 and 810.
The Tennessee Legislature has made some significant changes to the foreclosure process in Tennessee, and those changes to Tenn. Code Ann. § 35-5-101 take effect on July 1, 2025.
This post is not to summarize the changes. (I’ll do that at this Tennessee Bar Association CLE, Upcoming Changes to Tennessee Foreclosure Law, alongside the Tennessee Bankers Association.)
The point of this post is more urgent.
By my analysis, the new statute doesn’t apply to foreclosures initiated before July 1 and, for those of you who aren’t ready or willing to learn a new law, I tell you this: Issue your foreclosure sale notices now.
Here’s my analysis. Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-101 says “[t]he repeal of a statute does not affect any right which accrued, any duty imposed, any penalty incurred, nor any proceeding commenced, under or by virtue of the statute repealed.”
The Tennessee Supreme Court has considered a similar question and wrote “[t]hough ‘procedural’ changes in the law generally apply retrospectively to causes of action arising before such changes become law,… where the pending action has gone beyond the procedural stage to which the amendment pertains, an amendment will not apply.” See Smallwood v. Mann, 205 S.W.3d 358, 365 (Tenn. 2006).
In short, even though procedural legislation generally applies retroactively, this general concept doesn’t apply when the case has progressed beyond the procedural stage impacted by the new law.
By my own analysis (disclaimer: I could be wrong), if a foreclosure was already in its publication stage before July 1, 2025, the new law doesn’t apply.
After more than 25 years, I’ve practiced through many changes in the law. In that time, I’ve learned that there are always growing pains, confusion, and a little bit of chaos in the days, weeks, and months after a big change.
What I’m saying is: Call your bankers and ask them if you have any foreclosures on their desks.
Tennessee judgments expire after ten years.
As a creditor lawyer, one of my greatest fears is that one of the many judgments that I’ve taken over the past 10 years is set to expire and I have forgotten about it.
It is so easy to renew judgments under Tenn. R. Civ. P. 69.04, but it’s also easy to forget about those old files. If a law firm forgets, it could get sued for malpractice. It’s a big deal.
Earlier this week, the Tennessee Court of Appeals touched on this issue. See John Doe Corp. v. Kennerly, Montgomery & Finley, P.C., E2023-00236-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. May 28, 2024).
In the case, after the 10 year period expired on an old judgment, the judgment creditor client sued its former lawyers, alleging that the law firm “had failed to inform Plaintiff that the judgment would expire after ten years or that it needed to seek to extend the judgment prior to its expiration.”
The trial court dismissed the claims against the law firm, because the client failed to have filed the lawsuit within the one-year attorney malpractice statute of limitations. The opinion doesn’t really focus on the renewal issue; the real analysis is on issues of recusal and the different standards under Tenn. R. Civ. P. 59.04 and 60.02.
But, back to creditor rights. Is this is victory for the law firm? Not really, because lawyers don’t like being sued for malpractice in the first place.
Since starting my firm nearly 4 years ago, I’ve opened 639 new cases. Before that, I handled a similarly busy caseload at my old firm. In the past 10 years, I’ve taken 100s of judgments.
It would be a cold comfort to me to know that, if my client sues me for malpractice, I could possibly defend the case on a technicality.
Having said that, how can lawyers mitigate that risk? The answer is in a Court of Appeals decision I wrote about in 2019. There, the malpractice claims turned on whether the law firm warned the client, at any point, that the judgment needed to be renewed in ten years. Because the law firm had previously warned the client about the 10 year expiration, the client had knowledge of the possible malpractice claims that accrued at the time of non-renewal (and not a later date).
Look at the text of the John Doe case: the client alleged that the law firm “had failed to inform Plaintiff that the judgment would expire after ten years or that it needed to seek to extend the judgment prior to its expiration.”
If you’re like me, a busy lawyer with many judgments, remember my advice from 2019: “A good practice is to make sure that the client understands that it has a responsibility in ten years to notify you that it wants you to take this action.”
In a perfect world, my advice is to calendar judgments and simply avoid this issue altogether.
A separate safeguard could be, in that initial congratulatory email, sending a copy of the judgment to the client, to always include text that clearly discusses the validity and expiration of the Judgment in terms that the client can understand.
Creditors Rights 101 