Richard J. Alley

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

May 23, 2013

In 2008, the Tennessee Supreme Court laid out a strategic plan to get attorneys more involved in pro bono work.

Though it isn’t required of the state’s professionals, there is an inspirational goal of 50 hours per year of public service that is heavily encouraged by the justices.

At the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, however, students are required to complete 40 hours of pro bono during their school career.

Callie Caldwell, public interest law counselor for the school, said that approach will benefit students when they leave school to practice.

“We wanted our students to get in there, dig in while they’re in law school, learn those skills and be very comfortable doing pro bono work so that when they graduate they’ll be able to quickly transition and be used to doing the kind of work that comes along with what’s typically considered as pro bono,” she said.

In that capacity, Caldwell’s work is two-fold as the director of the pro bono program: monitoring students and creating placement within their interests in a field with working lawyers of the community. With career services, she counsels and guides students that want to work in the world of public interest.

Students can’t start working until they’ve had at least 15 hours of coursework completed, usually in their second semester. They work with attorneys on projects such as the law school’s monthly pro se divorce clinic or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, working to allow the children of immigrants to stay in the country for up to two years and obtain a driver’s license, work, go to college or join the military … (read more)

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

May 16, 2013

After graduating from Germantown High School, Steven Medlock left Memphis for the bluegrass of Western Kentucky University.

With a full-ride scholarship for soccer, his goal became to play in the big leagues. After graduating college in 2006, he played midfield center for the semi-pro New Orleans Shell Shockers. Though it was an exciting time, Medlock said, it was a long eight months spent living in a hotel room on Canal Street when not on the road.

“I made the decision after that one season to hang up the cleats, I didn’t really have a future in that,” he said. “It was awesome and I had a fantastic time, but I couldn’t survive on $250 a week for life.”

Medlock used his time in New Orleans to study for the GRE and entered the graduate program at the University of Memphis for a master’s degree in political communication and rhetoric. During that time, he kept his foot on the pitch by coaching soccer at Germantown High School and Memphis University School, and in a club league in Collierville.

His intention was to go on and earn a doctorate, but he found he wasn’t interested in a life of academia. The legal profession, in contrast, would be “promises of golden riches,” he laughs now. He was always interested in the law and looked up to friends and mentors, Nick Tansey and assistant district attorney Chris Lareau. He met both through a local men’s soccer league … (read more)

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

May 9, 2013

Julie McLaughlin has worked her way up the legal ladder for much her life.

Beginning with a degree in paralegal studies from Hinds Community College in Raymond, Miss., and then a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Memphis, the final rung was earning a law degree from the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law in 2001.

The Pickens, Miss., native said she knew she wanted to be an attorney as early as the eighth grade.

“My uncle is an attorney in Jackson, Miss., and I just became fascinated with the law,” McLaughlin said. “I don’t know why at that age, but I did and I never changed my mind.”

During her time in law school, McLaughlin says she was “always very impressed with the professors” she had there and was lucky enough to have several mentors to look up to, especially Ernest Lidge, who helped her get an externship with the Labor Board.

McLaughlin worked with Magistrate Judge Diane Vescovo, who mentored her on the practical application of the law as an extern as well.

“Everything in law school is book, book, book, and then when you get out it’s a whole new world, so having those kinds of experiences to fall back on really helps,” she said.

McLaughlin has been with the Kiesewetter Law Firm PLLC since late last year, and has focused her practice over the years on labor and employment law, employee benefits and corporate law. It’s an area she was introduced to during her second year of law school as a clerk for Weintraub, Stock, Bennett & Grisham, now The Weintraub Firm PC … (read more)

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

May 2, 2013

As supervising attorney over both the Judge’s Action Center and the Office of Advocate for Noncustodial Parents at Memphis-Shelby County Juvenile Court, Tom Coupé works to ensure that the most vulnerable members of society are being fairly and equally represented.

“The Judge’s Action Center started as an outreach to the public to assist them with any questions or concerns they have about the court,” Coupé said.

The Memphis native graduated from the University of Memphis in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. After graduating, he worked in the restaurant industry at varying capacities, saying, “While I enjoyed it, it wasn’t a good long-term plan for me.”

At the age of 29, he re-evaluated his goals and left town for the first time with a scholarship to the Southern Illinois School of Law. While in school, he planned to join the district attorney’s office and become a prosecutor, but a lack of opportunity at the time led him instead to the Shelby County Department of Children Services in 2004, where he began his legal career.

“I just kind of fell into that line of work,” Coupé said. “I never thought I was going to be a child welfare attorney, but here it is 10 years later and I’m certified as a child welfare law specialist and this is what I do and this is what I love.”

From Shelby County, he moved to Middle Tennessee to work with the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services in Williamson County. The Judge’s Action Center was put into place in 2007, the year Coupé first began working with Juvenile Court. Prior to that he had traveled around the state as a court improvement attorney with the Administrative Office of Courts, training judges, lawyers and court personnel on best practices in child welfare law … (read more)

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

April 26, 2013

For assistant federal defender David Bell, the urge to be a lawyer was precipitated by the urge to help people.

“I always thought I wanted to do something where I could help other people, certainly people less fortunate than me, and I decided on law,” Bell said. “I knew that whatever I did with a law degree I would be able to help people and … I realized that whether I loved the law or whether I didn’t love the law, I could make a living doing it as well.”

As it turns out, Bell loved the law since his first days at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. Before becoming a student there, though, he graduated from White Station High School and studied politics, legal studies and religion at Earlham College, a small, liberal arts school in Richmond, Ind.

A spiritual man who has served as deacon for Idlewild Presbyterian Church, Bell considered the seminary before deciding on law school where, as a student, he met Robert Jones, the Shelby County chief public defender at the time.

“He asked me to come over there and interview with them for a summer clerkship,” Bell said. “I liked their office and I liked the idea of the mission of what they did there, so I went over there and I clerked that first summer after my first year in law school and I just kind of fell in love with the place and the people there.”

That mission, Bell says, is to help the indigent who are seeking justice. Problems in society such as lack of education and substance abuse, he said, all tie back into the issue of poverty … (read more)

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

April 18, 2013

Attorney Anne Mead is not in Kansas anymore. Recently named partner with the firm of Butler Sevier Hinsley & Reid PLLC, a family law practice, she said, “We have some pretty incredible people working for us, I’m really, really lucky.”

The Kansas native attended Washburn University there and moved to Memphis to attend the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphries School of Law after she and husband, Jay, considered living in other places such as Georgia, South Carolina and Kansas. Her family had moved to Memphis during her time in college, though, and it just felt right to be near them again.

Though she’s ended up in the legal profession, her undergraduate degree is in English literature. She says she thought at the time that she wanted to work in the media but, “realized pretty quickly that I probably wouldn’t be satisfied either simply writing an article for a newspaper or being on a television broadcast or something like that.”

She began thinking realistically about her career options, about how to continue writing yet pay the bills, when a friend suggested she explore the moot court and mock trial team. “I absolutely loved it, loved every single part of it,” she said. “To this day I love litigation and I love trial. When I’m litigating something, it’s the only time that I ever forget I am something other than a lawyer.”

She took the LSAT, what she calls a “horribly scary experience,” and then took two years to make sure the decision was the right one. During that time, Mead traveled across the country managing different chapters of her sorority to help them improve, and worked for a law firm as a legal assistant … (read more)

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

April 11, 2013

It was no joke when, on April 1, Kathleen Gomes was appointed by the Shelby County Commission to take the seat being vacated by retiring Probate Court Judge Robert Benham.

Gomes will run next year when the position, an eight-year term, comes up again for vote, but the recent appointment was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream that began when she was a child growing up in Chattanooga.

“My mother was a social worker, so I was raised around the idea of trying to help people,” Gomes said. “But after seeing that she didn’t really have a lot of authority to help people other than what she was restricted to do, when I was in college, I decided that the only way to really help people was to be a lawyer.”

She studied political science at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga and then ventured across the state to the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law.

After the first semester, however, she moved to Washington for the opportunity to work for a new congresswoman from Chattanooga for a year. She returned, finished the first year of law school, and then was asked by state treasurer Harlan Mathews to work for him in Nashville.

She finished her stop-and-go law student career in 1980 and went to work for the law firm representing the William B. Tanner Co. media empire … (read more)

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

April 4, 2013

It’s been a long time coming, but Michael Coury has made the move to Glankler Brown PLLC.

The attorney, whose practice is in bankruptcy and creditors’ rights law, business reorganizations, workouts, and business and commercial litigation, nearly made the switch when previous firm Waring Cox disbanded in 2001.

A client conflict kept that from happening, however, and he stayed with the firm that would become Butler, Snow, O’Mara, Stevens & Cannada PLLC. When an opportunity with Glankler Brown became available last month, he moved his office across Poplar Avenue in East Memphis.

“The idea of coming to Glankler is not a new one,” Coury said. “If things worked out right 12 years ago, I would have come here.”

Coury was raised in Memphis and attended Rhodes College, where he graduated in 1977 with a degree in political science – and a fervent interest in the law.

“While I was at Rhodes I took a constitutional law class and I think that was one of the things that got me interested,” he said. “They had some practicing lawyers that were part-time faculty that would come and lecture, and it was just something I always had an interest in.”

Laughing, he added that a sibling rivalry also may have contributed to his three decades-long career … (read more)

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

March 28, 2013

Before exploring the hushed recesses of a law library and the endless indexes of a legal textbook, Chris Frulla of Rainey, Kizer, Reviere & Bell PLC wanted to explore some of the country.

His wanderlust took him from Memphis, where he’d attended White Station High School, to South Carolina and College of Charleston. He graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in anthropology and minor in geology and environmental geostudies.

Following college, Frulla worked for a cultural resource management company doing private archeology surveys for two years.

“Eventually I decided that it was something that I enjoyed but not something that I wanted to base my career around, and I started trying to make some decisions about the rest of my life,” he said.

His father is William Frulla, a University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law alumnus and longtime Memphis attorney … (read more)

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

March 21, 2013

Burch, Porter & Johnson PLLC and probate attorney Beth Bradley have been honored for giving back to the community.

The firm and the lawyer were recently recognized at the seventh annual Corporate Counsel Pro Bono Initiative Gala in Nashville with the Corporate Counsel Pro Bono Law Firm Award for a partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital that involves helping low-income families manage treatment of their children at the hospital.

The partnership involves attorneys working with those of a low income and newly recognized by the law as adults while mental limitations make a conservatorship necessary.

Heading up the program for Burch Porter is Bradley, a 26-year veteran with the firm. The native Memphian attended St. Agnes Academy before heading east for college at Vanderbilt University with visions of studying pre-med. Along with degrees in French and English came a change of heart, and she instead set her sights on law and stayed on at Vanderbilt for her Juris Doctorate.

“I’ve always been motivated to try to do something positive or that I think can help other people,” she said about her switch to the legal profession.

It’s a trait she gets from her family – her father was a physician, as are her brothers – as well as from the firm … (read more)