Knoxville attorney Heidi Barcus took office as the 145th president of the Tennessee Bar Association (TBA) during the group’s annual convention held June 11-14, 2025, in Franklin, Tennessee. Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Dwight Tarwater administered the oath of office.

A past president of the Knoxville Bar Association, Barcus currently chairs the Knoxville Bar Foundation.

A shareholder in the Knoxville office of Lewis Thomason, Barcus advocates for professionals and institutions in health care liability. Clients includes hospitals, physicians, nurses, medical practices, long-term care facilities and insurance companies. Barcus also handles product and professional liability cases and helps clients resolve conflict through alternative dispute resolution as a Rule 31 mediator.

Prior to joining Lewis Thomason, Barcus was a staff attorney and assistant general counsel at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, handling a range of legal matters including health care liability, HIPAA compliance and employment law. She is licensed to practice law in Tennessee and Kentucky.

Barcus is a 1993 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law (now Winston College of Law), where she previously taught legal writing, pre-trial litigation and trial practice, and was an active member of its Legal Clinic Advisory Board. She earned a master’s degree in English from Ohio University in 1989 and a bachelor of arts degree in English from Baylor University in 1987.

Info from Stacey Shrader Joslin, TBA; and Lewis Thomason website.

Brad Finney: Contemplating environmental impact

Brad Finney

Brad Finney, assistant professor at the University of Tennessee Winston College of Law, specializes in agricultural, energy, environmental and property law. Hired in 2024 for his first faculty position, he says colleagues were very open and helpful.

Finney graduated in 2012 from the Haslam College of Business and then opted for UT College of Law. He cited professors Dean Rivkin and Becky Jacobs as influential in his career. “They helped me figure out what a career in environmental law would look like.”

After earning his JD, Finney joined the firm of Norton Rose Fulbright in Houston, and later worked as an associate of Steptoe & Johnson in Washington D.C. He held two clerkships, both with graduates of Winston Law. From U.S. District Court Judge Pam Reeves, he learned about the lifecycle of a case. He also appreciated how she interacted with others. “She was kind to everyone, and really embodied what it means to be a federal judge in the best way.”

He clerked also in the Western District for Judge Daniel Breen. “He was an excellent writer. In my two years clerking for him, I think my writing improved just because I would get his edits back on the writings I did for him, and that was extremely helpful.

So, Brad Finney is thrilled to be back at the University of Tennessee. He is looking forward to working with students as his professors worked with him. “It’s great to watch students wrestle with a difficult topic and go from knowing very little about it to really understanding it from different angles. It’s wonderfully rewarding.”

Info and quotes from Winston College of Law website.

News from District Attorney Charme Allen

The 28-year-old male who pled guilty of murdering two young women in a South Knoxville residence has been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The crime occurred on May 13, 2023, and was witnessed by the mother of one victim on FaceTime. The second woman was killed because she had witnessed the first murder. Details here.

The weight of the law fell heavily on a 60-year-old man who was convicted of DUI while sleeping in his running vehicle in the middle of a neighborhood. He was sentenced to serve 28 days in jail, well above the required minimum sentence of 48 hours. He was apprehended on September 7, 2023, in a subdivision off Dante Road in North Knoxville. Details here.

In Memoriam

Doug Yaggi

Douglas Jackson Yaggi, 71, passed away on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. He was raised in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, graduating from ORHS in 1971. He attended the University of Tennessee, earning a degree in political science, and then earned a doctorate of jurisprudence from Duke Law School in 1978.

Following his graduation, he worked as a law clerk for attorney JD Lee in Knoxville. He then held positions in a variety of jobs in the Washington DC and Denver areas before moving back to Knoxville some 15 years ago and working at Sam’s Club and the University of Tennessee.
The family will hold a private graveside service at Anderson Memorial Gardens. The full obituary is here.

Notes & Quotes

Alex Vindman discussed the Russia-Ukraine war as well as the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Iran, and how the “appearance of strength” is undercut by the short-sightedness of foreign policy. “Authoritarian regimes look robust until they fracture completely.”

Dog-walking in Iran: Interesting tale (full story here) When Iran banned dog walking in 2019, few dog owners were all that worried about the order. But after years of lax enforcement, officials in recent days have pledged to crack down. Iran’s government has also long seen pet dogs as a sign of Western cultural influence. And much of the opposition to dogs in Iran stems from religious beliefs, with dogs impure, in Islam. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, had issued a fatwa, or religious order, explaining the logic: A dog’s saliva or hair would render anything it touched — like a person, clothing or a surface — impure. “Prayer is invalid with the presence of dog hair,” his fatwa read.

Trump moving too fast for you? A nonprofit is publishing a daily update of executive orders and legal challenges to same. Info here.