College of Law alumna Tasha Blakney has been elected president of the Tennessee Bar Association.
Blakney, who currently serves as the chair of the College of Law alumni council, was sworn in last week as the organization’s 142nd president. During that event, she vowed to lead the Tennessee Bar Association’s efforts in opposing the state’s professional privilege tax and to advocate for prompt reimbursement for lawyers taking on indigent representation cases.
Blakney is a 1999 College of Law graduate where she was a member of the moot court board, served as an editor for the Tennessee Law Review and received the McClure Grant for international legal studies abroad. Blakney has also served the College of Law as an adjunct professor.
In 2003, she formed the Knoxville-based practice of Eldridge and Blakney, P.C. along with David M. Eldridge. There she practices criminal defense and general civil litigation primarily in the areas of personal injury, wrongful death, workers’ compensation, medical malpractice, contract disputes, employment law, and business litigation.
Blakney said she plans to serve the Tennessee Bar Association with a devotion to the “the common principles that guide us.”
With the organization’s purpose of enhancing legal practices to enhance the well-being of legal professionals and their clients, Blakney said she will commit to improving the legal profession in Tennessee.
“I will ask myself … is this what is best for Tennessee lawyers and those we seek to serve,” she said.