Faculty and Scholarship
College of Law faculty are excellent teachers, scholars, and practitioners. Their influential and well-respected scholarship is placed in some of the most esteemed law publications in the nation.
Faculty and Scholarship
College of Law faculty are excellent teachers, scholars, and practitioners. Their influential and well-respected scholarship is placed in some of the most esteemed law publications in the nation.
Adjunct Professors
Kyle Baisley
Email: KBaisley@lrwlaw.com
Phone: 865-974-6789
Education
BA (Political Science), Furman University
JD, University of Tennessee
About
Kyle A. Baisley is an attorney with Long, Ragsdale & Waters, P.C. in Knoxville. He concentrates his practice in the areas of commercial transactions for real estate, technology, banking/finance and firearms industry clients. He provides counsel for entrepreneurial and start-up businesses, prepares securities documents and filings and assists clients with estate planning. He also leverages his past in-house experience to serve as an outsourced general counsel to small- and medium-sized businesses.
He teaches contract drafting and negotiation, and serves as an attorney-mentor for the UT Law Mentoring Program.
Rodd Barckhoff
Email: rbarckho@utk.edu
Phone: 865-974-6789
About
Rodd Barckhoff is a staff attorney for the Tennessee Supreme Court.
He has previously served as a senior judicial clerk for Justice Riley Anderson of the Tennessee Supreme Court and as a staff attorney and judicial clerk for the Court of Criminal Appeals, Eastern Division.
Lamont Belk
Email: labelk@tva.gov
Phone: 865-974-6789
About
Lamont A. Belk is a licensed attorney in Georgia and Tennessee. He currently serves as an attorney on the Office of General Counsel for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Knoxville, TN. Prior to arriving at TVA, Lamont worked as an Assistant United States Attorney for the United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Georgia. He has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law since 2017, and previously taught courses at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, the University of South Carolina-Aiken, and Augusta Technical Institute (Georgia).
David A. Codevilla
Email: dacodevilla@tva.gov
Phone: 865-632-7338
Education
BA (History) University of California, Berkeley
JD George Mason University School of Law
About
David Codevilla is a senior attorney at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Office of General Counsel, where he practices in the Nuclear Licensing group. In this capacity he manages nuclear plant contracts, handles nuclear regulatory matters, supports TVA’s nuclear innovation business, and leads the cross-functional team responsible for TVA’s standard contract terms. He has taught classes as an adjunct professor since 2011.
Codevilla was an associate in the Washington D.C. offices of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (now Eversheds Sutherland), and Kirkland & Ellis. He subsequently served as senior counsel on the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and was employed by Caterpillar Inc. as corporate counsel.
Since 2010, he also has volunteered as an assistant head coach for the University of Tennessee’s men’s rugby team.
Timothy Conner
Email: tconner6@utk.edu
Phone: 865-342-4902
Virginia Couch
Email: vcouch@utk.edu
Phone: 865-974-6789
About
Virginia L. Couch, a native of Corbin, Kentucky, is an associate at Holifield & Associates, PLLC.
She represents business owners in commercial, corporate, and business transactions, including new entity organization, asset and stock purchases, and real estate leases and purchases. She advises business owners on governance, litigation payroll, and employment matters.
She is a contributing author of the Age Discrimination in Employee Benefits chapter in BNA’s “Erisa Litigation.”
Couch owns the Barkside Lodge dog resort in Lenoir City, Tennessee, and as a business owner has firsthand knowledge of the legal issues business owners face.
Wade Davies
Email: wdavies@utk.edu
Phone: 865-637-0661
Education
BA (History), Pomona College, Claremont, California
JD, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
About
Davies represents his clients at both trial and appellate levels in his criminal defense practice, offering legal assistance for everything from state court cases to complicated federal trials.
In his civil practice, he focuses on litigation against both federal and state government and agencies. He has provided representation for attorneys and healthcare professionals in civil, criminal, and administrative matters. He has also served as an expert witness on the standards for defense counsel in criminal cases.
Davies is a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America.
John Dreiser
Email: John@farmerdreiser.com
Phone: 865-584-1211
Education
BS, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana
JD, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
About
John Dreiser is an attorney with the Law Offices of Tony Farmer and John Dreiser in Knoxville, Tennessee. He focuses his practices in the area of personal injury, social security disability, workers’ compensation, wrongful death, products liability, short-term/long-term disability and ERISA litigation, veteran’s disability, and Railroad Retirement Board disability.
He is a member of the Knoxville, Tennessee and Tennessee Bar Associations as well as the American Association for Justice, Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association, Workplace Injury Litigation Group, and NOSSCR (National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives). As part of his membership to the Knoxville Bar Association, he is an active member of the professionalism committee.
Dreiser has significant appellate experience before the Tennessee Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Tennessee on various cases including personal injury and workers’ compensation issues. He has lectured for the American Academy of Disability Evaluating Physicians regarding the American Medical Association Guidelines For The Evaluation Of Permanent Impairment, as well as other seminars to lawyers and practitioners on Social Security Disability, medical records and workers’ compensation.
Education
BA, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee
JD, University of Tennessee College of Law, Knoxville, Tennessee
About
Spencer Fair is an attorney and shareholder with London & Amburn, P.C. in Knoxville. He concentrates his practice in the areas of health care litigation and general health law matters. He represents physicians and other health care providers in complex litigation throughout the State of Tennessee, as well as in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He teaches Civil Pre-Trial Litigation at the UT College of Law.
Education
BA, Rhodes College, Memphis, Tenn.
JD, University of Tennessee College of Law, Knoxville, Tenn.
About
Kelly Guyton Frere practices with her husband in the Lenoir City firm of Guyton & Frere, which was established in 1986. She was certified as an elder law specialist in 1998, and in 2006 was peer-inducted into the Council of Advanced Practitioners of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.
Frere was a member of the Tennessee Bar Association special committee that produced the Legal Handbook for Tennessee Seniors, and was a member of the drafting committee that overhauled the Tennessee Conservatorship statutes that became effective July 1, 2013.
Lawrence Giordano
Email: lgiorda1@utk.edu
Phone: 865-546-4646
Education
BS (Psychology), Denison University
JD, Georgetown University
About
Lawrence F. Giordano is a shareholder and director of the firm of Lewis Thomason in Knoxville. He is the co-chair of both the firm’s education law and healthcare law practice groups.
Giordano’s 37 years of experience includes criminal and civil matters, both litigation and transactional.
Giordano also has appellate experience, having appeared before the Tennessee Supreme Court, Tennessee Court of Appeals, Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
He is a former administrative law judge fro the State of Tennessee Department of Education and is the president of the Tennessee Council of School Board Attorneys.
Jonathan Harwell
Email: jharwell@pdknox.org
Phone: 865-974-
Education
B.A. Williams College
M.St. Oxford University
J.D. Harvard Law School
About
As serving as a federal law clerk, Jonathan Harwell worked as a trial and appellate attorney in Boston, Massachusetts, with the firm of Rankin & Sultan. He then returned home to Knoxville, and practiced for several years with his father Ralph E. Harwell in Knoxville, appearing in both federal and state court in criminal matters. He joined the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office in 2014, where he leads the appellate division. He is responsible for litigating the office’s appeals, and also assists with other cases in the trial courts of Knox County.
Paul Helton
Email: phelton@utk.edu
Phone: 865-974-4263
Education
BA, University of Tennessee
MA, University of Tennessee
JD, University of Tennessee
About
Paul E. Helton is an associate counsel with the Tennessee Department of Human Services in the Office of General Counsel, a position that he assumed in November 2010.
Helton is based in Knoxville and represents the Department of Human Services in matters pertaining to adult protective services, child care agency licensing, employment, rule-making hearings, and regulation drafting for a 35-county area in East Tennessee.
He was previously a regional general counsel for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services and practiced privately from 2001 to 2008 in both Nashville and Knoxville in the areas of business and construction litigation.
Helton has been teaching first-year law students since 2005.
Al Holifield
Email: jhollif1@utk.edu
Phone: 865-974-6789
Education
BS (Business Administration), University of Southern Mississippi
MBA, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
JD, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
About
Al Holifield is the founding member of Holifield Janich & Ferrera, PLLC (HJ&F). He focuses his practice in the areas of employee benefits law, employee benefits litigation, health care compliance, employment law, employment litigation and business law. He represents local and national companies from various industries including, but not limited to, hospitals, insurance companies, restaurants, doctors’ offices, government contractors, and construction companies.
He has been an adjunct professor at the College of Law since 2008 and teaches courses on employee benefits.
Mark Jendrek
Email: mjendrek@utk.edu
Phone: 865-691-7826
Education
JD, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
About
Mark Jendrek is a solo practitioner with an emphasis on real estate and other transactional matters, including negotiating, drafting, and revising general commercial contracts and transactions for individuals and for small, medium, and large businesses; planning and drafting conservation easements; wireless telecommunications issues, including infrastructure matters, siting and site acquisition issues; zoning; drafting and revising ordinances, rules, and regulations; boundary line disputes, and general real estate work.
He s a 1986 graduate of the UT College of Law, and has been an adjunct professor for 30 years, teaching legal research and writing, contract drafting, and commercial leasing.
Barbara Johnson
Email: bjohns12@utk.edu
Phone: 965-974-0150
About
Professor Johnson oversees the work of students through the Homer A. Jones, Jr. Wills Clinic and provides students with real-world experience in trust and estate matters through their work with economically disadvantaged clients.
Robert Jolley
Email: jjolley3@utk.edu
Phone: 865-971-4492
About
Robert Jolley, Jr., formerly and assistant district attorney general for the Sixth Judicial District, now practices in his general practice law firm in Knoxville.
Diane Lashmit
Email: dlashmit@utk.edu
Phone: 865-637-2442
CJ Lewis
Email: clewis47@utk.edu
Phone: 865-974-6789
Education
JD, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
About
CJ Lewis graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Law in May of 2015. Over the last two years he conducted legal research for the Knox County Public Defender’s Office.
He is a member of the Order of the Barristers and the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In 2013, he was named best advocate in UT’s Opening Statement competition. In 2014, he was named best advocate in the UT’s Advocate’s Prize Competition.
Email: dlooper@utk.edu
Phone: 865-974-4241
Education
AB, Columbia University, New York
JD, University of California Hastings
About
Donna C. Looper is an attorney in private practice who is licensed to practice in Tennessee and California. She consults in legal matters nationwide, and is an author of several books.
Prior to her tenure in Knoxville, she practiced law in San Diego and San Francisco, Calif. She has served as a senior attorney for the California Court of Appeals and clerked for both the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Chief Judge for the U.S. District Court’s Eastern District of Louisiana.
Gregory McMillan
Email: gmcmill1@utk.edu
Phone: 865-974-6789
Education
BA (Biology), University of Tennessee, Knoxville
JD, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
About
Gregory McMillan is the 4th Circuit Court Judge in Knox County, Tennessee. Prior to being elected to his position in 2014, he practiced law with the law firm of Lewis, Thomason, King, Krieg & Waldrop.
He is experienced in civil practice primarily concentrating in the areas of domestic relations, personal injury, corporate representation, and municipal law at the circuit, chancery, and appellate levels in state and federal courts.
Cindy Padilla
Email: cpadilla@utk.edu
Phone: 865-705-4772
Education
BS, University of Tennessee
JD, University of Tennessee
About
Cindy D. Padilla has served as senior judicial law clerk to the Honorable Thomas R. Frierson, II, of the Tennessee Court of Appeals since February 2013 and previously served from 1999 to 2012 as senior judicial law clerk to the Honorable Herschel P. Franks, former presiding judge of the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
Padilla began teaching Legal Process II in 2012 as an adjunct professor for the University of Tennessee College of Law. Before her successive clerkships, she practiced law with Sobieski, Messer, and Associates, concentrating primarily on domestic relations and civil rights litigation.
Email: tpanter@utk.edu
Phone: 865-974-6789
Candice Reed
Email: creed@latitudelegal.com
Phone: 615-351-9259
Education
BA, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
JD, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
MAPP, University of Pennsylvania
About
Candice Reed teaches an upper-level course on Thriving as a Lawyer within the College of Law’s Institute for Professional Leadership.
She also currently serves as senior vice president and partner at Latitude, a high-end legal placement firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.
Reed served as chief ethics officer and in-house legal counsel at Ceridian Corp. and Com Data, where she oversaw operational ethics compliance worldwide. She began her legal career at the law firm of Miller & Martin PLLC, where she practiced business litigation and commercial bankruptcy law, and later ran the Nashville office of Legility (f/k/a Counsel On Call).
She has extensive experience as a consultant, trainer, and coach for lawyers and their organizations and is a frequent speaker on topics such as attorney wellness, professional development and leadership, workplace engagement and career satisfaction and transition. She previously served on the College of Law Alumni Council, is a past president of the Lawyers’ Association for Women Marion Griffith Chapter, is an emeritus member of the Tennessee Bar Association’s Attorney Wellbeing Committee, a TBA YLD Fellow and currently serves on the Advisory Board of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Nashville, after having served for six years on the board of directors.
Lauren Sherwood
Email: LSherwood@MerchantGould.com
Phone: 865-974-6789
Education
BS, University of Florida
BA, University of Florida
JD, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
About
Lauren Sherwood is an associate at Merchant & Gould’s Knoxville office. She received her license to practice in Tennessee in 2018 and has been licensed to practice before the USPTO since 2013. She has focused her practice on patent prosecution in electric, software, and biotechnology areas. Prior to and while attending law school at the University of Tennessee College of Law, Sherwood prepared and prosecuted patent applications in a wide variety of technology areas as a patent agent for a virtual law firm.
While the bulk of Sherwood’s experience over the past seven years has been in computer-related technologies, her technical background is in chemistry. She received a bachelor of science degree in chemistry with an emphasis in biochemistry. She also earned bachelor of arts degree in anthropology.
Michael Stanuszek
Email: mjs@stulaw.org
Phone: 865-766-4170
Education
BS, Central Michigan University
JD, University of Tennessee
LL.M. in Insurance Law, University of Connecticut
About
Michael J. Stanuszek is the managing member of the Knoxville law firm, the Stanuszek Law Group, PLLC. He was previously a partner in the Knoxville law firm of Haynes, Meek, Summers & Stanuszek, and an associate in the Cleveland, Ohio law firm of Janik & Dorman, LLP.
Stanuszek is the chairman and president of the Tennessee Law Lab, Inc., East Tennessee’s first law incubator; CEO of Stanuszek Mediation Services, Inc.; president of Stanuszek Small Business Awards and Recognition, Inc.; president of Stanuszek Visitation Services, Inc.; and CEO of Stanuszek Data Entry, Inc.
In addition to teaching, he serves as a mentor for the college’s mentoring program.
Tom Stovall
Email: Tom.Stovall@tn.gov
Phone: 615-594-1724
Education
BS, Earlham College
JD, University of Tennessee
About
Tom Stovall is a former director and chief administrative judge of the Administrative Procedures Division in the Office of the Tennessee Secretary of State.
Prior to his retirement in 2013, he managed the office of administrative judges who preside over contested case hearings on behalf of Tennessee state and local administrative agencies. He is currently working as a part time administrative judge with the Administrative Procedures Division.
Stovall has been trained as a Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 31 general civil mediator and has received extensive training in judicial management and practice from the National Judicial College and the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary. Stovall has also received the required training in special education law to conduct special education due process hearings and mediations brought under the Individuals with Disabilities Educational Improvement Act.
Stovall is on the leadership committee of the administrative law section of the Tennessee Bar Association and is a member of the organization’s task force on judicial conduct rules.
Stovall is an adjunct instructor teaching administrative law in conjunction with the University of Tennessee College of Law’s semester-in-residence program in Nashville.
D. Taylor Tipton
Email: ttipton@bakerdonelson.com
Phone: 865-549-7128
Education
BA, University of Tennessee
JD, Georgetown University
About
Taylor Tipton represents banks, bank holding companies, nonbank lenders, other financial services providers, and their investors in merger and acquisition, restructuring and recapitalization, and securities transactions.
He also advises depository and non-depository financial services providers on financial regulatory laws, including the Bank Holding Company Act, Change in Bank Control Act, Bank Secrecy Act, Dodd-Frank Act, and various state licensing and compliance laws throughout the nation.
He has represented clients in investigations and enforcement actions brought by the Federal Reserve, OCC, FDIC, CFPB, OFAC, Department of Justice, state banking departments, and state attorneys general.
Paul Wehmeier
Email: pwehmeie@vols.utk.edu
Phone: 865-546-7000
Education
BA, Ball State University
JD, University of Tennessee
About
Paul Wehmeier was raised in Muncie, Indiana, where he attained his undergraduate degree at Ball State University, While living in Indiana, he raised angus cattle until he graduated. His interests include politics and government, and he exercised these interests through internships with the Indiana State House of Representatives and the White House Office of Public Liaison. Following graduation from Ball State, Paul worked in Indiana government with the Indiana Department of Labor and the Indiana State Department of Agriculture.
Wehmeier moved to Knoxville to study law at the University of Tennessee College of Law. He graduated magna cum laude and was vice president of the University of Tennessee Chapter of the Federalist Society. He was admitted to the Tennessee Bar in 2011.
After graduation, Wehmeier joined Arnett, Draper & Hagood, LLP where he focuses his practice on labor and employment issues. Paul is admitted to practice in Tennessee and is a member of the Knoxville, Tennessee and American Bar Associations.
Carlos A. Yunsan
Email: cyunsan@vols.utk.edu
Phone: 865-974-6789
Education
BS (Nutrition), University of Tennessee, Knoxville
MS-MPH (Nutrition-Public Health), University. of Tennessee, Knoxville
JD (Advocacy & Dispute Resolution), University of Tennessee, Knoxville
About
Carlos A. Yunsan, a native of Panama City, Panama, serves as judicial law clerk for Justice Sharon G. Lee of the Tennessee Supreme Court.
His previous civil litigation practice with regional and local law firms focused on contractual disputes, construction law, landlord-tenant issues, personal injury, and appeals. Before pursuing a career in law, he worked for eight years in public health, assisting local and state health departments with community development, health promotion, and strategic planning.
Yunsan was a two-year member of the National Moot Court Team at the UT College of Law, winning the regional competition in 2012. He was a founding member and vice president of Enlace (the Latino law student association), student coordinator of the Oak Ridge Evening Bar free legal advice clinic, and president of the Health Law Society.