Incorporated in 1989, the Chattanooga Bar Foundation is the charitable and educational arm of the Chattanooga Bar Association. Through the Foundation, the Bar supports various charities and participates in community service, outreach programs and educational projects. Each year, the Foundation selects new Fellows, members which provide the funding for these efforts.
To become a Fellow of the Foundation, one must first become an outstanding attorney and servant of the community. Only then can that person be included among the ranks of some of the most revered lawyers in the recent history of the city. One must also be at least 35 years old and a licensed attorney, and have been practicing law for no less than 10 years.
Following is the Class of 2013 Fellows, announced during the Bar’s annual Law Day Celebration in May.
Wade Cannon
Wade Cannon is a member of Gearhiser, Peters, Elliott & Cannon, practicing primarily in the field of litigation. Construction litigation and arbitration make up a significant portion of his practice. Due to his practice in this area, Cannon is a member of the Tennessee Bar Association Construction Law Section and the Tennessee Association of Construction Counsel.
Another significant portion of Cannon’s practice involves representation of banks with emphasis on collection matters. He has drafted notes, security agreements, deeds of trust, and other security documents as well as implemented collection procedures in Tennessee as well as Georgia. As a result of Cannon’s collection practice, he has practiced a great deal in the bankruptcy courts. He has handled bankruptcy stay litigation, defended preference actions, and participated in a wide range of creditor related rights issues in bankruptcy litigation.
Cannon has also represented insurance companies in personal injury suits and has participated as counsel in legal malpractice defense cases. Personal injury litigation also constitutes a portion of Cannon’s practice.
Cannon received his BS Cum Laude from East Tennessee State University in 1983 and his JD with honors from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1986.
Cannon is admitted to practice in Tennessee State Court, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Cannon is an active member of the Tennessee Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association, the Chattanooga Bar Association, and the Tennessee Association of Construction Counsel. Cannon is also listed in Best Lawyers in America 2013.
Larry Cash
Larry Cash is a member of the law firm of Miller & Martin. He is a 1978 graduate of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee and a graduate of the Memphis State School of Law in 1981. While in law school, he was a member of the Law Review.
Cash is admitted to practice law in the state courts of Tennessee and Georgia. In addition, he is admitted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, for the Middle District of Tennessee, and for the Northern District of Georgia. His practice focuses on municipal, telecommunications, utility, and transportation law in Tennessee and in the southeastern United States. He is a member of the Chattanooga, Tennessee, Georgia, and American Bar Associations.
Cash is a past president and board member at Orange Grove Center, past president and board member of the Association for Retarded Citizens of Hamilton County, a deacon at Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church, and a graduate of the Leadership Chattanooga program. He is married to Chattanooga native Sherri Cash, with whom he has three sons: Graham, Garrett, and Alex.
William Colvin
William Colvin is a solo practitioner concentrating in the areas of plaintiff personal injury matters, particularly medical devices and pharmaceuticals, construction, and insurance coverage litigation. He has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in mass tort and complex and class action litigation. He has served as counsel for individuals in mass tort and multi-district litigation involving personal injury as well as represented businesses, property owners, and insurers in construction litigation. In mass tort and multi-district litigation cases, he has served on discovery committees, as class counsel, and as a judicial appointee to a common benefit fee review committee. He served as one of the class counsel in the Tri-State Crematory Multi-District Litigation which concluded with judgments in excess of $120 million. In construction litigation, he has represented property owners and contractors in commercial and residential disputes. In all areas of his practice, he has served as local counsel, collaborating with other attorneys from around the nation in a variety of complex cases.
Colvin is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, where he was a member of the men’s varsity swimming team and a writer for Versus, a student newspaper. He was a member of the Navy ROTC unit at Vanderbilt and served on active duty from 1973 to 1976. Upon completion of his military service, he attended Cumberland School of Law, Samford University, and graduated cum laude in 1979. While at Cumberland, he was a founding member and articles editor of the American Journal of Trial Advocacy.
He has practiced law in Chattanooga since 1979, and has given a number of presentations on issues relating to complex litigation, expert testimony, and construction law. He has published articles on insurance coverage, electronic communications in litigation, and arbitration. He is a founding member and past president of the Brock-Cooper American Inns of Court and Charter Member of the Tennessee Association of Construction Counsel. He has been recognized as a MidSouth Superlawyer for plaintiff personal injury and construction litigation for 2012. He has served his profession and the community as a member of the American Bar Association, Litigation Section, Forum of the Construction Industry; Tennessee Bar Association; American Association for Justice; Tennessee Association for Justice; McCallie School Alumni Council; Girls Preparatory School Parents Council; Girls Preparatory School Board of Trustees; Young Life Area Committee; and, as a deacon of Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church.
Colvin is currently an adjunct faculty member at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga teaching a graduate level class on construction law in the construction management degree program.
Born in Birmingham, Ala., he has been married for 35 years to Jane Colvin. He enjoys time with their daughters, sons-in-law, and granddaughter as well as golf, jogging and his church.
Lee Davis
Since 1986, Lee Davis has served as a prosecutor, private attorney, special judge, and instructor in criminal and constitutional law. He has tried more than 150 jury trials. Davis has been lead counsel in more than 75 cases in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. These include complex civil and criminal jury trials. He has both prosecuted and defended individuals facing the death penalty. He has been lead counsel in six death penalty cases. Representative criminal cases include federal fraud and white-collar cases to complex homicide cases.
Davis was the first attorney in the U.S. to introduce mitochondrial DNA as evidence in State v. Paul Ware. As an Assistant District Attorney (1994-1998), Davis prosecuted serious felony cases including cold case homicide investigations and more than 20 first degree murder cases. Significantly, he was responsible for the prosecution and conviction of Frank Casteel in the notorious Signal Mountain triple murders. This prosecution hinged on Davis’ innovative use of trace DNA.
Davis represents law enforcement officers in federal court through his work with the Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Benevolence Association. He has been an FOP and PBA attorney since 1998.
In 2009, Davis successfully defended a woman wrongfully accused of a crime: this African- American woman at one point faced the death penalty. After a jury trial she was found not guilty.
Davis founded Davis & Hoss in 1998. He manages this practice, representing clients in federal and state court. Davis has also served as a special prosecutor and special judge in criminal proceedings in Tennessee (1998-2013). In civil actions, Davis represents clients in federal and state court. Representative cases include civil rights defense, age discrimination, retaliatory discharge, child injury and real estate. He regularly tries cases before federal and state court juries. He has represented clients in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts.
Lee Davis teaches Criminal and Constitutional Law as an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He previously taught trial practice as an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law in Knoxville. Davis has lectured nationally as an instructor with the American Prosecutors Research Institute. He has published articles on DNA technology and publishes the blog Tennessee Criminal Law.
Lee Davis received his J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 1986, a Bachelor of Arts in 1983 from Elizabethtown College, Penn., and attended the National Criminal Defense College, Mercer Law School, in Georgia in 1991.
Richard Gossett
Richard Gossett, shareholder in the Chattanooga office of Baker Donelson, concentrates his practice in banking, business bankruptcy, and reorganizations and creditors’ rights. He also has extensive experience in corporate and other business organizations, real estate matters, and construction law.
H. Wayne Grant
H. Wayne Grant of Grant, Konvalinka & Harrison concentrates his efforts in the areas of corporate finance, business law, tax planning, estate planning, and litigation. He is a member of the American, Tennessee, and Chattanooga Bar Associations and the State Bar of Georgia. He also served as a colonel and judge advocate general in the U.S. Army Reserve.
Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer Lawrence, managing partner of the Chattanooga law firm Lawrence & Lawrence, concentrates her practice in civil litigation, including tort litigation, family law litigation, employment law litigation and medical malpractice litigation. She also has extensive experience litigating matrimonial matters. She routinely works with highly complex, high risk, and high profile litigation, and often serves at the request of other law firms to assist in the preparation and litigation of their cases. Notable cases include a jury verdict of $10.5 million and numerous other large settlements including a one million dollar settlement in a wrongful termination employment law matter. Her experience also includes representing insureds in the areas of automobile, premises, commercial, medical malpractice, and employment torts.
Dana Perry
Dana Perry’s local and regional practice focuses on estate planning, elder law, and special needs trust planning.
Perry works with families to plan for optimal transfer of family businesses, investments, and other assets to succeeding generations. She helps clients prevent excessive and unnecessary estate, gift, and income taxation on their assets through creative planning, including charitable split-interest gifts and family entities.
Perry also maintains an active elder law and special needs law practice, including long-term care planning, planning for Medicaid rules, and drafting and administration of supplemental needs trusts. She is Chattanooga’s only attorney who is certified as an Elder Law Specialist by the Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education and Specialization.
Since early 2009, Perry has served as the president and managing shareholder of Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel.
Christie Mahn Sell
Elected in 2006, Judge Sell is the first woman to hold the office of General Sessions Court Judge in Hamilton County, Tenn. Before taking office, Judge Sell was a partner with the law firm of Shumacker, Witt, Gaither & Whitaker. She also served as a judicial clerk for Hamilton County Chancery Court and has been an adjunct professor at both UTC and Cleveland State.
Judge Sell received her Juris Doctorate and Bachelor degrees from the University of Memphis and is a graduate of Notre Dame High School. She was selected to the 2002 Class of Leadership Chattanooga and the 2007 Class of the Tennessee Bar Association Leadership Law Program. For more than 30 years, she has volunteered in numerous capacities throughout the community. Currently, she serves on the boards of ReStart, the Chattanooga Bar Association, and Chattanooga Women’s Leadership Institute.
Off the bench, Judge Sell focuses on educating the public about the dangers she sees in court every day, such as the drugs and the domestic violence facing our youth and families. As a result of the first Domestic Violence Court in Hamilton County commencing in 2010 and Judge Sell’s commitment to domestic violence education, she was awarded the statewide Leadership Award from the Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.
Judge Sell enjoys time with her husband and two children, as well as running, yoga, biking, hiking, and anything she can do outdoors.
Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner is a member of the law firm of Wagner, Nelson & Weeks. He was raised in the Chattanooga area and in 1974 received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he served as president of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. Wagner obtained his Doctor of Jurisprudence from the Nashville School of Law in 1978.
Wagner was admitted to practice law in Tennessee and all Appellate Courts, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, the United States Court of Appeals, the Sixth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.
Wagner has been a member of the Chattanooga Bar Association for 34 years. He previously served on the association’s Board of Governors, during which he was chairman of the Lawyer Referral Service for over ten years. He also holds membership in the Tennessee Bar Association for the same period of time.
Wagner continues to remain active at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as a past alumni advisor for the Kappa Sigma Fraternity from 1976-2013, and an officer and a legal advisor for the Chattanooga Kappa Sigma Housing Corporation from 1990 to the present.
Wagner practiced law with his father, Joseph Wagner, until his father’s death on July 19, 2012, and continues to practice with David Nelson, Jr., W. Bradley Weeks, and Michael A. Wagner, with his main interest of law involving civil litigation and business law.
He is married to Sunny Wagner, with whom he has three children: Amy Mullins, Joseph Wagner, II and Sarah Wagner. He and his wife reside on Signal Mountain.