Tennessee

The Local Legal Initiative provides local news organizations with direct legal services to pursue enterprise and investigative stories in their communities.

In Tennessee, Local Legal Initiative Attorney Paul McAdoo has litigated many public records and court access cases on behalf of journalists and newsrooms across the state, powering investigative stories about violence at a county jail, the salaries of a publicly owned hospital’s executives, an election commission’s high legal bills, and more.

With McAdoo’s free legal support, a media coalition successfully challenged two court orders blocking the release of public records related to the fatal police beating of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols during a routine traffic stop in 2023. The legal victory resulted in the disclosure of 21 hours of bodycam videos and other recordings and 1,300 pages of documents that shed further light on the circumstances surrounding Nichols’s death.

And an open meetings lawsuit McAdoo litigated on behalf of a group of Tennessee news media and open government organizations appears to have prompted state lawmakers to pass a bill strengthening campaign finance and ethics rules.

Through his quarterly column for the Tennessee Press, McAdoo informs journalists in the state about their rights and offers tips to help them navigate legal issues, including how to vet stories before publication and when to challenge efforts to seal court records.

Learn more about the Local Legal Initiative’s impact in other states.