Attorneys – Tasha Blakney

An active member of the Tennessee Bar Association, Ms. Blakney is currently President of the TBA’s Young Lawyers Division and is now serving a second year on the organization’s Board of Governors.  She has been elected to the TBA’s House of Delegates and currently serves on the Environmental Law Executive Committee.  In 2006, Ms. Blakney was awarded the TBA Young Lawyers Division President’s Award for her two years of service as the inaugural Chair of the Children’s Issues Committee.  She is a 2005 graduate of the Tennessee Bar Association’s Leadership Law Program.

Ms. Blakney is also actively engaged in the activities of the Knoxville Bar Association, having been elected to the Board of Governors and having served for three years as co-chair of the Association’s active Hunger and Poverty Relief Committee.  For the past six years, Ms. Blakney has been the co-chair of the KBA’s Pro Bono Committee.  Additionally, Ms. Blakney is a member of the Solo and Small Firm Section and has served on the advisory board of Legal Aid of East Tennessee. In 2005, Ms. Blakney was awarded the Knoxville Bar Association President’s Award for her service on behalf of the Bar Association and the community, with a particular recognition of her efforts on behalf of the Pro Bono Committee.

Additionally, Ms. Blakney was elected to serve three terms as a member of the Board of Governors for the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association (now Tennessee Association for Justice), including an appointment to the Association’s Executive Committee and as Vice-Chair of the organization’s Continuing Legal Education Committee for the Eastern Division.

Also active in the American Bar Association, Ms. Blakney is an elected member of the ABA’s House of Delegates and was one of 26 lawyers chosen from across the nation to participate in the ABA’s inaugural Leadership Academy Program through its Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section “(TIPS”).  She is currently a vice chair of the ABA TIPS’s Medicine & Law Committee, where she serves as newsletter editor, and is also active in the Section’s Long Range Planning Committee, the Task Force on Diversity Leadership Initiatives, and the Task Force on Plaintiff Involvement.

In addition to her Bar service, Ms. Blakney has also served as a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Tennessee College of Law, where she has taught legal writing and research.

In 2009, Ms. Blakney was honored to be appointed by Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to the Tennessee Community Services Agency Board of Directors, a position Ms. Blakney continues to hold on behalf of Knox County.

In 2010, Ms. Blakney was selected for a three-year term as a member of the University of Tennessee’s Chancellor’s Associates.  She is also Past President of the Board of Directors for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), and is a member of Nucleus Knoxville and Knoxville’s Inn of Court chapter. Ms. Blakney is a 2002 graduate of the Knox County Community Action Committee’s Leadership Class and was a co-recipient of the Barristers President’s award in 2001 for outstanding service. She is in her second term as co-chair of continuing legal education programs for the East Tennessee Lawyers Association for Women and is a member of the Tennessee Lawyers Association for Women.

Originally from Millington, Tennessee, Ms. Blakney graduated from Millington Central High School and then enrolled at Tulane University in New Orleans.  After a year in New Orleans, Ms. Blakney returned home to Tennessee and, following in the footsteps of her parents, completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Tennessee in Martin, Tennessee.  Ms. Blakney graduated from UT Martin in 1996, magna cum laude, earning double majors in Communications and French.  While in college, Ms. Blakney completed a summer internship in France as a translator for an international agricultural company, hosted her own radio program on the college’s radio station, and received the Department of Communications Chairman’s Award of Achievement during her senior year.

Ms. Blakney completed her legal studies at the University of Tennessee College of Law, graduating in 1999 with honors. Ms. Blakney served as an editor of student materials for the Tennessee Law Review, was a member of the Moot Court Board, and was a recipient of a McClure Grant for international legal studies abroad, which she applied to a summer semester of studies at the University of Nice College of Law in Nice, France. Her case note, “Prior Restraint of Speech and Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions” is published in the Tennessee Law Review.

Prior to the formation of Eldridge & Blakney, P.C., Ms. Blakney practiced at the Knoxville firm of Ritchie, Fels & Dillard, P.C.  Ms. Blakney further served from 1999 to 2000 as a judicial clerk to Supreme Court Justice Gary R. Wade, then Presiding Judge of the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, and previously worked as an Assistant Attorney General in the Knoxville Office of the Tennessee Attorney General.

Ms. Blakney is licensed to practice before all courts in the State of Tennessee, the United States District Courts for the Middle and Eastern Districts of Tennessee, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and is accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

She is married to Michael Rogers, a television producer with Knoxville-based Jupiter Entertainment, and she has two step-daughters.  They live in South Knoxville with a growing collection of rescued family pets, including a beloved border collie named Clark and a loveable lab mix named Bailey.

Practice focus

Personal Injury

Automobile Accidents

Workers’ Compensation

Criminal Law

Product and Premises Liability

Medical Malpractice

Civil Rights

Contracts

Discrimination

Employment Law — Employee

Education

The University of Tennessee College of Law

Doctor of Jurisprudence, cum laude, May 1999

Activities and Honors: Editor of Student Materials, Tennessee Law Review; Moot Court Board; Semifinalist, Advocate’s Prize Moot Court Competition; Semifinalist, Ray Jenkins Trial Competition; W.K. McClure Grant for Study Abroad; Phi Delta Phi

Hofstra University International Law Study Abroad Program in Nice, France

Completed summer semester courses on European Union Law and Comparative Constitutional Law including a two-week lecture series by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Summer 1997)

The University of Tennessee at Martin

Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, May 1996

Double Major: Communications and French

Activities and Honors: Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society; President, Pi Delta Phi French Honor Society; Student Ambassador; Chairman’s Outstanding Achievement in Communications Award; Communications Department Senior Scholarship; Teaching Assistant, French Department

Admissions

Tennessee, 1999

U.S. District Court Eastern District of Tennessee, 2002

U.S. District Court Middle District of Tennessee, 2003

U.S. Court of Appeals 6th Circuit, 2005

Honors and awards

Community Action Committee Leadership Class of 2002

Co-Recipient, Barrister President’s Award, 2001