Sam Elliott is a member of the firm and practices primarily in the field of litigation. He has tried jury cases involving products liability, personal injury, employment discrimination and eminent domain. Sam also represents the municipal governments of Soddy Daisy, Collegedale and Lakesite, and therefore is experienced in such diverse matters as government land use regulation and civil rights litigation. He also advises clients on issues of employment law, environmental law, commercial disputes and professional liability.

A past president of the Chattanooga Bar Association, Sam is the President-elect of the Tennessee Bar Association, and will succeed to the office of President in June, 2010. Sam began his career clerking in 1981-82 for then U. S. Magistrate Roger Dickson, and has been with the firm ever since. In 1995, in an appointed criminal case which he argued before the Tennessee Supreme Court, he and his co-counsel obtained post-conviction relief for a prisoner on death row. He has also appeared as co-counsel for the Chattanooga Bar Association in suits to enjoin the unauthorized practice of law, and volunteers in the pro bono program for Legal Aid of East Tennessee. In 2008, Sam was named the first chairman of the Tennessee Bar Association’s newly formed Judicial Campaign Conduct Committee, and has chaired and participated in other committees of the Tennessee and Chattanooga Bar Associations.
Sam is the Chair of the Tennessee Historical Commission, and previously chaired its Tennessee Wars Commission Committee from 2006-2008. He is also a member of the board of the Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association. Sam served on the board of the Friends of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park for a number of years, and was president of that organization for two terms. He also is a member of the Society of Civil War Historians and the Historians of the Western Theater.

Known for his scholarly work on Tennessee during the Civil War era, Sam is the author of Soldier of Tennessee: General Alexander P. Stewart and the Civil War in the West (1999) and editor of Doctor Quintard, Chaplain C.S.A. and Second Bishop of Tennessee: The Memoir and Civil War Diary of Charles Todd Quintard (2003). Among his forthcoming publications are: Isham G. Harris of Tennessee: Confederate Governor and United States Senator, to be published by Louisiana State University Press as part of its prestigious Southern Biography Series in January, 2010, an essay on Alexander P. Stewart in the Atlanta Campaign in vol. 2 of Confederate Generals in the Western Theater: An Anthology, which is scheduled to be published in the Spring of 2010, an essay on the Battle of Rossville Gap in a forthcoming volume on the Chattanooga Campaign to be published as part of the Civil War Campaigns in the Heartland series in 2011, and a foreword to Quintard's A Confederate Soldier's Pocket Manual of Devotions: Including Balm for the Weary and the Wounded, to be published in September, 2009 by Mercer University Press. Sam has written book reviews for the Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Chattanooga Times Free Press, Tennessee Bar Journal, Blue and Gray Magazine and Civil War History, and is the author of an article entitled “Tennessee’s Declaration of Independence: Armed Revolt and the Constitutional Right of Revolution” which appeared in the December, 2008 issue of the Tennessee Bar Journal. Sam has spoken on Civil War topics to groups from Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, New York and Virginia, and has evaluated Civil War related book manuscripts for four university presses and one private press.

Sam and his wife, Karen, have two daughters, and attend Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church.

Education: University of the South, B.A. 1978; University of Tennessee College of Law, J.D. 1981.

Admissions: Tennessee, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, United States Tax Court

Legal Associations: Tennessee Bar Association, Board of Governors 2004-present; Vice President 2008-2009; President-elect 2009-2010; Chattanooga Bar Association, Board of Governors 1997-2002, President 2001; American Bar Association; Federal Bar Association; Fellow, Tennessee Bar Foundation; Fellow, Chattanooga Bar Foundation; Justices Brock and Cooper American Inns of Court, Secretary 2005-2006; Listed in Publication Best Lawyers in America for Commercial Litigation and Municipal Law; selected as a Mid South Super Lawyer; Chattanooga Trial Lawyers Association; Tennessee Association for Justice; Tennessee Municipal Attorneys Association.

Community Legal Service: Pro bono volunteer, Legal Aid of East Tennessee

Community Activities: Member and Chair, Tennessee Historical Commission; Board of Directors, Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association; Trustee, Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church; Rotary Club of Chattanooga; Friends of University of Tennessee Library Executive Committee; former board member, National Association for the Craniofacially Handicapped (FACES) and Friends of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.

(423) 396-3135 • City of Collegedale, TN © 2009 | Design by Ryan Freelance