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2023 RECIPIENT OF THE LAW & LIBERTY AWARD: AN EXAMPLE OF LEADERSHIP

from DICTA June 2023

from DICTA June 2023, page 31

REDUCING BIAS IN HIRING PRACTICES

The Law and Liberty Award is an accolade given to a legal professional who strives to foster and maintain good relationships between the legal profession and community. Someone who works to advance the understanding of the law and legal processes in the non-legal community. Someone who sets an example of good citizenship and gives time for volunteer work. Someone who exemplifies high professional standards and expresses concern for the safeguard of personal, political, civil, and religious liberties.

The 2023 recipient for the Law and Liberty Award is Christina Magráns-Tillery.

A graduate from the University of Tennessee College of Law, Christina Magráns-Tillery has made an immense impact on our community. Her impact began during law school when she clerked with the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands in Oak Ridge where she helped provide legal advice under the direction of licensed attorneys to low-income and underprivileged members of her community.

Christina Magráns-Tillery began her professional career by serving as the Pro Bono Coordinator for the Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission, working to bring legal resources to low-income families across the state.1 In 2014, she went on to work as a staff attorney for Legal Aid of East Tennessee. At Legal Aid, she focused on housing matters including discrimination under the federal Fair Housing Act, the state Human Rights Act, and the Violence Against Women Act.2 Christina Magráns-Tillery ultimately received the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services New Advocate of the Year Award in 2017 for her work at Legal Aid.3 Between 2015 and 2018, Christina Magráns-Tillery served as the “John L.” attorney for the Mountain View Youth Development Center in Dandridge, Tennessee where she “advised the youth population on a variety of matters including civil rights, due process, and sentencing issues.”4

In 2018, Christina Magráns-Tillery joined the City of Knoxville as an Assistant City Attorney. Her work focuses on legislative drafting, land use issues, property litigation, and contract drafting. 5 She advises multiple departments and boards including the Plans Review and Building Inspections Department, the Board of Zoning Appeals, the Downtown Design Review Board, the Historic Zoning Commission, and the Office of Redevelopment.6

Christina Magráns-Tillery has given a multitude of presentations on housing law to a variety of groups, to include, the Knoxville Community Development Corporation, the City of Knoxville, the Blount County Bar Association, the Sevier County Bar Association, the local chapter of the NAACP, the East Tennessee Law Association for Women, the Tennessee Valey Coalition for the Homeless, the Maryville Housing Authority, and many more.7

Christina Magráns-Tillery’s most recent and notable accomplishment is the creation of the Knoxville Latino Bar Association (KLBA). The KLBA was “founded to nurture and empower a community of Latino attorneys, judges, law professors, and law students in East Tennessee.”8 The need to bridge the gap between our underprivileged community with legal resources is vast and KLBA is one step towards the closing of that gap.

According to the governing body of law school admissions, the LSAC, “law school and the profession do not currently reflect the vibrant and expanding racial and ethnic population of our society.”9 According to the 2020 American Bar Association Profile of the Legal Profession, “Hispanics are underrepresented among lawyers compared with their share of the U.S. population.”10 Nationally, approximately 4% of all lawyers are Hispanic, and 18% of the population is Hispanic. 11 These numbers are the very reason Hispanics and Latinos need more visibility in the legal profession. Christina Magráns-Tillery and the KLBA will advance the understanding of, and access to, our justice system among the non-law Latino community.12

On March 10, 2023, the KLBA hosted an opening ceremony to honor Tennessee’s first Latino judge, Hon. Hector Sanchez of Knox County Criminal Court. Members of KLBA and the legal community joined together to honor the induction of the KLBA, and to present Judge Sanchez with expressions of gratitude and personal stories of hope from Knoxville’s Latino law students.13

Ms. Magráns-Tillery is also a member of the Equality Coalition for Housing Opportunities (ECHO) board, a member of the Knoxville Bar Association and its Diversity Committee, Corporate Compliance Chair for the East Tennessee Lawyers’ Association for Women, Adjunct Professor of Law at Lincoln Memorial University’s Duncan School of Law, and co-chair of the Barrister’s Diversity Committee.14

In her decade as a legal professional, Christina Magráns-Tillery has achieved far more than can be included in one article and the impact she has made and will continue to make far exceeds that.

1 Blog: City Blog (knoxvilletn.gov)

2 Id.

3 Id.

4 Id.

5 May it Please the Council: Effective Advocacy Before Local Government Bodies | (knoxbar.org)

6 Id.

7 Id.

8 Press release (Professional design)

9 Racially/Ethnically Diverse Applicants | The Law School Admission Council (lsac.org)

10 ABA Profile of the Legal Profession 2022 (americanbar.org)

11 What percentage of US lawyers are Hispanic? (legalknowledgebase.com)

12 Allison Starnes-Anglea