Burnstein

Waller law firm has elected Matthew R. Burnstein chairman of the firm. Effective August 1, 2014, Burnstein will succeed John Tishler, who will assume the role of chairman emeritus and resume his bankruptcy and restructuring practice at Waller.

Waller also announced that David Lemke has been named to lead the firm’s financial services industry team and Marcus Crider will lead the firm’s Retail and Hospitality team. Ken Marlow was appointed chair of Waller’s health care department in September 2013.

Burnstein has spent his entire legal career at Waller, joining the firm in 1997 after graduating from Vanderbilt University Law School and serving as law clerk to Chief U.S. District Judge Charles R. Simpson III in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. He earned a B.A. in 1993 from Vanderbilt University.

Burnstein’s legal practice focuses on corporate transactions, primarily in the health care industry. He also represents private equity and venture capital funds. Burnstein served on Waller’s board of directors from 2006 to 2012.

Marnett named to lead VUMC Research

Marnett

Vanderbilt’s Lawrence J. “Larry” Marnett, Ph.D., the Mary Geddes Stahlman Professor of Cancer Research and university professor of biochemistry and chemistry, has been named Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s next associate vice chancellor for research and senior associate dean for Biomedical Sciences, effective Sept. 1.

Marnett will succeed Susan Wente, Ph.D., who held the position for the past five years, as she transitions into new responsibilities as provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs for Vanderbilt University.

Marnett, who is also director of the A.B. Hancock, Jr. Memorial Laboratory for Cancer Research, director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Chemical Biology and professor of Pharmacology, has been a member of Vanderbilt’s faculty since 1989.

In his new role Marnett will support the operations and strategic development of basic sciences throughout the Medical Center, including its many programs in basic sciences education. And in coordination with the Provost’s office, Marnett will also support cross-institutional collaboration for shared institutes and centers.

Responsibilities associated with his role as senior associate dean of Biomedical Sciences include leading basic science education and post-doctorate training for more than 600 graduate students, more than 500 post-doctoral fellows and shared oversight for several trans-institutional graduate programs.

Litigator moves to firm’s Nashville office

Goodman

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP partner and life sciences litigator William (“Will”) F. Goodman, III has joined the firm’s Nashville office. Goodman had been working from the firm’s Jackson, Miss., office since joining the firm in January 2014.

A member of the firm’s Litigation Practice Group and Life Sciences Industry Team, Goodman has more than 35 years in practice, serving as lead national defense counsel to life sciences companies involved in complex commercial and personal injury litigation.

Over the course of his career, Goodman has represented clients in major pharmaceutical, chemical exposure, class action, and commercial litigation cases, often involving thousands of claims. Most notably, he successfully defended Bayer in the country’s second and third trials involving the prescription medicine Baycol.

Goodman serves on the Defense Research Institute’s Drug and Device Steering Committee and is a member of the Millsaps College Board of Trustees. He holds a J.D. from the University of Mississippi School of Law and a B.A. from Millsaps College.

LBMC hires partner in transaction services

Nix

Lisa Nix, CPA, has joined Lattimore Black Morgan & Cain, PC as a partner leading the Transaction Advisory Services Practice Division with a focus on health care services. Prior to joining LBMC, she was a director with Deloitte’s National Health Care and Life Sciences Transaction Services practice.

Nix has more than 20 years of public accounting experience, 10-plus in health care transaction services. She has led and managed assurance and advisory services for health care companies, including not-for-profit, for-profit, private and public entities.

She earned a business administration from Middle Tennessee State University.

Fuller

Also, Cecil Fuller has joined the firm as a director of business development in the Brentwood office.

Fuller, a Lipscomb graduate, has 30 years of business development and sales experience. He returns to LBMC after a two-year absence, during which he served as business development director for the Mobile Solutions Group/Strategic Services division of Compuware, Inc., a technology performance company. Cecil previously worked for LBMC Technologies, LLC in the Business Development division.

Cartiglia wins election for Tennessee Bar office

Cartiglia

James R. Cartiglia, shareholder at Waddey Patterson, PC, has been elected secretary of the House of Delegates of the 12,000+ member Tennessee Bar Association. The House of Delegates considers, debates, and makes policy recommendations on matters of interest and concern to the legal profession and concerns itself with matters under consideration by the state legislature.

Cartiglia, a registered patent attorney, has been practicing intellectual property law for more than 30 years. He has filed and prosecuted over 1,500 patent applications, primarily in the fields of chemical and materials engineering, nutrition and life sciences, and has appeared before the Japanese, Korean and European Patent Offices, as well as representing clients in litigation in the US and in Europe.

He served as president of the Tennessee Intellectual Property Law Association in 2010-2011.

Neal & Harwell to occupy new Eakin Gulch Tower

Harwell

Nashville law firm Neal & Harwell, PLC has signed on to occupy a portion of the new Eakin Gulch Tower. Neal & Harwell will occupy at least one floor (26,000 square feet) of the building, which will be located at 1201 Demonbreun Street. The firm will make the move to The Gulch near the end of 2016.

Work on the 300,000-square-foot, 15-story Eakin Gulch Tower will begin later this summer and is expected to be completed in early December 2016. In addition to offices, plans call for retail and restaurant space, as well as a green-roof entertainment area with a downtown view.

Neal & Harwell was founded in 1971 with three attorneys and was first located in the Third National Bank Building (now SunTrust Building). After considerable growth, the firm moved to One Nashville Place in 1986 where it has remained for 25 years.

Veteran banker joins INSBANK as vice president

Wright

INSBANK, a Nashville-based full-service bank headquartered in Green Hills, has added Patrick Wright as first vice president and relationship manager. Wright brings almost three decades of lending experience to the bank’s team of financial experts.

Wright’s responsibilities will include commercial lending and relationship development. Prior to joining INSBANK, he served as senior vice president/area executive with First South Bank in Hilton Head Island, S.C. Prior to his work in South Carolina, he worked at Sun Trust Bank in Murfreesboro as a banking officer.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from Middle Tennessee State University and is a graduate of Tennessee Commercial Banking School at Vanderbilt.

VUMC’s Russell to lead Williamson, Maury care

Henry Paul (Hank) Russell, M.D., assistant professor of Clinical Surgery and a general and thoracic surgeon at Vanderbilt Medical Group in Williamson County since 1986, has been named medical director of Vanderbilt Health – Williamson/Maury. He replaces Pete Powell, M.D., who has held the position since 2004.

Russell

Russell will coordinate the medical care rendered by Vanderbilt Medical Group providers in Williamson and Maury Counties, oversee the relationships between area hospitals and Vanderbilt University Medical Center and serve as a liaison between the medical providers and facilities and the communities in Williamson and Maury counties.

He will work closely with the leadership of the clinical departments and Patient Care Centers that have faculty practicing south of Nashville. He will also help facilitate the evolution of the Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network (VHAN) in those counties.

VHAN includes Williamson Medical Center, Maury Regional Medical Center, NorthCrest Medical Center and Sumner Regional, all located along the Interstate 65 north-south corridor; Mountain States Health Alliance based in northeast Tennessee; Cookeville Regional Medical Center to the east; and West Tennessee Healthcare in Jackson.

First Farmers names staff for new Green Hills center

First Farmers and Merchants Bank has announced the banking team for its new Green Hills financial center, its first office in Davidson County.

The leadership team will include First Farmers veterans Richard S. (Dick) Sevier, Berry Brooks, Rory Mallard and Rita S. Conner.

The new financial center, located near the Hill Center retail shopping area, is First Farmers’ 19th in Middle Tennessee.

Sevier will be senior commercial relationship manager, a position he’s held at the First Farmers Cool Springs office since it opened in 2009.

Brooks, also a senior commercial relationship manager, has been in banking in Middle Tennessee since 1971, having worked for Commerce Union, Bank of America, First American and AmSouth. Brooks, a graduate of Vanderbilt University who holds an MBA from The University of Tennessee, has been with First Farmers for 14 years

Having held the position of private banking/business banking officer at First Farmers’ Cool Springs office since 2011, Mallard will become commercial relationship manager at the Green Hills office. He previously managed Fifth Third Bank’s Music Row Financial Center and has been both a financial advisor trainee at Morgan Stanley and a senior personal banker at Bank of America in Nashville.

Conner will manage the financial center. She comes to First Farmers from Capital Bank, Nashville, where she served as vice president and branch manager since 2011.

Construction began on the Green Hills financial center in March. It is expected to open by early fall.