It's official!

I'm official! An official attorney! Scary, huh? I attended the swearing-in ceremony this past Wednesday, November 18, at the War Memorial Building. It was AWESOME! Okay, admittedly, when I first got there, I thought it was a crazy mess and wished I had gotten sworn in locally. But being there with the Supreme Court Justices was amazing. I think the Chief Justice mentioned that 140 people were being sworn in that morning. Each individual got introduced by a "sponsor," so it did take about 2 hours. After each motion was made, one of the Supreme Court Justices would say, "Mr./Ms. [Sponsor], your motion is granted, and Mr./Ms. [New Lawyer], congratulations and welcome to the practice of law." It was pretty cool.

My wonderful boss, Shauna Billingsley, was my sponsor. She made her motion (which was so very sweet and personal) and introduced herself and mentioned that I have accepted the staff attorney position at the City. At the time my motion was made, Justice Gary Wade was granting the motions, but after Shauna made hers, Justice Connie Clark interrupted and said that she would like to take mine. She said (something to the effect of...), "Ms. Billingsley, I know that you come from a long line of wonderful Franklin City Attorneys - me being one of them - so I am honored to grant your motion. Ms. Corn, you have chosen an amazing career path. I welcome you to the practice of law - and the politics - of Franklin, and also to the bar of the state of Tennessee." Of course, the audience laughed, and it was very, very cool. At that point, I was so glad that I had done the ceremony. It was awesome to receive a personal welcome from a Supreme Court Justice! Shauna and I both guessed that she would say something personal because she was smiling pretty big at us when we were in line. AWESOME. Still kind of on cloud nine from that one ;)

And...I know I'm a dork. :)

Anyway, one thing that I believe all the justices pointed out in their speeches at the end was that none of us could have gotten where we are without the support of our family and friends. Although I do think that's true for everyone, I think it was especially true for me. I have THE MOST AMAZING family and friends and I certainly don't even pretend like this whole long, drawn-out mess of the past five years was anything but a joint effort. I am so very blessed.

Again, anyway...

It was dark in the auditorium, so the ceremony pictures didn't really come out, but here's a few (the first two are from before).

Daddy, me, Mommy and JMC
(oops - for blog purposes, I guess I should say: PawPaw, Mommy, Mimi, and Daddy :))



Shauna and me



Okay, I know it's hard to tell what's going on here, but you can see the Justices and the back of my head. :) Shauna was making my motion (the back of her head is to the left of mine :)). The man standing up is the Clerk of the Appellate Court System.