Patricia Gunn

Patricia Gunn returns to the Tennessee Justice Center (TJC), where she once served as a volunteer attorney during her professional development leave from Ohio University (Fall 2006 – Fall 2007). Many of the things she learned at the TJC inspired her to develop a capstone course entitled, “Legal Policy and Disparities In The American Health Care System,” which enabled students to examine the disparities experienced by women, children, the elderly, African Americans, Latinex, Native Americans, Appalachians, and the poor in our Nation, in the spirit of open, scholarly inquiry. Her experience at the TJC also inspired her to write, Health Care Refugees, 6 Loy. U. Chi. Int’l L. Rev. 339 (2009) (see, https://lawecommons.luc.edu/lucilr/vol6/iss2/3/ (last visited August 1, 2020). She recently retired from Ohio University as an Associate Professor Emerita of Law and is now living in Nashville.

Prior to joining academia, Ms. Gunn had the privilege of serving for a year as Special Assistant to the Solicitor General (SG) of the United States at the U. S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. (DOJ). The SG’s Office represents the Government in all its cases before the United States Supreme Court. The SG’s Office is also responsible for reviewing and deciding whether the Government will appeal to the appropriate U.S. Court of Appeals any U.S. District Court ruling against the Government. Finally, the SG’s Office is responsible for seeing that the Government adopts consistent legal positions in all cases it files in the U.S. District Courts, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and U.S. Supreme Court.

Upon leaving the SG’s Office, Ms. Gunn next had the privilege of serving as a Senior Trial Attorney in the Office of International Affairs (OIA) at DOJ. Attorneys in OIA had many extraordinary responsibilities for assisting in the pursuit of justice and law enforcement at the international, national, and state levels. Among other things, such attorneys routinely participated in international extradition cases, in obtaining evidence from abroad required for prosecutions in the United States, and as members of U.S. delegations charged with negotiating treaties involving international criminal law matters.

Ms. Gunn is a graduate of Boston College Law School and of Fisk University. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, she greatly enjoyed visiting Fisk University’s Carl Van Vechten Art Gallery and Aaron Douglas Gallery, the Frist Art Museum, Cheekwood, and performances at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. She looks forward to resuming such wonderful experiences when the pandemic has ended. In the meantime, she enjoys quiet, masked walks in her neighborhood and “Zooming” with family, friends, and colleagues.