The men and women who serve our country face a number of difficulties when they return from their deployments – difficulties that civilians don’t always know about. The Uniformed Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act (USERRA) protects military members when they come home seeking to return to their employment. To better serve these men and women, the Tennessee Association for Justice (TAJ) teamed up with the Tennessee Military Department in 2004 to provide mediation services for those who serve in the United States reserve component forces:

  • Air Force Reserve
  • Air National Guard
  • Army National Guard
  • US Army Reserve
  • US Coast Guard Reserve
  • US Marine Corps Reserve
  • US Navy Reserve

When the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) Committee of the US Department of Defense put out a call for Ombudsmen, more than 40 TAJ members answered that call – including the TAJ’s Executive Director, Suzanne Keith. Because of her work and that of Fred Denson, the Tennessee Military Department General Counsel, Tennessee leads the nation in the amount of lawyer ombudsmen. In this role, we provide pro bono mediation services for men and women who come back and discover that their jobs are no longer available, or that they will not receive a raise that was given to the rest of the company while the service member was deployed, for example. The ombudsmen have helped hundreds of service members over the last 10 years, and the program is still going strong. The success of the program has earned the TAJ multiple Seven Seals Awards.

Karla Miller, a long time member of TAJ, was recognized in 2008 for her excellence in service as an Ombudsman, as the recipient of the 2008 National Ombudsman of the Year by the ESGR Committee of DOD and the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA).

We’d like to thank the men and women who protect and serve our country each and every day. We’re proud of our work in the Tennessee Association of Justice and in the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Committee program, and we will continue to honor and protect the rights of those who serve our country.