C. DEWEY BRANSTETTER, JR.

A native Nashvillian, Mr. Branstetter has been with the firm since 1981.  He attended Montgomery Bell Academy and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Vanderbilt University in 1978.  A 1981 graduate of Vanderbilt Law School, he served as Chief Justice of the Vanderbilt Moot Court Board and was elected to membership in the Order of the Coif.

Mr. Branstetter is known for his expertise in complex litigation, including class actions, shareholder derivative litigation, and securities litigation, and he regularly practices in the fields of utility law and employment law.  He has served as lead or co-lead counsel in a number of complex cases, including the Dollar General Shareholder Derivative litigation, the UnumProvident Shareholder Derivative litigation, and the High Pressure Laminates Antitrust litigation.  He also served as liaison counsel in the Tennessee Microsoft Antitrust case and was counsel for the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System in the WorldCom bonds litigation.  His efforts have resulted in the recovery of millions of dollars for his clients, including a 31.5 million dollar recovery in the Dollar General Shareholder Derivative litigation that is the largest monetary recovery in a shareholder derivative case in Tennessee.

An accomplished trial lawyer, Mr. Branstetter has been recognized by the publication The Best Lawyers in American in the area of Labor and Employment law.   He was recognized as a Mid-South Super Lawyer in securities litigation in 2008 and 2009, and he has been recognized several times by the Nashville Business Journal as one of the Outstanding Lawyers in Nashville.  In 2009 he was recognized by Business Tennessee Magazine as one of 150 outstanding lawyers in Tennessee.

Mr. Branstetter has tried cases at all levels of the state and federal civil courts in Tennessee, and he has appeared on numerous occasions before the Tennessee Court of Appeals and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.  He has also argued three  cases before the Tennessee Supreme Court.

In addition to his professional practice, Mr. Branstetter has been active in a number of political and charitable endeavors.  For 11 years he was a member of the Metropolitan Nashville Board of Public Education, serving three years as its chairman.  He has served on the Boards of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, the Nashville Alliance for Public Education, Junior Achievement, the Middle Tennessee Chapter of the March of Dimes, and the Center for Nonprofit Management.  He also served three years as a Hearing Officer for the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility.  Mr. Branstetter currently serves as the chairman of the Metropolitan Charter Revision Commission.  A member of the Nashville, Tennessee, and American Bar Associations, the Tennessee Association for Justice, and the American Association for Justice, Mr. Branstetter is also a Fellow of the Nashville Bar Foundation.

Mr. Branstetter has been married for 27 years, and he and Julie have two sons, Hunter and Austin.

PRACTICE AREAS
Tort and Personal Injury;
Labor and Employment; Commercial Litigation; Civil Litigation; Utility;
Class Actions and Complex Litigation; Securities Law