Williamson County Republican judicial candidate Connie Reguli is running in the May 3 GOP primary against incumbent Juvenile Court Judge Sharon Guffee, who she named in a lawsuit over a decade ago.
Reguli named Guffee and several others, including the state of Tennessee, as defendants in the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in part because of Guffee’s role as the judge in a case involving her daughter and a teenage boy she was dating.
According to court documents, Guffee repeatedly ruled against Reguli’s position in the case. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee dismissed the case against Guffee and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed its decision.
Reguli has been disciplined by boards of professional responsibility and the Tennessee courts system several times.
Since 2009, Reguli has faced discipline that includes being suspended from the practice of law for nearly a year, a public censure from the Tennessee Supreme Court, and professional probation as ordered by the state courts system for a period of 11 months and 29 days.
According to a document released by the Board of Professional Responsibility for the Supreme Court of Tennessee detailing some of the history of Reguli’s violations of professional conduct:
On December 28, 2015, Connie Lynn Reguli, of Brentwood, Tennessee, was suspended from the practice of law by Order of the Tennessee Supreme Court for a period of eleven (1 1) months and twenty—nine days all of which may be served on probation. The conditions of probation include (1) Ms. Reguli must employ a probation monitor; (2) must make restitution to a former client in the amount of $7,800; and (3) must submit to an evaluation by the Tennessee Lawyer Assistance Program (TLAP) and comply with any monitoring agreement TLAP recommends. Ms. Reguli was ordered to pay the costs of the disciplinary proceedings to the Board and to the Court.
The document continues:
On July 16, 2012, the Board of Professional Responsibility filed a petition for discipline against Ms.
Reguli based on three complaints of misconduct. The petition alleged, among other things, that Ms. Reguli failed to return client communications, refund unearned fees, provide an accounting of fees to a former client and the Board, and that Ms. Reguli’s website contained false statements.
The document also details violations that Reguli was found to have committed:
A hearing panel for the Board found that Ms. Reguli committed ethical misconduct by violating Rules of Professional Conduct 1.4 (communication); 1.5 (fees); 1.16 (declining or terminating representation); 7.4 (communication of fields of practice and specialization); 8.1 (bar admission and disciplinary matters); and 8.4, (misconduct). The hearing panel imposed an eleven (11) month, twenty-nine (29) day suspension, to be served on probation subject to certain conditions. Ms. Reguli and the Board appealed the panel’s judgment to the _Williamson County Circuit Court, which modified the panel’s sanction by reducing the length of suspension, altering and eliminating various conditions of probation, and ordering Ms. Reguli to pay restitution to a former client. Ms. Reguli and the Board appealed to the Supreme Court.
Most recently, on April 11, a supplemental petition for discipline was filed against Reguli.
Additionally, according to Williamson Homepage, “Brentwood attorney and Williamson County juvenile judge candidate Connie Reguli was found guilty on all counts in a Williamson County courtroom on Wednesday for her role in a 2018 endangered child alert that resulted in a missing child being located in her Brentwood home.” Reguli will be sentenced on June 24 for one misdemeanor and two Class E felonies. The status of her candidacy in light of her convictions is in doubt.
According to the Williamson County government website, Guffee has lived in Williamson County for almost 40 years. She graduated from Nashville School of Law in 1997.
Guffee served as an assistant district attorney for the 21st Judicial District from 1997 through 2003. Additionally, she served as a member of the Child Protective Investigative Team for Williamson County and was a founding team member of the 21st Drug Court. Guffee worked as an attorney in private practice from 2003 to 2007, specializing in family law and criminal defense and served as a magistrate from 2007 until her appointment to the Williamson County Juvenile Court in 2012. She was re-elected to the court in 2014.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR, Twitter, and Parler.
Photo “Connie Reguli (Left)” by Connie Reguli. Photo “Sharon E Guffee (Right)” by Sharon E Guffee.
