H. Reid Poland III

On June 23, 2023, the Tennessee Supreme Court issued a Public Censure against Hugh Reid Poland III — who by that time was already serving as a Montgomery County General Sessions Court judge — for conduct he committed as a practicing attorney.

Poland represented a client through a custody mediation that produced a negotiated settlement. That settlement required Poland to draft an agreed order, a parenting plan, and a child support worksheet. He drafted none of them. He went silent on opposing counsel. When opposing counsel filed a Motion to Enforce the Mediation agreement, Poland still did nothing. He ultimately allowed opposing counsel — essentially the enemy or opponent of his client — to file the required documents on his own client's behalf. He neither recieved consent from his client or even informed him. That is not negligence. That is a fundamental betrayal of the most primary duty an attorney has.

Eventually, Poland executed a guilty plea acknowledging that his conduct violated four Rules of Professional Conduct: diligence, communication, misrepresentation, and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. The misrepresentation finding is not a technicality — it is a formal finding of dishonesty by the Tennessee Supreme Court against a sitting judge.

The irony is impossible to ignore. The case Poland failed his client in involved family law — custody, parenting arrangements, and child support. These are precisely the kinds of matters that flow through his courtroom today. A judge who abandoned a client in a custody dispute, allowed the enemy party to act on his own client's behalf without even informing them, and was formally found to have lied now sits in judgment over families and juveniles in Montgomery County. The Tennessee Supreme Court agreed his conduct warranted formal public condemnation. He received the highest form of public rebuke short of suspension — and then had the audacity to run for judge.