The Knoxville Bar Association (KBA) awarded Carlos Yunsan, law clerk to Court of Appeals Judge Kristi Davis, the 2021 KBA Presidents’ Award at its Annual Meeting on Friday, December 10, 2021.

The KBA Presidents’ Award recognizes outstanding performance and dedicated service on behalf of the KBA. Carlos Yunsan and LMU Duncan School of Law Professor Akram Faizer received the award as co-chairs of the KBA’s Diversity in the Profession Committee. The KBA’s President, Cheryl Rice, commended Yunsan and Faizer for their vision and leadership of the Committee’s many efforts to ensure that every attorney—without regard to race, color, creed, religion, or gender—can succeed professionally and participate in the affairs of the Knoxville legal community.

The Diversity in the Profession Committee’s efforts in 2021 included, among others, a monthly column, “What I Learned About Inclusion and Why It Matters,” in KBA’s DICTA; a book club discussion on “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander; and a Difficult Conversations program aimed at equipping bar members to skillfully, respectfully, and successfully navigate conversations on difficult topics such as race and inclusiveness.  

Yunsan is a member of the KBA Board of Governors and currently serves as the KBA Secretary. Before joining Judge Davis’s chambers, he served as a law clerk to Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Sharon Lee and has been an adjunct professor of legal writing at the University of Tennessee College of Law since 2018. He has a JD degree, a Master’s of Public Health degree, and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee.