Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. ’81 (BA’78) was confirmed to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee by a 92-0 Senate vote April 11.
Crenshaw was nominated February 2015 by President Barack Obama to replace Judge William Joseph Haynes Jr. ’73, who retired from his seat on Tennessee’s Middle District Court in December 2014. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously in July 2015 to send Crenshaw’s nomination to the Senate. His nomination was supported by Tennessee Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker.
“Tennessee is fortunate to have such a well-qualified federal district court judge as Waverly Crenshaw,” Alexander said. “I am glad the Senate voted to confirm him to be a federal district judge for the Middle District of Tennessee.”
“I am confident he will serve the people of Tennessee in this new role in an honorable fashion,” Sen. Corker said. “He’s distinguished himself not only as a talented attorney, but also as a well-respected leader in the Nashville community.”
Crenshaw is a partner at Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, where his practice focuses on complex employment issues involving multiple plaintiffs and class action discrimination, harassment and retaliation cases. He is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeal for the Fifth, Sixth, Eight and Eleventh districts, and numerous federal district courts, including all districts in Tennessee and Arkansas.
He was the first African American lawyer hired by Waller when he joined the firm in 1990 and was named the firm’s first African American partner in 1994. He currently serves on the firm’s diversity committee.
Before joining Waller, Crenshaw was a law clerk to Judge John T. Nixon ’60 of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee for two years and then served as an assistant attorney general for Tennessee’s Middle District from 1984 to 1987.
Crenshaw earned his law degree at Vanderbilt Law School, where he served on the editorial staff of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, in 1981, after earning his B.A. at Vanderbilt University in 1978.
