Adams and Reese Special Counsel and Tennessee Senate Majority Leader
Mark Norris, R-Collierville, has been elected as Chairman of the Southern Legislative Conference by delegates at the 64th Annual Meeting of The Council of State Governments’ Southern Legislative Conference. Norris is the first Tennessee Senator to serve as SLC chair since 1988.
Delegates from SLC’s 15 member states unanimously elected Norris to succeed Speaker Robert W. Harrell, Jr. of South Carolina, the previous chair of the Conference.
Norris has served in the Tennessee Senate since 2000 and has served as Senate Majority Leader since 2007. He currently serves as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee and is a member of the Finance, Ways and Means Committee; Ethics Committee; and State and Local Government Committee.
Norris will preside over all Executive Committee meetings of the SLC and guide the Conference in major policy deliberations. The 65th SLC Annual Meeting will be held in Memphis, Tennessee, on July 16-20, 2011.
Founded in 1947, the Southern Legislative Conference is one of four regional legislative offices operating under The Council of State Governments. The mission of the Southern office is to foster and encourage intergovernmental cooperation among its 15 member states, the largest regional coalition with common interests and goals served by the offices of the Council. By working together within the SLC and participating on its committees, Southern state legislative leaders are able to speak in a distinctive, unified voice to address the issues that affect their states and the greater region.
At Adams and Reese, Norris has a diverse civil litigation and business practice. His commercial litigation caseload regularly includes products liability, petroleum marketing and franchise litigation, defense of professional liability claims, and condemnation/eminent domain cases He advises clients in crisis management and preventative measures to minimize risk and avoid the expense of litigation. He also appears before administrative, regulatory and municipal boards on behalf of a variety of clients in land use, permitting and zoning matters related to economic development.
Having served as a County Commissioner in West Tennessee and as a member of the National Association of Counties and Tennessee County Commissioners' Association Board, Norris is also experienced in matters involving local government.
He is actively engaged in the field of Transportation and Logistics. He is a member of the Transportation Lawyers Association, previously served as Chairman of the Senate Transportation and Safety Committee, and currently serves as chair of the Transportation Policy Task Force for the national Council of State Governments. He is a former Principal in the National Academy of Public Administration’s Intergovernmental Forum on Transportation Finance, and he testified before the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission in 2006.
Adams and Reese is a multidisciplinary law firm with offices strategically located throughout the southern United States and Washington, DC. American Lawyer includes Adams and Reese on its distinguished list of the nation's top law firms - "The Am Law 200". The National Law Journal also includes the firm on the "NLJ 250" list of the nation's largest law firms.