Legal Aid Society promotes Janet Mynatt to managing attorney in Oak Ridge

Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, Tennessee’s largest nonprofit law firm, announced on Monday that it has promoted Janet Mynatt to managing attorney of the Oak Ridge office. Mynatt is replacing former Managing Attorney Neil McBride, who retired this month after 35 years of service.

Mynatt joined Legal Aid Society as a staff attorney at the Oak Ridge office in 2001. In 2005-06, she was awarded a John G. Brooks Consumer Law Fellowship through the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the National Consumer Law Center. She graduated from the Tennessee Bar Association’s Leadership Law Program in 2009 and served as president of the Anderson County Bar Association in 2011.

“Janet is an outstanding attorney and natural leader—the perfect person to fill the big shoes of Neil McBride, who has managed the Oak Ridge office since 1978,” said Gary Housepian, executive director of Legal Aid Society. “She has helped many, many people in the Oak Ridge area throughout her time at Legal Aid Society and has been an active member of the community. I have no doubt that our Oak Ridge office will continue to have a significant impact in Oak Ridge and throughout the surrounding region under Janet’s leadership.”

Editor of Legal Aid Society’s Sixth Circuit Social Security Manual, Mynatt also helped form Legal Aid Society’s Partnership for Patients with the Dayspring Family Health Center, which helps rural health clinic patients overcome legal problems that interfere with their medical treatment.

Mynatt has a bachelor’s degree from George Mason University and a juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served as managing editor of the Journal of Law and Politics. She is a member of the Tennessee Valley Coalition for the Homeless and serves on the Tennessee Valley Continuum of Care’s Interim Governing Council and Housing Committees. She is also chair of the Tennessee Bar Association Disability Law Section.

Legal Aid Society gives free civil legal aid to people who have nowhere else to turn. It serves 48 counties from offices in Clarksville, Columbia, Cookeville, Gallatin, Murfreesboro, Nashville, Oak Ridge, and Tullahoma. The Legal Aid Society is funded in part by United Way.