Dickerson to carry tradition of service as Young Lawyers Division president

The Memphis Daily News/The Memphis News

Dec. 19, 2013

Jake Dickerson, associate with Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, is the incoming 2014 president for the Young Lawyers Division of the Memphis Bar Association.

The division arranges and hosts continuing legal education seminars, networking events, pro bono opportunities and fundraisers such as the annual golf tournament benefiting the Porter Goodwill Branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis. MBA members 36 years or younger, or within their first three years of practice, are automatically members of the division.

Dickerson grew up in Memphis and received a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from the University of Mississippi. He worked as an admissions recruiter for the school for a year after graduation before entering the law school there.

The idea of a career in law came early in elementary school and was influenced by his grandfather, Tucker Dickerson, an attorney and general sessions judge in Coffee County, Tenn.

“I remember playing with his gavel from when he was a judge when I would go to his house, so I think it was because of him that this was always the career path,” Dickerson said.

After graduation in 2007, he clerked for Judge Jon McCalla, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. He had worked as a summer associate with Baker Donelson during law school and, after finishing his clerkship in August 2008, signed on with the firm.

What area of law to focus on “was a great mystery,” he said. “I knew getting to law school was always in the plan, but beyond that I was pretty ignorant about the options.”

He came to enjoy the general business side of law, and his focus now is on business litigation, representing financial institutions and medical malpractice defense . . . (read more)