Paul B. Plant, born April 11, 1944, in Andalusia, Alabama, was educated in the public schools of Panama City and Pensacola, Florida, graduating from Pensacola High School in 1962. He received an Associates of Arts Degree from Pensacola Junior College, and a Bachelor of Music Education Degree from George Peabody College for Teachers, Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a high school teacher and coach in Sumner County, Tennessee for four years until he left that position to study law at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.
While at Cumberland, Plant served as an associate Justice on the Moot Court Board and was a member of the Cumberland Law Review.
Upon receiving his Doctor of Jurisprudence Degree in 1974, Plant came to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, to join his father-in-law, Judge William A. Harwell and Mike Bottoms, in the practice of Law. Plant is licensed to practice in all the Courts in the State of Tennessee, before the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States, and the United States Supreme Court. He serves as Municipal Judge for the city of Saint Joseph, Tennessee.
An advocate of service to the community, Plant has served as President of the Lawrenceburg Kiwanis Club, President of the Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce, and was a charter class member of Leadership Lawrence County. In 1995, Plant was named Citizen of the Year by the Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce. Plant was Chairman of the 175th Anniversary Celebration of the City of Lawrenceburg, was Chairman of the Fund Raising Drive to construct the Gazebo in the middle of the Lawrenceburg Square, and has played a pivotal role in many other positive activities in Lawrence County.
Plant’s success as a trial advocate has led to his invitation to become a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, a national organization whose membership is limited to lawyers who possess a high degree of skill, integrity, and experience as trial advocates. Plant was elected President of the Tennessee Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates in 2001. Plant is a Fellow and Past Chair of the Tennessee Bar Foundation, a member of the American Bar Association and the Tennessee Bar Association, where he served as a member of the Board of Governors and Secretary and Speaker of the House of Delegates. He served as a hearing officer for the Tennessee Supreme Court Board of Professional Responsibility 1993-1999, and has served on the Advisory Board of the Cumberland School of Law for a number of years. He currently serves as a Supreme Court designated member of the Tennessee Judicial Ethics Committee.
Paul Plant, a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, is the author of the Eye on Elder Law column in the Lawrence County Advocate and the Democrat Union, and has made presentations throughout Middle Tennessee to varying groups including church groups, retired teachers, parents of youngsters with special needs, elder citizens, and others concerning issues directly relating to elder care issues. Plant has expanded his long and successful estate planning practice through participation and involvement in numerous seminars and other activities addressing themselves to the special needs related to financial planning for individuals with handicaps or the personal inability to manage their own funds.
Plant has been recognized by the Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Rating Service as having the highest possible Peer Review Rating in legal ability and ethical standards continuously for over twenty years. The Martindale-Hubbell AV Rating is limited to attorneys who have earned that high Peer Review Rating through a ratings method attesting to the lawyer’s legal ability and professional ethics and reflecting the confidential opinions of the Bar and the Judiciary. Harwell and Plant is listed in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers.
Plant, Municipal Judge of the City of St. Joseph, Tennessee, has also received an AV Preeminent Rating in the Judicial Edition of the Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Rating Process.
Plant is married to the former Cherie Harwell. They have two children, Sara and Jon Paul. Plant is an active member of the Coleman Memorial United Methodist Church in Lawrenceburg, where he serves as lay leader and where he and his wife direct the music program. Plant and his wife, Cherie, are also Directors of the Lawrence County Oratorio Society, which presents the extremely popular Christmas Pops Performance each December. In the past twenty-eight years more than 30,000 Lawrence Countians and their friends have come together to watch and hear the Plants and their musical guests bring a joyous beginning to the Christmas Season.
