Faculty Profile: Douglas Dimond

DOUGLAS EARL DIMOND, J.D., is General Counsel for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services.  He began his professional life in 1980 as a small businessman operating a gourmet foods business in New England.  Returning to his education over a decade later, he graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University in 1992 and earned his law degree from Vanderbilt University in 1996.  Upon graduation from law school, he joined the Tennessee Attorney General's Office, where for the next fifteen years he represented the Department of Children’s Services and other state agencies in all levels of state and federal courts.  As lead counsel in Brian A., a federal civil rights class action brought on behalf of Tennessee's foster children, he was instrumental in negotiating the original settlement and representing the Department in subsequent efforts aimed at improving services to thousands of foster children statewide.  He also handled scores of appeals in the Tennessee Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.  In 2005, he received the Attorney General’s Office’s highest recognition, the William M. Leech, Jr., Award.  Mr. Dimond has served as General Counsel at the Department of Children’s Services since April 2011, leading over a hundred attorneys and staff across the state in providing the highest level of legal work to clients involved in every phase of the Department’s work.