Faculty Profile: Sherry Wilds

Sherry Wilds is the Senior Staff Attorney with Disability Rights Tennessee.  She primarily handles special education and disability discrimination cases under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehab Act with an emphasis on systemic issues in Tennessee.  In addition to her law degree from Nashville School of Law, she has a B.S. in special education and M.Ed. in curriculum and instruction from Carson-Newman College.  Before becoming an attorney, she taught in public schools for ten years, worked as Director of Education in a day treatment program, and served as an education diagnostician at The Psychiatric Hospital at Vanderbilt.

As an attorney, she received Tennessee Alliance of Legal Services' B. Riney Green Award for her efforts in promoting inter-program cooperation to strengthen access to justice across the state. Ms. Wilds has conducted trainings throughout Tennessee on laws related to disabilities and special education for administrative law judges, educators, attorneys who handle juvenile cases and serve as Guardian ad Litem, Department of Children Services' attorneys, psychologists, doctors, and families of children with disabilities. She has provided education to legislators and policy makers in Tennessee on issues affecting students with disabilities. These collaborative efforts and her client cases positively impacted statutes and rules on such issues as administration of anti-seizure medication in schools and prevention of misuse of restraint and seclusion of students with disabilities. In addition, Ms. Wilds has served as chair of the Tennessee Alliance of Legal Services Special Education Task Force, on the Disability Coalition on Education, on the Continuing Legal Education Committee for the Tennessee Bar Association, and as chair of the Disability Section of the Tennessee Bar Association.