Faculty Profile: Casey Summar

Casey Gill Summar is the Executive Director of the Arts & Business Council, where she oversees the organization including the Volunteer Lawyers & Professionals for the Arts program. Casey co-founded this program as the Tennessee Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (TNVLA) in 2006, serving as its Executive Director until merging TNVLA with the Arts & Business Council in 2009. She has also served as an adjunct Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University Law School since 2010, and Belmont University School of Law since 2013. Casey received her J.D. with honors from Vanderbilt University Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Belmont University with a B.F.A in Photography. She is admitted to the bar of Tennessee, and previously clerked with the Georgia Lawyers for the Arts and various entertainment law firms in Nashville, TN. Before beginning her legal career, Casey worked as a letterpress printmaker for seven years at the historic Hatch Show Print in downtown Nashville. Casey is active in the Nashville arts and legal communities and currently serves as the Chair-Elect of the Nashville Arts Coalition, on the board of the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services and the Executive Council of the Tennessee Bar Association’s Entertainment & Sports Law Section. She is also a member of the Pro Bono Advisory Committee of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission. Casey is honored to be an alumna of Young Leaders Council (Class 50)and Leadership Music Class of 2015, recognized as a Top 40 Under 40, as well as a finalist for the Salute to Excellence Nonprofit CEO of the Year in 2016 and a finalist for the Nashville Emerging Leaders Awards (NELAs) in 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016. In her spare time, Casey and her husband, Trent, enjoy spoiling their dog, working in their frontyard vegetable garden, and being passionate ambassadors for their Edgehill neighborhood.