Faculty Profile: Jeffery Griswold

J. Scott Griswold is the Clerk and Master of the Knox County Chancery Court. In this dual role, he serves as the administrative head of the Chancery Court and the judicial officer presiding over probate estate administrations. He supervises approximately 20 deputy clerks, and manages several million in public funds.  

Scott earned undergraduate degrees from Middle Tennessee State University in accounting and political science. He attended The University of Tennessee College of Law, graduating in 2007. Scott began his career clerking for then Chief Justice William M. Barker of the Tennessee Supreme Court. He entered private practice with Paine, Tarwater, & Bickers, PLLC, focusing primarily on the defense of products liability claims. He subsequently transitioned his practice to trust and estate administration and litigation with Holbrook Peterson Smith PLLC and Hodges, Doughty & Carson PLLC. In 2020, he joined Long, Ragsdale & Waters, PC, as a shareholder and continued to grow his practice until the Knox County Chancellors asked him to serve as Clerk and Master. 

Scott is also a former Adjunct Professor of Law at The University of Tennessee College of Law where he taught legal writing as part of the first-year curriculum. He is also an avid writer. His scholarly works have appeared in the Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law and Transactions: Tennessee Journal of Business Law. In addition, he has written several feature articles for the Tennessee Bar Journal and the Knoxville Bar Association's Dicta. He served on the Editorial Board of the Tennessee Bar Journal and the Publications Committee of the Knoxville Bar Association. In 2011, the Tennessee Bar Association honored Scott with the Justice Joseph W. Henry Award for Outstanding Legal Writing for his article Service of Process After Hall v. Haynes: Practice Tips for Counsel and Advice for Management.

Scott is a member of the Knoxville and Tennessee bar associations. He is a Fellow of the Knoxville Bar Foundation. Prior to becoming Clerk and Master, he served as an Assistant Examiner for the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners and as a Director for Little Oaks Academy, a nonprofit daycare in Knoxville, among many other nonprofit organizations.  He lives in Fountain City with his wife and children.