Faculty Profile: Hon. Alexander McVeagh

Judge Alex McVeagh presides over the Third Division of Hamilton County’s Circuit Court, following in the footsteps of retired Judge Marie Williams and his friend and mentor, the late Chief Justice Muecke Barker. He previously served as judge of Hamilton County’s General Sessions Court for seven years, where he helped to found the misdemeanor track of Hamilton County’s Drug Recovery Court. Judge McVeagh is the incoming president of the Tennessee Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division, is past president of the Chattanooga Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division, and is a member of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates.

Originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, Judge McVeagh obtained his economics and law degrees from Vanderbilt University. He worked as a Tennessee and Georgia litigator at Chambliss, Bahner, & Stophel, as Assistant City Attorney for the City of East Ridge, and as head research analyst for the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee. Judge McVeagh previously served as the Vice Chair of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission. During this time, he helped to start an online dispute resolution program in Chattanooga to assist healthcare patients and hospitals in resolving outstanding medical debt before a lawsuit is filed. Judge McVeagh also helped implement Hamilton County’s eviction mediation program and is a key leader in the Chattanooga Bar Association’s new Courthouse Mediation Program. The Chattanooga Bar Association has honored him in the past as its “Volunteer of the Year” for his past pro bono service, his volunteerism on the bench, and for his work organizing Hamilton County’s local high school mock trial competition for over a decade.