Lewis R. Donelson III, shareholder in the Memphis office, concentrates his practice in the areas of corporate and tax law. His experience includes corporate and partnership taxation, state and local taxation, estate planning and probate, corporate formation and partnership, and education financing. He has been counselor for many corporations of various sizes, acting as chief legal advisor and participating in many corporate policy discussions. Mr. Donelson was the outside general counsel for First Tennessee National Corporation for many years, and the Firm still provides that representation. He won one of the first family partnership tax cases, the lead case in holding that local power companies chartered as public non-profits are the tax-free, a leading case involving the taxation of cotton futures trading and hedging, an early case involving multiple corporations, and many others. Mr. Donelson formed the first Professional Limited Liability Company in Tennessee and established some of the earliest private pension and profit-sharing plans. He persuaded the three-judge court in Baker v. Carr to adopt their plan for reapportionment of the Tennessee General Assembly. He has had years of experience in advising small and family businesses on tax, legal and policy matters.
Mr. Donelson played a key role in increasing funding for rural schools when he represented a group of 77 rural school systems in a successful lawsuit to force the State of Tennessee to fund its public schools in a more equitable manner so that children from poorer districts will have the same opportunity to receive a quality education as children from more privileged districts.
Since 1952, Mr. Donelson has been active in politics through his involvement at the local, state and national levels. His experience includes serving as a member of Memphis's first City Council, as a delegate to the Tennessee Constitutional Convention in 1971, as Commissioner of Finance and Administration (Chief Operating Officer) for the State of Tennessee under Governor Lamar Alexander and as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1964, 1968 and 1988, serving on the platform commmittee in 1988.
- Listed in The Best Lawyers in America® since 1983; Corporate Law and Tax Law
- Recipient – 2010 Civic Award from the Memphis Chapter of UNICO
- Named Memphis "Lawyer of the Year" (Corporate Law) by The Best Lawyers in America®, 2009
- Fellow – Tennessee Bar Association
- Delegate Tennessee Constitutional Convention (1971)
- Commissioner – Finance and Administration, State of Tennessee (1979 – 1981)
- Charter Member – Memphis City Council
- Delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1964, 1968 and 1988
- Member of the Platform Committee at the Republican National Convention in 1988
- Recipient – Tennessee Medical Association Community Service Award (2007)
- Recipient – Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen Award, Chickasaw Council (2006)
- Served on Tennessee Higher Education Commission (1982 – 1992)
- Chairman of National Advisory Council for The Hermitage (1995 – 2008)
- Board of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (1984 – present)
- Board of National Rural Schools Trust (1999 – 2008)
- Chair The Regional Medical Center at Memphis (1996 – 2006)
- President of Travelers Aid (1945)
- President of Shelby United Neighbors (United Way) (1961)
- Trustee of Southwestern (now Rhodes College) (1957 – 1967)
- Received Honorary Doctor of Laws from Rhodes College (1987)
- Elder and Past Trustee, Idlewild Presbyterian Church
- Tennessee, 1940
- District of Columbia, 1941
- Rhodes College, Honorary Doctor of Laws, 1987
- Georgetown University Law Center, LL.B., in 1941
- Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), B.A., 1938, with distinction