Wallace “Wally” Dietz received a surprise call in 2021 from Mayor John Cooper who asked him to become Metro’s new Legal Director. Dietz accepted and continued to serve under Mayor Freddie O’Connell until he retired on July 16 this year.
Dietz previously worked for 38 years as an attorney at Bass, Berry & Sims where he litigated mostly business cases. Dietz did not plan on becoming a lawyer. He studied political science to pursue a career as a foreign service officer in the U.S. State Department, and his first job after college was with U.S. Senator Jim Sasser in Washington, D.C.
“I learned a lot about the State Department and what some career positions there would look like,” Dietz said.
Eventually he looked at all his options and decided to enroll at Georgetown University Law Center while still continuing to work for Sasser. After law school, Dietz and his wife returned to Nashville for his judicial clerkship with US District Judge Tom Wiseman in federal court. They decided to make Nashville, where they both grew up, their home for good.
“I am just grateful to have had that opportunity to serve Metro in what I believe was a very important time in Metro’s history,” Dietz said, alluding to the legal fights with the state and federal government he spearheaded in recent years, which resulted in a 2025-Wall Street Journal article featuring his successful fight against the federal government. He said ending his career as Metro’s legal Director was one of the biggest honors of his life.
The day after your retirement, Mayor Freddie O’Connell appointed you to the Airport Authority Board. I assume your appointment is connected to the continuing legal fight between the state and Metro. Can you give a brief update on where that stands right now?
I had had multiple phone calls with the mayor that day, and we both had just learned that one of the commissioners on the Metro Nashville Airport Authority had resigned in the middle of her term so there was a vacancy. I was speaking with the mayor about the airport authority litigation, and he asked me on that phone call if I would accept an appointment to the Airport Authority so again it was a surprise. I was not expecting it.
I very much appreciated the opportunity because it gave me something to do to keep serving Metro even after my full retirement. Being on the Airport Authority is not a full-time job by any stretch of the imagination. It was a chance for me to still do some public service.
Let me say this, it’s very important when I’m talking about Metro business and litigation. For five years I was the law director, and I spoke for the Metropolitan government as law director. I am no longer the law director, and so I cannot speak for Metro and would not even think that I should try to speak for Metro or the Mayor or anyone with the Metro government. So a lot of things today are simply my views and do not reflect the views of the Metro government.
The litigation is ongoing. Metro and the Airport Authority filed a lawsuit in federal district court here in the Middle District of Tennessee. Towards the end of June, Metro also filed a lawsuit against the FAA in the Federal Circuit Court for the District of Columbia Circuit. They are separate lawsuits [and] each in their own right make the case that under federal law, the state does not have the right to take over our Airport Board without Metro’s permission and without the permission of the existing Airport Authority Board.
So there are two different lawsuits pending, and it’s creating some chaos which is not in the best interest of the airport, but I personally, again, not speaking for Metro, but I personally am very hopeful that the courts will follow what is the clear intent of federal law to prevent this kind of hostile takeover.
At Metro, you sued the state and the federal government. What does it take for a local government to make this kind of decision? How did you approach that and prepare for it?
Let me say that when I started in 2021, Metro was already involved in litigation suing the state over a voucher program that applied only in Memphis and Nashville. That case was decided after I became law director.
As a little bit of context under the Metro Charter the law director has the sole authority to decide whether or not Metro should file a lawsuit under any circumstances against anybody.
There were obviously people I spoke to as law director in 2023, starting with the Mayor to advise the Mayor what our plans were. But in 2023, the legislature reacted very negatively against Nashville, and Nashville only, and passed a series of laws that we believed were unconstitutional. We filed four lawsuits that year. We prevailed in a trial court in all of them.
Two of those lawsuits are still pending and awaiting a decision from the Tennessee Supreme Court. Those two are the Airport Authority takeover and the Metro Council reduction legislation. The Supreme Court is deliberating over those cases and should be making rulings public in the near future.
The decision whether or not to sue was a very serious matter. The Law Department of Metro had never been a law group that filed litigation just to protest something or to create chaos. We did not file lawsuits just for the sake of filing lawsuits to make a point. We were judicious and careful in making our decisions, and I believe we drew the line appropriately.
And after 2023, we went two years without filing another lawsuit against the state. Then the legislature did some things this year that we believe were unconstitutional, and so we filed a lawsuit over the Airport Authority takeover. People sometimes think it’s all about politics. It’s not about politics. It’s about the rule of law.
The Constitution of the State of Tennessee gives the General Assembly a lot of authority, but it also protects local governments in some very meaningful ways. And we believed at the time that the state had overreached. It was something that we evaluated and analyzed very closely before taking any action. I felt like we drew the line in the right case in the right place.
The litigation against the federal government started a year and a half ago when the Trump administration took power. We watched as executive orders came down, as decisions were made where funding grants to Nashville were canceled contrary to law. We believed we needed to protect ourselves.
I connected with a nonprofit called Public Rights Project that represents local governments around the country, and they were extremely helpful in assisting us in the litigation against the Trump administration. We were very successful in that litigation. Again, it’s not something we did lightly at the time, but we felt like it was important to represent Metro and to protect rights that we believe were clearly vested under the law. And the courts supported us in those cases.
I cannot speak for my successor because she can speak fully for herself but I worry that there will be additional lawsuits that will be necessary over the next two years, but that is to be determined.
There were also some contentious moments where Metro Legal had to step in when boards and the departments they oversaw were trying to solve issues amongst themselves. Who does Metro Legal represent in such situations? In other words, who is ultimately Metro Legal’s client when two different Metro entities are trying to solve an issue that needs legal advice?
Over my five years, it was very rarely the case that there was a dispute between one Metro department and another. In fact, the opposite was true. The Metro departments, under the leadership of both mayors I worked under, made every effort to try to accommodate what was in Metro’s best interest, largely aligning with the priorities established by the Mayor.
But … there was one instance in particular where my colleagues and I determined that there was a potential conflict of interest that it would be impossible for the Law Department to represent both Metro entities. In that case the Law Department gave permission to one of them to retain an outside counsel to represent them. I believe that was the right call at the time and that structure was in place when I left. So there is a mechanism when there is an actual very clear legal conflict. But again, that was very rare.
Which situation was that?
The situation I was thinking about was the Community Review Board and the Metropolitan Police Department. That was the instance where we determined there was a conflict, and we acknowledged the request of the review board to engage outside counsel. We agreed that they could do that. And it’s a law director’s decision.
You saw some wins when Nashville decided to join other cities and national nonprofits to sue the federal government over homelessness funding that threatened the housing of 170,000 people who had previously experienced homelessness. Why was it important for Nashville to join that fight?
There were two compelling factors. The Trump policy decision was clearly unconstitutional and contrary to federal law. The second thing is that in terms of Nashville, it was simply a matter of life and death. It was very important that Metro be able to support the community of people who find themselves homeless either through its own programming or often in giving grants to nonprofits who are on the front line of providing support for people who are on the cusp of being homeless or actually experiencing being homeless.
The change in policy went against federal government policy that was created under President George W. Bush, which starts with the principle that a homeless person needs housing first. The best way you can support a person who’s homeless is to give them permanent supportive housing and then address any other physical, mental, addiction, health issues they have as a part of a wraparound support system.
Look, I’m no expert in the field, but it just makes sense. If I have a friend or a family member who is homeless and has an addiction problem, for instance, would that person be better off in permanent supportive housing with the healthcare wraparound services provided? Or would they be better off living on the riverbank where there’s no access to healthcare other than occasional visits by doctors or nurses?
The [Housing First] policy made a lot of sense to me, but more importantly, as a lawyer, it was the law. And the Trump administration tried to change the law without going to Congress first. That’s why we won in the courts.
That win was one of the most important things I did in my entire legal career. We saved almost $12 million in funding so that Metro could continue to support programs to deal with issues of facing homeless people. There are complex, difficult problems in that world and there are no easy solutions. But Metro had been working to establish relationships and provide critical services to the people in Nashville who needed them the most. And I was proud to be a part of that litigation.
How did this change in policy come to your attention?
Unfortunately, I just had to keep up with news almost on an hourly basis because there were so many changes coming out of the Trump administration: changes to existing policy, trying to change laws without going back to Congress, and actually changing the law — just trying to make decisions that were contrary to law and ignoring the separation of powers between Congress and the executive branch.
I would check on the news multiple times every day. And I just saw that the Trump administration was changing the policy. I spoke with people in nonprofits and in the Mayor’s Office who were responsible for it, and we connected with this coalition at the Public Rights Project (PRP).
It was an easy decision to decide to file the lawsuit. The hard part was putting the proof together and working with these other cities. But we had a lot of support from PRP and the Mayor’s Office. I can’t emphasize that enough.
Editorial Note: Dietz recently received the Champion of Hope Award from the Mary Parrish Center recognizing his work for the homelessness community through this legislation.
Where do you see opportunities for people in the legal world to come alongside homelessness to ensure this city – even this country – does not leave its people behind and trying to survive on the streets?
Anyone who works at the Metropolitan Courthouse and comes and goes from that building every day gets to know some people who were homeless and sleeping on the courthouse grounds. The situation is right in front of us, and I think having a law license is a privilege that’s granted by the state that brings with it obligations. And one of the obligations that goes with a law license is the obligation to provide free legal work to people who cannot afford legal work.
So I think there’s a lot of room there for individual lawyers and law firms and bar associations to be more on the front line of that. I know some firms do a lot of that. My prior law firm focused a lot on veterans who were homeless and providing free legal services for them. Other law firms are doing similar things, but I think there’s plenty of room to expand the provision of pro bono legal services to people who desperately need them.