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Michele Johnson

Managing Attorney and Co-founder

Michele is co-founder and managing attorney of the Tennessee Justice Center, where the focus of her nationally-recognized legal work has been children with special health care needs. In that role, she lobbied successfully to extend health care coverage to uninsured children in working families, and participated in a landmark case establishing appeal rights for TennCare patients who are denied care by their HMO. As lead counsel, she negotiated a class action settlement requiring comprehensive reform of health care for 665,000 Tennessee children enrolled in TennCare. She continues to represent scores of individual children.

Michele grew up in Nashville, graduating from Father Ryan High School. There she began her career in public service volunteering at a pre-school for children with special health care needs.

She attended the University of Tennessee and graduated with Highest Honors 1990. After a year of volunteering at a legal services program through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, she returned to Knoxville to attend University of Tennessee College of Law. While in law school, she volunteered at a shelter for battered women and led the public interest law association. She also clerked at Legal Services of Middle Tennessee and the National Health Law Program.

Upon graduation from UT, Michele received a grant from the Southern Community Partners, a project of the Lynhurst Foundation, to educate low income families about their children’s legal rights and to help them obtain the medical care the law and their doctors said they should have. In 1996, she left Legal Services to begin the Justice Center with a grant from National Association of Public Interest Law (now Equal Justice Works).

Michele is the winner of the 1999 Child Advocacy Award by the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division. She was the Lawyer's Association for Women 2006 Nashville ATHENA Award nominee. Recently, Tennessee Voices for Children recognized her work by awarding her a Lifetime Achievement Award for advocacy. She serves on the Board of Directors of Tennessee Hemophilia and Bleeding Disorders Foundation. She is President- Elect of the board of Tennessee Voices for Children (TVC), and chair of the group's policy committee. She is on the Advisory Board of the Healthy Tomorrows Program, Family Voices of Tennessee, TennCare for Children, and Early Child Health Outreach. She chairs the Christ the King Catholic School Board and served on the parish council.

She volunteered for 5 years for Renewal House and was a religious educator for children at Holy Name Catholic Church.

Michele is married to Jeff Hill, an Oak Ridge native. They are parents to three boys. She is an avid jogger and spends her free time with her large extended family.

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