Ashley Wiltshire

Ashley Wiltshire’s leadership role in founding the Tennessee Justice Center was but one of a lifetime of contributions to social justice. As a Union Theological Seminary student, he volunteered in the Civil Rights movement in Albany, Georgia. He began a 37-year career at Legal Services while still a law student at Vanderbilt. As executive director, Ashley grew Legal Services into the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee & the Cumberlands, covering half of Tennessee and serving hundreds of thousands of clients. Under his leadership, Legal Aid achieved important social reforms in areas as diverse as consumer law, domestic violence prevention and prison reform.   Beloved by staff and admired by his peers across the country, Ashley was a true servant leader, supporting and inspiring colleagues to do and be their best. In 1995, when Congress restricted the scope of representation available through federally funded Legal Aid programs, Ashley and fellow honoree Riney Green envisioned a new public interest law firm that would provide services no longer available from Legal Aid. They convened Legal Aid and bar leaders who established TJC and arranged for its initial funding by the Tennessee Bar Foundation’s Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) program. In 2007, the TBA renamed its Public Service Attorney of the Year Award for Ashley. In 2023, Vanderbilt University Press published "Everyday Justice: A Legal Aid Story," in which Ashley recounts the story of Legal Aid in Tennessee and the founding of TJC.