Tennessee Candidate Filed Ethics Complaint Against Bankruptcy Judge

Elliott Schuchardt, a candidate for the Tennessee General Assembly, filed a complaint against a federal bankruptcy judge. Schuchardt says that he is running for office as a direct result of that complaint.

Schuchardt, a graduate of Columbia Law School, practiced law for nearly thirty years before tangling with Suzanne Bauknight, a Knoxville bankruptcy judge.

In 2017, Bauknight handled a case involving Upright Law, a Chicago law firm. At that time, Upright Law was opening offices in all fifty states. It's objective was to provide consumer bankruptcy services on a nationwide basis. Upright Law was not popular in Tennessee, because its business model threatened the local bankruptcy bar.

Bankruptcy Judge Bauknight apparently decided that she wanted to exclude Upright Law from the Knoxville market. In 2016, she began issuing orders attacking Upright Law's attorneys and legal fees.

Bauknight's orders were unusual because she used "orders to show cause." Such orders are issued by a court on its own initiative, without any person requesting the order.

Between May 18, 2016 and June 20, 2018, Bauknight issued at least 87 orders to show cause against Upright Law. Bauknight intially attacked Grace Gardner, an African American attorney with two decades of experience practicing bankruptcy law. Gardner had no history of ethical problems. Nevertheless, Bauknight suspended Gardner from practicing in her court for five years.

In early 2017, Schuchardt agreed to represent Upright Law, in place of Gardner. Like Gardner, Schuchardt had no history of ethical problems.

After Gardner's departure, Bauknight continued to attack Upright Law with orders, on her own initiative. Soon, it became clear that the purpose of the orders was money. Bauknight used the orders to force Upright Law to pay one of her friends, Gwendolyn Kerney, $200,000. Kerney was a court-insider, who worked closely with Bauknight.

In 2020, Schuchardt filed an ethics complaint about Bauknight with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In the complaint, Schuchardt said that Bauknight used her federal office to obtain special treatment for Kerney. This was a violation of federal law.

Schuchardt also said that Bauknight used her orders to interfere with litigation. When Schuchardt appealed two of Bauknight's orders, Bauknight threatened to suspend Schuchardt’s license to practice in her court, if he did not dismiss the appeals. Schuchardt agreed to dismiss the appeals, under duress.

Bauknight next began to attack Schuchardt's license to practice law through the Tennessee state courts.

In Tennessee, attorneys are licensed through an organization known as the Board of Professional Responsibility. In 2018, the board filed a case against Schuchardt on behalf of Bauknight. Between 2018 and 2024, the board filed seven cases against Schuchardt, to prevent Schuchardt from practicing law in Tennessee.

Schuchardt sought to placate Bauknight by withdrawing his ethics complaint against her. However, Bauknight's allies at the board refused to back off. The board refused to withdraw its attacks on Schuchardt's license.

In 2025, Schuchardt sued the chief attorney at the board for harassment. Schuchardt's complaint, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, said the defendant, Sandra Garrett, was filing ethics cases for political purposes, as an abuse of process. Schuchardt also alleged that Garrett was using her state office to fabricate evidence.

Eventually, Schuchardt learned that the board had filed ethics cases against more than fifty political candidates in Tennessee. Many were running for office against sitting judges.

As of this date, Schuchardt's case is pending in Nashville federal court. The Tennessee Supreme Court has issued an order preventing Schuchardt from presenting evidence in defense of his law license. Schuchardt disputes the order as a patent violation of due process and fair play.

In 2025, Schuchardt decided to run for the Tennessee General Assembly, to break the political stalemate. Schuchardt intends to use the election as a means to promote change at the state’s ethics board. “If we had more non-lawyers in the system, we would get better decisions from the hearing panels,” he says.

Schuchardt is also running for office for other reasons. Schuchardt is the author of America’s Achilles Heel: How to Protect Your Family When America Loses the Reserve Currency. The book argues that the U.S. dollar is artificially-overvalued, due to the dollar's use as the world's reserve currency. Schuchardt says that the dollar could drop in value, if the world were to trade oil in a new currency. He says that this could be catastrophic for the United States, if it caused oil prices to rise in dollar terms.

Schuchardt studied government at Cornell University and Oxford University. Schuchardt practiced law for nearly thirty years, before running for office. He focused his legal practice on civil liberties issues in the courts.