Brentwood Attorney who battles DCS set to challenge Juvenile Court Judge

Brentwood Attorney Connie Reguli announces that she will challenge Williamson County Juvenile Judge Guffee for her judicial seat in the 2022 election. Reguli has been the leading voice for reform of the Department of Children’s Services and for judicial reform in Tennessee since 2010.  Reguli is an attorney with twenty-seven years of practice serving families across the State of Tennessee primarily focused on challenging the overreach of the Department of Children’s Services.  

In 2018, Reguli directly challenged the ex parte actions of DCS worker Deandra Miller, DCS attorney Tracy Hetzel, and Smith County Judge Michael Collins when Collins entered a secret order against her client after Reguli have made multiple attempts to telephone DCS employees to assist them in their investigation of her client.  Reguli immediately called Miller, her supervisor, the DCS office, and law enforcement to acknowledge that she would meet and assist them.  Reguli says that DCS has a policy in place to meet in advance of their secret rush to court.   Instead of calling back, Miller traveled to another county and got a secret order to remove this child and put her in a stranger’s home.  At the end of the case, DCS dismissed their petition but not without much chaos. The 12 year-old was shuffled to six homes and exposed to neglect.  Reguli and her client were arrested.  Circuit Court Judge Joseph A. Woodruff changed the language of the custodial interference law to allow the prosecution of her client to proceed. Reguli says, “It is well settled in this state that judges cannot change the law, that is left to the legislature.”  This matter is on appeal.  

Reguli says Department of Children’s Services employees and county attorney Lisa Carson employees her social media which routinely calls out the incompetencies in the system. Reguli says, “Tennessee child welfare is archaic compared to other states who implement a more sophisticated system of services to families to keep children in their homes; all because of money, private contractors, federal incentives, and incompetence.”  

Reguli has also fought for civil rights of children and families against DCS.  Reguli obtained a federal order finding that the Fourth Amendment would apply to social workers and another order that says that solitary confinement of juveniles is excessive punishment.  As simple as this sounds, this takes years of dedication and persistence to get the courts to acknowledge these basic rights.  

Reguli sued Williamson County and its juvenile court employees in 2014 when her client was wrongfully held in the Williamson County detention center and then assaulted by a staff member.  “The rights of children have been sorely assaulted by the poor operation of detention centers which are really jails for kids.”  Reguli opined.  

Reguli has participated in over forty state court litigation appeals, setting the standard on complex legal questions. 

Reguli’s family were the founders of the historic New Orleans Manor restaurant in Nashville in 1978 which remained a bulwark of seafood cuisine in Middle Tennessee until 2010.  The restaurant is documented in the Pictorial History of Nashville.  

Reguli is a mother of three children she adopted from Russia and now a proud grandmother of their children.  “Raising children yourself is an important attribute for a judge making decisions for other families,” Reguli says.  She has worked for families in thirty-five counties in Tennessee and served families in Maryland, South Carolina, and Kentucky. 

Reguli had been a political voice for change since 2010.  She has spoken in front of legislative bodies, prepared proposed litigation, and built a social media following of over sixteen thousand.  Her organization Family Forward Project has held educational events in Montana, Washington, Arizona, Connecticut, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, and Washington D.C.