Injustice Lit a Fire Under Rob McDuff. The Flame Still Burns.

By Kiana Everhart

Credit: Mississippi Center for Justice

Some people struggle to find their professional calling, but the seeds of Rob McDuff’s career were planted when he was just 12 years old. 

The Mississippi-based civil rights attorney and director of the Impact Litigation Project at the Mississippi Center for Justice started off as a political science student at Millsaps College. He was the editor-in-chief of The Purple and White and one of his most memorable articles was about the near absence of Black faculty members in 1975. 

“I think there was one Black faculty member at the time, and we did an article and part of it was based on an interview with James Graves who was a year ahead of me at Millsaps and was the president of the Black Students Association Chapter at Millsaps,” McDuff said. “He went on to become a lawyer, and now he’s a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals.”

McDuff became interested in civil rights law when he was 12 years old. He read a newspaper article about the trial of Klansmen who had killed a civil rights leader. The murder prompted his interest in the civil rights movement, and the lawyers’ arguments ignited his passion for law. 

“I read some books about [the Civil Rights Movement] and I also became interested in law and the courtroom,” McDuff said. “Occasionally, I went down to the courthouse to watch trials.”

McDuff grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and chose to attend Millsaps College, where he said he encountered an atmosphere of inquiry, tolerance and open-mindedness. It set him on a path to attending Harvard Law School. 

McDuff took full advantage of the opportunities Harvard Law had to offer. He joined Harvard Defenders, a group of law students who helped represent criminal defendants. 

McDuff was also involved in an institution called “Moot Court,” which prepared lawyers for appeals court litigation. It was there that he honed his courtroom skills: opening statements, closing arguments and cross-examinations and the like. 

In and out of the classroom, he was embedded in a community of peers from all over the country, and even the world. On graduation day in 1980, he was ready for what came next. 

McDuff clerked for a federal judge. He worked at a civil rights law firm in Memphis. He taught and directed a federal public defender program at the University of Mississippi Law School. He worked at a national civil rights organization in Washington D.C. 

But all roads led back to Jackson, where he returned to open his own law practice. Since 2017, he also has directed the Impact Litigation Project for the Mississippi Center for Justice, a public interest law firm. 

McDuff’s place in Mississippi’s legal landscape has been defined, in part, by his representing of those on the political margins. He is drawn to those whose civil rights have been violated, such as one client who served a longer period in solitary confinement than any other American prisoner. in an American prison. He also represented Curtis Flowers, a man who had been tried six times for a murder he did not commit. 

Civil rights law  “is a very broad category,” McDuff says. It involves “cases affecting the rights of people” including “cases involving discrimination based on race, income, sexual orientation,” and free speech cases.

Cases that fall into this broad category give McDuff a way to think through arguments affecting not just an individual client, but “society in general.” Writing these arguments is central to the appeal for a wordsmith like McDuff. Writing is where he can bring the technical side of legal argumentation to life. 

“Writing legal briefs that have your arguments, writing legal documents, investigating cases, putting together evidence and information. I like the various parts of it. I do like investigating and learning about a problem. I like investigating the facts of particular cases and writing up arguments.” 

McDuff has left an imprint through the pursuit of justice. His passion for civil rights was ignited at a young age, and it remains a resilient flame. It will burn as long as those on the margins remain constrained in the free exercise of their rights.