About Us: Partners
and Associates
L.
Ellis Griffith (1925-1987)
L. Ellis Griffith practiced law in Cleveland, Mississippi until his
death in March l987 at the age of 60. A native of Prentiss, in Jeff Davis County,
Mississippi, he was an avid outdoorsman and sportsman. Valedictorian of his
graduating class at Prentiss High School in 1944, Ellis served in the United States Navy
during World War II. While at Mississippi College where he earned his undergraduate
degree, Ellis was elected Attorney for the Student Government Association and was cited in
Who's Who in American Universities and Colleges. After receiving an L.L.M./Juris Doctor
degree cum laude from Ole Miss Law School, he was admitted to the
practice of law in Mississippi in January 1951. He taught Business Law at Mississippi
College, and then earned a Masters of Laws in Taxation magna cum laude from New
York University in 1952. He married Gloria Judson Smith of Greenville and began his law
practice in Cleveland, where he received the Distinguished Service Award in 1955 from the
United States Junior Chamber of Commerce for outstanding community service. The father of
three sons and two daughters, he was devoted to his family. He made an indelible mark on
Cleveland and the Mississippi Delta through a record of service to his church, community
and the bar. Ellis was a lifetime Elder in the First Presbyterian Church of
Cleveland and frequently served as Commissioner to St. Andrew Presbytery. Throughout his
adult life, he was active in the Scouting program, serving as Cubmaster and Scoutmaster of
several scout troops as well as in executive level positions in the Central District and
Delta Area Council, BSA for over thirty years. He received the Silver Beaver Award in 1976
for distinguished service to youth. Many his former scouts have distinguished themselves
as leaders in the fields of Law, Medicine, Education and Business. He served as
President and Director of the Cleveland Noon Lions Club, chairing most of its
committees over the years, and after his death the club membership presented Gloria with
the Distinguished Service Award for Ellis' many years of dedication to Lions International
and his local club. He was elected District Governor of Lions International, representing
Mississippi Lions District 30-C as Chairman of the Board of Governors of Lions of
Mississippi, and was named International Counselor by the International Association of
Lions Clubs. He was instrumental in the formation of the Mississippi Lions Sight Foundation
in Jackson, Mississippi.
Spanning 35 years, his general law practice included
serving as Board Attorney for the Bolivar County Board of Education for over thirty years,
civil litigation involving representation of plaintiffs as well as defendants in state and
federal courts throughout the mid-south, estate planning and insurance defense. He served
as President of the local bar association, Commissioner with the Mississippi Bar
Association and member of the Complaints Tribunal for the Northern District of
Mississippi. He served as President of the Bolivar County Chapter of the Ole Miss Alumni
Club, and member of the University of Mississippi Law Alumni Board of Trustees,
University of Mississippi Alumni Association Board of Directors, the Lamar Order,
and the Ole Miss Loyalty Foundation. Ellis was an active member of the Mississippi and
American Bar Associations, Mississippi and American Trial Lawyers Associations,
Mississippi Defense Lawyers Associations, and American Judicature Society.
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Benjamin E.
Griffith
Practice: Ben's federal and state civil litigation practice traces back to
his early civil trial work in the Mississippi Delta with his late father and
law partner, Ellis Griffith, work which began to reach into other states
during the late 1970's. His practice now extends to representing state
agencies, counties, cities, elected official and their insurers in federal
and state civil litigation throughout Mississippi, as well as in other
states where he has been associated to represent defendants in federal civil
litigation, including Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, South
Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington, D.C. With Mississippi as a base
for an expanded multi-state practice, Ben's work focuses on defense of state
and local governments in civil rights, voting rights, election law and
reapportionment litigation, and public entity insurance coverage disputes.
He served as Board Attorney for the Bolivar County Board of Supervisors for
21 years from 1983 through 2003, and continues to serve as Board Attorney
for the 17-county Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Joint Water Management District, a
position held since 1989.
American
Bar Association: Ben has taken an active role in the work of the
American Bar Association’s Section of State and Local Government Law,
presently serving as Chair-Elect of the Section. He has served as the
Section's Vice-Chair, Secretary, Communications Director, a member of the
Executive Committee and Governing Council, Co-Chair of the Section’s
Government Operations and Liability Committee and Elections/Reapportionment
Subcommittee, and Section Liaison to the ABA Solo Lawyers and Small Firms
Standing Committee. In August 2006 he began serving a second term on the ABA
Standing Committee on Election Law. He also serves on the ABA Tort Trial and
Insurance Practice Section's Government Liability Committee and Insurance
Coverage Committee, the ABA Section of Litigation's Governmental Liability
Committee, the Water Resources Committee of the ABA Section of Environment,
Energy and Resources Law (SEER), the ABA Antitrust Section, and the ABA
Section of International Law, Serving on that Section's Europe Committee and
China Committee.
Mississippi Bar: He helped organize the Mississippi Bar’s Government Law
Section, was elected as its second Chairman in 1992-1993, and has been a
member of the Mississippi Bar’s Technology Committee since 1996. He worked
on the Mississippi Bar’s Professional Responsibility Study Committee
responsible for drafting and recommending adoption of the Code of
Professional Conduct by the state bar and served a term on the Professional
Responsibility Committee from 1994 to 1996. He served on the Special
Advisory Committee for the Adoption of Uniform Local Rules for the Northern
and Southern Districts of Mississippi in 2000-2001.
National Association
of County Civil Attorneys (NACCA): In 1989-1990 Ben was
elected President of the National Association of County Civil Attorneys and
was a member of its Board of Trustees from 1985 to 2000, and a member of the
Intergovernmental Relations Steering Committee of the National Association
of Counties (NACo) since 1992, speaking at numerous conferences on voting
rights litigation and civil rights litigation involving county government
throughout North America. In May 1994 he was invited by Chairman Henry Hyde
to testify before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Civil
Rights and the Constitution in Washington, D.C. as part of the Voting Rights
Roundtable. He was recognized by NACo for his work as a member of the
Special Task Force on Unfunded Mandates which led to Congress' enactment of
the Unfunded Mandates Act in 1995.
International Municipal
Lawyers Association (IMLA): He has served as IMLA's
State Chair for Mississippi since 2003, and serves on IMLA's International
Committee. He served in 1999-2001 as Chair of IMLA's County and Special
Municipal Districts Division, after serving as Recorder of NIMLO’s
Litigation and Risk Management Section in 1994-1995. He was recognized by
IMLA in 2003 for Outstanding Achievement in local government and was named
an IMLA Local Government Fellow in 2001 for his work in local government
law. Ben has participated as a speaker in international law conferences
sponsored by IMLA and the World Jurist Association in Dublin, Ireland;
Guadalajara, Mexico; Kiev, Ukraine; Beijing, Peoples Republic of China; and
Edinburgh, Scotland; and by the Center for International Legal Studies in
Salzburg, Austria.
Board Certification
and other memberships: In November 1994 he was
Board-Certified in Civil Trial Advocacy by the National Board of Trial
Advocacy,and was recertified in 2005. Since 1994 he has served on the Board
of Advisors of The Federalist Society of Mississippi. He is a Fellow of the
International Order of Barristers, Fellow of the Mississippi Bar Foundation,
and has served as President of the Bolivar County Chapter of the Ole Miss
Alumni, member of the Lamar Order, member of the University of Mississippi
Alumni Board of Directors, and members of the Ole Miss Law Alumni Board of
Directors. Other memberships include the Federal Bar Association (Member,
State and Local Government Relations Section), Defense Research Institute
(Member, Committee on Government Liability), Mississippi Defense Lawyers
Association, and Bar Association of the Fifth Federal Circuit. He has been selected by his peers to be included in the 2007 edition of The Best Lawyers in America in the specialty of Municipal Law.
Publications and
Seminars: As an integral part of his civil litigation
practice, Ben has written extensively on the subject of voting rights
litigation and current issues facing local government, with scores of
articles published in national journals, law reviews, professional magazines
and online legal publications, and has been invited to speak at continuing
legal education seminars and governmental conferences throughout the nation,
and in Canada, Mexico, China, Great Britain, Ukraine and Austria.
Personal: Ben Griffith was born in Cleveland, Mississippi, on November 19,
1952. He was the second of five children born to Ellis and Gloria Griffith.
Ben is married to the former Kathy Lee Orr of Batesville, and they have two
children, Clark,who graduated magna cum laude with a B.S.E. in Geological
Engineering and is a candidate for a Masters Degree in Geological
Engineering at Ole Miss, and Julie, a cum laude graduate of George
Washington University with a bachelor of arts degree in theatre, now working
as an intern at RPG Productions in New York City. A 1970 graduate of
Cleveland High School, Ben earned a B.A. in English and German from Ole Miss
in May 1973. While in undergraduate school, he was active in Delta Psi
Fraternity and was a percussionist in the Ole Miss Marching Band and the
University Symphonic Band. He entered the University of Mississippi School
of Law in June 1973, served on the Editorial Board of the Mississippi Law
Journal, and was manager of the Briefing Service. While in law school, he
was inducted into Phi Delta Phi Scholastic Legal Fraternity and Omicron
Delta Kappa Men’s Leadership Fraternity, and received the American
Jurisprudence Award in Federal Jurisdiction. In December 1975 he earned his
Juris Doctor and was admitted to the Mississippi Bar, and later to the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fourth, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuits and the U. S.
Supreme Court.
For a complete listing of the articles, presentations, and
court decisions, click
here.
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Daniel J. Griffith
Daniel Griffith was born in Cleveland, Mississippi, December 5, 1964.
Profile:
- Admitted to bar, 1989, Mississippi.
- Education: Delta State University (B.S.
History, 1986; University of Mississippi Law Center (J.D., 1988); Phi Alpha Theta.
- Member: Bolivar County (President,
1997-1998; Vice-President, 1994-1995; Secretary-Treasurer, 1989-1993) and American
(Member, Sections on General Practice and Tort and Insurance Practice) Bar Associations;
The Mississippi Bar, Bar Association of the Fifth Federal Circuit; Mississippi School Board
Association Council of School Board Attorneys;
Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association; Defense Research Institute; American Agricultural Law Association;
Board of Directors of Mississippi Public Defender's Association.
-
Attorney for City of Ruleville, Ms. and Benoit School District
- Reported Cases:
Gray v Tunica County, 279 F. Supp. 2d 798 (N.D. Miss.
2003), aff'd, 2004 W.L. 1240 (5th Cir. 2003); Gibbs v Grimmett, 254 F.3d
545 (5th Cir. 2001); Towles v. Pittman, 34 ATLA
L. Rptr. 328 (N.D. Ga. May 1991).
- Practice Areas: Federal and State
Civil
Litigation, School Law, Real Estate, Corporate Law, Agricultural Law.
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