Mississippi Today

My grandfather’s law firm just bowed to Trump. It goes against his and America’s values.

Published

4 weeks ago

April 22, 2025

mississippitoday.org – @BobbyHarrison9 – 2025-04-22 11:19:00

by Nina Rifkind, Mississippi Today
April 22, 2025

Editor’s note: Nina Rifkind is an adjunct professor at the University of Mississippi Law School and the granddaughter of one of the founders of a major national law firm that recently settled a dispute with President Donald Trump. She agreed to write about that settlement and about her grandfather’s story for Mississippi Today Ideas.

Last month, the Trump administration issued an executive order aimed at the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison (known to many as just “Paul, Weiss”).

The order threatened the firm with withdrawal of the security clearances required to do certain legal work as retribution for work Mark Pomerantz, a former Paul, Weiss partner, had done while employed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in connection with the investigation of Trump’s businesses. Within days, Paul, Weiss announced that it had struck a deal with the Trump administration, offering, among other things, millions of dollars’ worth of free legal work for administration endorsed causes, and changes in hiring practices in exchange for the dismissal of the executive order.

Nina Rifkind

While I had been angry about many of the acts of this administration that seemed to undermine the very institutions and ideals of American government and society that I had been raised to revere, this one struck particularly close to my heart.

On the one hand, I had no particular interest in the affairs of this law firm, located half a continent away from my home in Mississippi, and to which I had no personal connection except that it was where my grandfather, Simon H. Rifkind, had practiced law until his death at the age of 94 in 1995. On the other hand, it seemed to me that the executive orders addressed to this law firm, and, ultimately, a handful of others, were an assault on my chosen profession, on our legal system and on our democracy as a whole.

So when the chairman of the firm Brad Karp, in defense of the decision to make a deal, cited the firm’s “Statement of Firm Principles,” written by my grandfather in 1963, I contacted my sister, Amy Rifkind, a lawyer practicing in Washington, D.C. We quickly decided to speak out. We did so in the form of a letter to Mr. Karp, explaining that his decision was an affront to those very principles he claimed to defend.

In that letter, we wrote that our grandfather believed that to practice law in this country is a privilege that comes with “responsibilities both to our profession and our country” and a duty “to protect ‘the prizes of our civilization.’” In light of those duties, we noted that, “We are confident that neither our grandfather, nor his colleagues with whom he built Paul, Weiss, would have negotiated a truce for themselves when the rest of the legal profession remains under threat for doing its jobs as lawyers. Consistent with his values, he would have above all sought to protect the independence of the bar, not just the firm.”

In writing the letter, we hoped that our small evocation of our grandfather’s enduring values would inspire others to speak out with their own messages of hope and courage in the face of adversity. We have been simultaneously stunned, humbled and honored by the media outlets (including Mississippi Today) and individuals that have chosen to amplify our message.

My grandfather was born in Russia at the turn of the last century. He often said that he was born and lived in the 16th century until, at the age of 9, he left his little village and immigrated with his mother and sisters to the United States. Before he left, he had never seen a power-driven piece of machinery, experienced running water or worn any factory-made garment. As is the case with many immigrants, he arrived in this country with no ability to speak English, but with a determination to make a home here. And also like many immigrants, by his teens, that determination had developed into a deep sense of patriotism. That love of country continued to develop throughout his life, fueled by his own varied personal and professional experiences.

He served the public in a variety of ways. He served as a legislative aide to Sen. Robert Wagner, helping to draft some of the New Deal legislation that helped stem the effects of the Great Depression. In 1945-46, as an advisor to Generals Eisenhower and McNarney in Europe, he brought to light the horror and despair experienced by hundreds of thousands of residents of the displaced persons camps in the wake of the Nazi genocide. He spent a decade as a federal judge in the Southern District of New York and a year as special master for a multi-state dispute over use of the Colorado River. But even in private practice at Paul, Weiss, where he spent most of his career and where many of his clients were large private corporations, he believed his work should, and did, serve the public good.

We all know that lawyers get a bad rap as they are often described as greedy and predatory. But to hear my grandfather talk about the practice of law, as my sister and I did during our family’s regular Sunday afternoon visits to his apartment throughout our childhood, you would think he was part of the noblest profession in the world. As a fierce defender of our adversarial system, he believed everyone deserved vigorous and ethical counsel, no matter how rich or poor, popular or unpopular. He believed that every client, whether paying top dollar or receiving the benefit of pro bono representation, deserved the highest quality of work his or her lawyer could provide.

And he believed, as he wrote at the end of his life, that “lawyers are licensed beneficiaries of privileges and immunities received as gifts from the community in which they practice and that they hold these gifts in trust for the service of the community.” In other words, all lawyers, regardless of the nature of their practice, who take their roles seriously and perform their duties with skill and integrity, provide a benefit to society.

My grandfather’s life spanned nearly the entirety of the 20th Century — a century that, despite some very dark moments, saw our country lead the charge in achieving the greatest advances in freedom and prosperity in human history. And while he benefited from those advances, he never lost sight of the fact that the foundations of that freedom, equality and prosperity are fragile and dependent on the individual and institutional pillars of our American democracy.

Indeed, in 1954, he wrote: “Every American generation has inherited from its predecessor the memory of freedom, of liberty and of constitutional government; but every generation if it would retain these prizes of our civilization, must reacquire them in its own lifetime. This day when the winds are full of doctrines subversive of the Constitution, inimical to our liberties, is the time to redevelop muscle and determination to defend them. In their defense we shall survive.”

In the most important respects, my family is not unusual. These principles and values were passed down through casual interactions, a commitment to religious and secular traditions and through modeled behavior. We laughed when my grandfather’s views seemed out of touch with the times. And we used his values as a blueprint to form our own paths and priorities.

I assume most of us grew up with at least some influential figures who adhered to and communicated a set of core values, whether explicitly or by example. And I suspect that despite our different backgrounds and experiences, if we examine those values closely, we will find that there is more that unifies us than divides us.

My sister and I wrote the letter to Mr. Karp as a reminder of what Paul, Weiss’s stated “principles” really mean for the legal profession and for American democracy. In doing so, we revisited those core beliefs ourselves, and hopefully inspired others to as well.

Perhaps, with such values in mind, we can rise above the destructive forces of greed, cynicism and selfish grievance, remember that together we are more than the sum of our parts, and continue our collective march toward freedom, equality and prosperity.

Nina Rifkind is a graduate of Yale College and New York University School of Law. Following law school, she practiced law first in New York and later in Los Angeles. Since moving to Oxford, she has continued to practice in a variety of capacities, most recently as an independent contract attorney and is an adjunct professor at the University of Mississippi Law School, where she teaches the Law and Religion course. She has taught legal writing at the USC Gould School of Law and Advanced Legal Writing at the University of Mississippi. She currently serves on the boards of the Jewish Federation of Oxford and the Oxford School District Foundation.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1896. Supreme Court upheld ‘separate but equal’

Published

1 day ago

May 18, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-05-18 07:00:00

by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today
May 18, 2025

MAY 18, 1896

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation on railroads or similar public places was constitutional, forging the “separate but equal” doctrine that remained in place until 1954.

In his dissent that would foreshadow the ruling six decades later in Brown v. Board of Education, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote that “separate but equal” rail cars were aimed at discriminating against Black Americans.

“In the view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens,” he wrote. “Our Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law … takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post On this day in 1896. Supreme Court upheld 'separate but equal' appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a historical recount of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, with a focus on the dissenting opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan. The tone remains factual and neutral, emphasizing the legal perspectives at the time without taking a clear ideological stance. It merely reports on the event, offering Harlan’s dissenting view on racial equality. There is no discernible political bias in the presentation of the events or the quotes, allowing for a balanced historical account. The article aims to inform without promoting a particular viewpoint.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1954. ‘separate but equal’ ruled unconstitutional

Published

2 days ago

May 17, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-05-17 07:00:00

by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today
May 17, 2025

MAY 17, 1954

Ella J. Rice talks to one of her pupils, all of them white, in a third grade classroom of Draper Elementary School in Washington, D.C., on September 13, 1954. This was the first day of non-segregated schools for teachers and students. Rice was the only Black teacher in the school.

In Brown v. Board of Education and Bolling v. Sharpe, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the “separate but equal” doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson was unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed equal treatment under the law.

The historic decision brought an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, ruling in the case of student Linda Brown, who was denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin.

In Mississippi, segregationist leaders called the day “Black Monday” and took up the charge of the just-created white Citizens’ Council to preserve racial segregation at all costs.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post On this day in 1954. 'separate but equal' ruled unconstitutional appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article offers a factual recount of the historical significance of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and its impact on racial segregation in the United States. The content is grounded in a specific historical event, focusing on the ruling’s importance in the fight against racial discrimination. The language is neutral, with the author describing segregationist reactions in Mississippi without overtly endorsing any viewpoint. While the article includes historical context of resistance to desegregation, it remains informative rather than politically charged, focusing on the key events surrounding the ruling.

Mississippi Today

This planting season, farmers say federal assistance is too little, too late

Published

3 days ago

May 16, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-05-16 11:04:00

by Steph Quinn, Mississippi Today
May 16, 2025

Mike Graves deferred payments to John Deere for the first time in a half century of farming in 2024.

A million dollars for a cotton picker, $800,000 for a combine and $400,000 for a tractor in recent years drove Graves, who grows cotton, soybeans and corn in Tippah County, to borrow money from Mississippi Land Bank, part of the nationwide Farm Credit System, a co-op that provides financial support for farmers.

But this year, as dim predictions for 2025 have farmers questioning whether a few bad years could tip into a crisis, borrowing money isn’t enough.

Graves said he doesn’t like to rely on federal subsidies, but without the $31 billion in emergency payments Congress approved to aid farmers in December, “wouldn’t any of us survive.”

“I hate that the government has to get in it, but I’m not going to turn down anything they offer, either,” Graves said.

Congress in December approved $31 billion in direct payments to help farmers nationwide cope with lackluster crop prices, high input costs and extreme weather. But some Mississippi farmers said the payments they received through the $10 billion Emergency Commodity Assistance Program were smaller and later than they expected. And it’s unclear when and how the remaining $21 billion in disaster assistance will be disbursed.

Rates the USDA announced in March were much less than initial estimates floated for the per-acre commodity payments – $200 for cotton, $100 for corn, $81 for rice and $50 for soybeans – all linked to an unsuccessful bill introduced by Mississippi Republican U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly in October. Instead, farmers are receiving $85 per acre for cotton, $43 for corn, $77 for rice and $30 for soybeans.

While Kelly’s initial bill calculated payments at 60% of farmers’ losses, the version included in the budget bill lawmakers passed on Dec. 21 – the day a government shutdown would have begun had Congress not acted – figured those payments at 26% of those amounts.

Though the law directed the USDA to make the payments within 90 days of its enactment – by March 21 – some Mississippi farmers said they didn’t receive their money until late April. And unlike the commodity payments, the $21 billion for natural disasters has no deadline for the USDA to disburse it. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, Mississippi has disbursed $118 million through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program. The USDA has not announced when or how the $21 billion will be distributed.

Will Maples, an assistant professor of agricultural economics at Mississippi State University Extension Service, said that while the state is “nowhere near” the conditions that led to the notorious farm failures of the 1980s, “the concern is, can we get there?”

“If we stay in this environment,” Maples said, “2025 is looking tough, and 2026 is another tough year. That’s when talk about ‘Can it get as bad as the 80s?’ will really pick up.”

Maples encouraged farmers to look out for “price rallies” as the growing season progresses, and not to be afraid to sell early.

“Ordinarily, seedlings would be this high, but all this rain has made my fields too soggy and muddy,” said Lauren Swann of New Albany, Thursday, May 15, 2025. Swann grows watermelons on 100 acres in the Fairfield Community.

Still, some farmers say conditions are worse than they’ve seen in years, and that the timing of federal commodity payments – well into planting season – hasn’t helped.

Brian Camp, a Union County soybean farmer, said farmers had hoped to use that money to pay outstanding debts in time to purchase inputs like seed for this year’s planting season.

“What they sent us now, it won’t even pay our fuel,” Camp said.

Husband and wife farmers, Rhett and Lauren Swann of New Albany, demonstrate using a one row push planter, how their 1,200 acres of cotton fields are too muddy for planting, Thursday, May 15, 2025.

Lauren Swann, who grows cotton and watermelons in Union County, said drought last summer in northeastern Mississippi made margins even tighter.

“The math just ain’t mathin’,” Swann said.

As farmers face uncertainty about potential impacts of President Donald Trump’s tariffs this growing season, some continue to grapple with the consequences of his first trade war, experts said.

On a podcast with Mississippi Today last week, State Economist Corey Miller said that Trump’s 2018 tariffs eroded markets for U.S. agricultural exports and could do so again. The U.S. lost some $20 billion in agricultural exports in Trump’s first term, Miller told WJTV earlier this year.

Maples said that while Brazil first surpassed the U.S. in 2013 to become the world’s largest exporter of soybeans, Trump’s 2018 tariffs – and China’s retaliation in kind – cemented the South American country’s dominance in the international soybean market. China, the world’s top importer of soybeans, which is Mississippi’s biggest crop by acreage, sources some 70% of its supply from Brazil.

For soybean growers, “a lot of what we’re dealing with now is kind of a holdover from the last 2018 trade war we had with China,” Maples said.

The U.S. and China announced a tariff truce Monday, with both countries slashing tariffs for the next 90 days as they continue to negotiate.

Farmers described struggling to square Trump’s claims to be on farmers’ side with uncertainty about the potential for tariffs to further cut prices. In a March Truth Social Post, Trump urged farmers to “get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product” for domestic sale and “have fun!”

“We’re being told to go out there and have fun, and be patient,” Swann said. “But planting season doesn’t wait, so we can’t wait on help.”

Graves said he hopes Trump’s tariffs will ultimately lead to higher prices, as long as the measures “get everything straight before everybody goes broke on the farm.”

“He said he’s going to take care of us,” Graves said. “But we’ll see, I guess.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post This planting season, farmers say federal assistance is too little, too late appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Center-Right

The article offers a detailed look at the struggles of farmers in Mississippi amid federal financial assistance delays, with a focus on the limitations of the $31 billion in emergency aid approved by Congress. While it presents a critical view of the timing and adequacy of the payments, it refrains from promoting an overtly partisan stance. The article does incorporate political figures such as U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly and former President Donald Trump, providing insight into the political dimensions of the issue, yet it avoids strongly aligning with any political ideology, reflecting a factual tone with nuanced commentary on the situation. The reference to Trump’s tariffs and their mixed impact on farmers subtly engages with political dynamics but remains grounded in economic analysis.