Pairs Well With… Purpose: A Conversation with Attorney General Lynn Fitch

Before our full episode with Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, Serena and Sheila provide some updates on what’s been happening behind the scenes.

At 22:50, Attorney General Lynn Fitch joins our hosts and Episode 5 begins.

In this powerful episode, we sit down with Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, the first woman to hold the office, to explore the purpose-driven path behind her extraordinary career. From early pivots and public-service mentorship to shaping statewide policy on women’s issues, human trafficking, and maternal assistance initiatives, General Fitch opens up about the moments that defined her leadership—and the faith that guides her through every door she walks through.

We dig into the moments that mattered: saying yes to hard assignments from Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Gandy, launching the Women in the Profession Committee and the Gandy Lecture Series, and deciding to run statewide when the odds said don’t. As State Treasurer, General Fitch turned financial literacy into a statewide movement—training 140,000 students and then bringing parents and teachers along—proving you can build capacity even when legislation lags. That same bias for action powers her approach to human trafficking: multi-agency task forces, survivor-informed care, arrests that stick, and simple tools like the Simply Report app to move tips faster than traffickers.

The conversation widens with the Mississippi Women’s Summit, where more than 600 women traded ideas, formed partnerships, and did real business—reminding us that community is an economic engine. We close with the Empowerment Project, an  action plan anchored in five pillars: childcare, flexible work, child support reform, upskilling, and adoption and foster care transformation. New laws, Safe Haven Baby Boxes, and the MAMA app—Mississippi Access to Maternal Assistance—turn values into infrastructure, helping mothers find jobs, food, car seats, and support in just a few taps.

If you care about practical leadership, survivor-centered justice, and building ecosystems that lift women and families, this conversation delivers playbooks you can borrow. Listen, share with a friend who needs a nudge to walk through the next door, and leave a review to help more people find stories that move them.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Mississippi Attorney General’s Office 

https://attorneygenerallynnfitch.com/

Empowerment Project

https://attorneygenerallynnfitch.com/theempowermentproject/

 MAMA Program (Mississippi Access to Maternal Assistance)

https://mama.ms.gov

 MS Women’s Summit (Dates & Registration) 

https://attorneygenerallynnfitch.com/womenssummit/

Simply Report App (Human trafficking tip reporting)

Available in the App Store & Google Play

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Disclaimer:
The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Although your hosts are attorneys, Pairs Well With… does not provide legal, medical, financial, or professional advice. Listening to this podcast does not create an attorney-client relationship. Always seek the advice of qualified professionals regarding any specific questions or concerns you may have.

Transcript

Catching Up On Life And Business

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome back to Pairs Well With. Before we jump into this episode with Attorney General Lynn Fitch, Sheila and I thought we would take a moment and catch up with each other and share what's been going on in our lives.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

So Serena, fill me in on what's been going on because you and I have really not had a chance to talk or anything.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

I know. We've been like ships passing in the night. You've been going one direction, I've been going the other. A lot, you know, good stuff, all good stuff. My adult children came over Friday night for impromptu dinner and with their spouses or soon to be one of them spouse and the other's spouse. Um so that was a lot of fun. The store's doing great. We had our holiday open house last Sunday afternoon. We've done the Christmas decorating in the store and brought out all of the fabulous holiday pieces, lots of tartan plaids and silk and you know, just fun, fun holiday pieces. So that's going. It's a lot, it's a lot of lot going on, but a lot of fun stuff. So you've been at it now, what, six weeks maybe? Ten weeks. We've been opening for ten weeks. Oh, and this is exciting news. They did a feature on the store in Delta magazine, which you know is a is a regional magazine here. So that was fun to see, you know, the outcome of that. We I guess did the interview a couple of months ago, but they put it in their holiday edition. So for our listeners out there, you can check out Delta magazine and read about the green butterfly and all other things, you know, kind of related to Mississippi and the Mississippi Delta.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

You also had an interview with WLPT that we put on our page, on our social media pages. That was that was fun. That was real cool. So, what do you think the most um surprising thing has been about opening up a retail store at this point in your life?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Definitely the back office of running retail, the point of sale system, inventory management, and particularly with the type of store that we are, because I go out and

Launching A Boutique And Learning Retail

SPEAKER_00 2:00

single source everything for our store. It's not like we do a massive order and product comes in and we've got 10 items and diff of the same and different sizes. Everything in the store is one of a kind. And so managing the inventory for all one of a kind pieces has been definitely a big learning curve for me. Yeah. It's been fun though, huh? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And and doing the Christmas flip and redecorating and kind of shuffling around the setup in the store was a lot of fun. That's where I enjoyed that is where the creative side comes into play there for a retail store as well. And is that feeding you creatively like you were hoping it would? Most days, yeah, yeah. You know, just balancing that with my other work, which is seasonal, but this is the season when it really starts ramping up as well. So very appreciative to all the girls at the Green Butterfly and the team that I have in place there, and then to my my lobbying partners as well. I told them the other day I appreciated them giving me the space to kind of delve into this venture and picking up some of the slack on in our lobbying practice so that I had the freedom to go off and and do this. Yeah, I've got a good team on both sides.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

That's awesome. Well, I know all of our front friends are so proud of you, and you've even got some of them working there with you. Yeah, that's been fun too.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah. So that's been fun. And your social media's been fun to Yeah, we're gonna actually I worked on that this morning. I did a 90-day plan. So I'm going to start learning how to use AI a little more than I have been, not so much just as a search engine, but really for strategic planning and creating content. So I did a 90-day plan this morning through AI for marketing, and we're gonna launch that tomorrow, which will take us through the end of the year and what people consider the slow season in January, which we will really focus on our online sales at that time. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

So since we last got together, I've had kind of two creative outlets to focus on. One you were heavily involved in, and that was our wine tasting event with our girlfriends.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

And it was absolutely incredible. I mean, it was like, I mean, Hollywood, I mean, movie theater, movie set quality, outstanding food, just start to finish. So I'd love to explain the details that went in behind that.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

Well, you know, it was just such a fun, creative effort, and it was everything I wanted it to be. I craved being around our group of girlfriends, and I was so happy to have what I called 100% attendance from them. And I complimented them on all doing that and showing up and showing out and dressing up, and you know, we had the wicked witch theme, although some were just pretty witches, a witchy, a witchy theme, and the Emerson's catering did a great job with all the food and and their staff helped us with our wine selections, and it was just fun. I mean, everything from creating the menu to the little games that we played during the during the course of the evening was fun. And I posted a little video on our social media to show just an overview of of how it all went. But it was just it was really fun. It was certainly a great outlet for me. I'd love to be able to do those more often and more regularly.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

We would love for you to do them more often and more regularly too. I can say that as a beneficiary of it.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Yeah. It was it was so fun. And, you know, one of the things that kind of stuck with me that I said during the night was, you know, as we're getting older, I mean, our friend group's been together for 20 years practically. And as we're getting older, I noticed that we all are getting a little bit, I don't want to say lazy, but a little bit lazier about gathering. We all have busy lives and we all sort of like being at home now more than we used to. And I just think it's so important for us to to gather. And it doesn't have to be every month, but you know, whenever we can. And just like I said that night, if I have to be the one that is pushy and makes it happen, then I'll take that role in our friend group to be our glue to get us get us stuck together at least a few times a year as as much as we can. I think it's really important for friends to to share that time. And I felt like even in our friend group over the last year or so, we've not splintered, but we've just not been together as much, you know. And then it's harder once you sort of stop that that regularity of being together, then it just becomes

AI For Content, Planning, And Creativity

SPEAKER_03 6:30

more of an effort as opposed to, you know, when you're seeing people on the regulars. For me, I felt like I wanted to tell people how grateful I was that we all took the time to gather and play and and enjoy each other. And it seemed like everybody went around the table during the course of the night and shared how grateful they were for our group and for that gathering and you know, an interest in wanting to make sure we all stick together through the years to come.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

So that's what we learned. We learned more about each other that night because of the game, you know, the questions that were asked, and it was the perfect group size, you know, not too large, but large enough to bring in a lot of variety and different life experiences, and you know, but the game, I love the game that we played and learning new things about each other, even though we've been friends for, you know, some of us in the group for more than 30 years and then some entire lifetimes, you know, when you get down into the subsets of the larger group. But it was it was great. Thank you again for hosting that.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Yeah, you're welcome. It was it was great fun for me.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

And then the the other thing I did this past month was attend that TED conference in Atlanta, which was really a dynamic three days of just nonstop TED talks and small group interactions, completely out of my comfort zone to be around strangers and not really have a business purpose behind it other than to just learn. I love TED Talks, and I think you took you listen to them as well, right? I do, yeah. Yeah. There were many on AI, which is not surprising, but on different aspects of AI, many on uh women's health, many on interpersonal relationships, friendships, you know, finding your purpose in life. That was really the big theme of the of the whole conference, life's purpose. And so everybody there was intentional in wanting to to figure that out, either personally or professionally, or with podcasts or with social media in some other way. I mean, probably, you know, 70% were content creators or authors or or filmmakers or whomever. Scientists, I sat next to this scientist from the UK at dinner one night, and we talked for two hours, and I honestly did not understand a thing he said in his talk because it was about it was about photosynthesis and creating insulin through photosynthesis, which, you know, way above my pay grade. But he was a very dynamic speaker and he did very well, and he started this whole company, and so it was very interesting to hear that that part of it, even though I didn't understand. I confess to him, I didn't understand anything he said scientifically. He was delightful to speak with, and so it was uh it was fun, and you know, it's great to get those creative juices flowing and not to necessarily have a end result of it other than to enjoy it. And I really felt like I was in the moment of of being there and kind of put everything aside. And and for me that's a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

I'm usually I was gonna say that's hard for you to do.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

It

Hosting A Witchy Wine Night With Friends

SPEAKER_03 9:30

is. It was good. I feel like I feel like you've had that opportunity too with the green butterfly to like get into the shop and really focus on being there.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yeah, it's great when I walk through the doors, just it's like a it's just my happy place. It's my happy place right now. And it I also have to make sure that I step away at certain times so that it doesn't feel like work to me and it continues to be my happy place and spot to go and and feel inspired and creative and not like work. So I haven't been there since Friday afternoon or today's Sunday. Intentionally did not go up over the weekend. I let the girls handle the store Friday afternoon and all day yesterday. And of course, there's always things to be done. I could have gone today and worked on more price mark pricing merchandise or just cleaning or, you know, shuffling things around so that it looks different when customers come back in who've already been to see us. But I've been at home today and trying to get my life in order at home. My office has not made the list yet, but I did get my closet organized over the weekend, so that felt good.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

Yeah. I think that I think that's kind of the lesson that we're gonna have to learn through this process is to really be in the moment of what we're intending to do. We're talking the talk about wanting to reinvent and and uh learn new lessons and open new doors and walk through them and all that. And so much of it is just enjoying that journey. And one of the speakers at the TED conference talked about that. Like it's not just that moment, you know, whatever moment you're trying to reach for, it's the it's the walking of the path to get to that moment that's really what you're gonna remember and enjoy and hopefully enjoy, you know. To me, that's what you know, six-hour car drives are for sometimes to really have that time to think.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

When you were talking about using AI for your your business plan and planning of the next 90 days, was that chat GPT or something else?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

No, I had a meeting this week with some other lawyers that I work with here in town on different projects, and we had an in-depth conversation about AI and how it's changing not just the legal world, but the entire world. They really are kind of becoming premier experts on AI and AI adoption here in the state. And so I asked for recommendations. I told them what I had been using and how I've been using it, and they suggested that I switch platforms, traded Chat GPT for Claude today and started working with Claude. Of course, you know, you have to have com multiple conversations with it for it to learn your persona, you you know, what what you're working through and all of that. So Chat GPT has been a good tool for me to get started, but I think I'm ready to take it to another level. So I'm gonna also looked into some online courses and seminars about how to use chat, uh not chat GPT, but how to use AI, you know, in different ways. So it's you know, life lifetime learning. I've always enjoyed learning new things. It's a little bit intimidating to me, but I'm I'm gonna work through it and try to, you know, make myself an expert in the vintage clothing boutique area for AI. So and using that as a tool to grow my business there.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Right. Well, it's a great tool, and I'm learning as well, and both in in my legal practice and in my in in my extracurricular activities. I've got a cat here that wants to play with me. As I was driving to Atlanta, which I did because of the whole airline debacle that was going on. It's about a six-hour drive. I was using the voice function on ChatGPT. Mine is a adult male who just has a regular nice voice. Uh, he's he's a kind man. I don't know he I haven't named him, but um so I would ask him a question and then he would verbally, you know, respond. And I had seen this prompt on social media and it said, try this prompt with Chat GPT. And it was something like, You've been listening to me now for a few months, you've been hearing my ideas about a few things. Where are the blind spots in

Purpose, TED Talks, And Creative Renewal

SPEAKER_03 13:30

what I've been working on? And boy, was it brutal.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Wow. Okay. I I need to do that too.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

It was not not in a bad way, but basically saying, you know, you say you want X, Y, and Z, but then you're coming back and you're questioning X, Y, and Z, and you're questioning yourself, and you're not giving yourself permission to walk through the door that you say you want to go through, and instead you're trying to you're hesitating and you need to let go of these things. And I thought, wow, there's some free therapy right there. But um really called me on it. And so that's that's very interesting. You know, uh the whole AI world is so interesting to me. Like you said, I mean, I love to learn new things. I feel like we have to grow with this because it's gonna be part of our lives forever.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

Good, bad, or indifferent. But I I see I see so much of the good in it, you know, and I know people are afraid of you know, other people losing their jobs and that kind of thing. But for small business people or content creators or, you know, other folks who just want to get better organized, there's so much out there that you can tap into. There's resources and feedback like that. I mean, I I don't know what who else would have told me that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Yeah, that's that's interesting. I'm gonna have to do that with my guy. I'm not my guy, my tool. And it's funny that you said, Do you have a male voice on your system? I didn't know that Alexa could change voices. I mean, I've used Alexa forever, basically only to ask her what the weather is every morning. And so this morning I got into a conversation and I had Alexa change her voice to a male, and I kept pushing or to a male voice, but I kept pushing it to pick up southern vernacular and have a slower cadence and a more country sounding voice. So it was funny. It was when I was cleaning out my closet this morning, I went back and forth with Alexa to change that out too. And so now I have a completely different voice telling me the weather. Did he do it? Yeah, yeah. We we honed it in. I would say no, slow your cadence down, or no, you need to sound a little more rural, and it just kept kind of refining itself until we ended up with one. I was like, okay, that works.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

Wow, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

I know.

unknown 15:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

One of the statistics one of the speakers at the TED conference gave was that 23% of all users of AI have a romantic relationship with AI. My God, that's crazy. What? I don't even know that I want those details. I mean, isn't that crazy? Yes, yes. You know, it's replace you know, there's a certain segment of society where it's replacing relationships because they have honed it to say what they want, and they're always available and they're always complimentary if you want them to be complimentary or they talk how you want them to talk. And I mean, I don't know where that's headed. And I think there's a movie about that somewhere. Yeah, yeah, there is. I find it, I find it fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

I hope it doesn't replace us down the road for any anyone's purpose, but well, that's another reason I think it's so important to learn how to use the tool effectively so that you don't get left behind.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Right, right. Well, and I did one of the other things I was asking it as I was driving was I wanted to explain. I never did really understand the genesis of it. Like, where did it come from? All of a sudden, it seemed like it showed up on our doorstep a couple of years ago, and then all of a sudden it's just out of the box. But it's really been around since

Voices, Privacy, And Everyday AI Uses

SPEAKER_03 17:00

like 1984 in in different different iterations. And so that was sort of interesting. And then the other thing I asked it about was privacy concerns, because if everyone is sharing information and all of this is in a cloud somewhere, it seems like it could overload and disperse everyone's chats, you know, to everyone, become public. Kind of like a what was that Madison, that Ashley Madison site that came out, yeah. You know, it and so it explained it can get I mean, it's capable of being hacked, and all of the chats are maintained in data centers, which seems crazy as well, and I think causing some environmental concerns. So it did show me how to erase chats if I wanted to. So there's a way to permanently erase your chats if you're concerned about privacy issues. I mean, a lot of my chats are like change the measurements from centimeters to inches or things like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

So I'll tell mine, I'm having a bad day today. I can't think. I need some motivation. Literally, you know, me, the person that's trying to promote myself as a stylist that last week one morning, I was like, I I have zero like creativity in getting dressed this morning. Here's the mood I'm in, tell me what to wear. And it gave me head-to-toe outfit, you know, and it was like that for the most part, yeah. For the most part, I gave it a vibe. I said, here's what I'm feeling today, here's what the weather is, and it pretty much just put it together for me. So I was like, okay. That is maybe I don't need to get into the personal styling space because everybody's gonna be using AI to do their personal styling.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

So I've tried to use it for that a few times and it's never really begotten it. I think if you maybe you took a picture of like everything in your wardrobe and then uploaded it and it had it to like mix and match that could be something. But when it's just trying to make up things, it's it's a little harder to follow, I think.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Well, I have had so many conversations with mine going through the process of opening the store and looking at pieces and talking to it about pieces, it kind of knew my vibe anyway, and and the kind of things that I gravitate towards. So Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

That's kind of the cool thing when it when it pulls on memory of other conversations that you've had with it and it remembers. Like I was asking it something the other night. Uh you were in on this conversation. This would interest our audience, and they're probably involved in some of this too. So the other morning I was awake after having woken up at 3 30 in the morning for like the fifth day in a row. And I sent a text out to a smaller group of our girlfriends and said, Does anybody have a solution for this 3 30 to 4 a.m. wake up that I've been experiencing? And every single person responded that they've had the same problem in some way, shape, or form. So it's clearly something that's happening generationally to us in our lives right now, and everybody had a different take on how they were experiencing it. But what a what a phenomenon that we're all having this right now.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

And you know, I remember my mom when she was not much older than I am now, starting to deal with that with insomnia. She would be up vacuuming at one o'clock in the morning because she couldn't sleep, you know, and yeah, it just threw her whole bio rhythm off.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

Well, and so I chat GPT'd it, and uh, one of the things he said was, and of course mine's a he, one of the things he said was to fix the problem is before bed to eat something, something light, like half a banana or a tablespoon of almond butter or a piece

The 3:30 A.M. Wakeups And Women’s Health

SPEAKER_03 20:30

of cheese. He said, Because what's happening is I'm having a drop in my blood sugar waking me up around 3:30 or 4.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

In saying that to me, he said, You eat dinner early, and so this is why your blood sugar. And it's funny that he remembered that I eat dinner early. Yeah. Which I have been doing forever. It's hard for me to eat dinner late at night.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

So I eat early too. I can't do late night dinners.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

Yeah. So he brought that, he brought that out, and I thought that was really interesting that he remembered that. But so my cousin and I both decided we're gonna start eating like half a banana before bed just to see, test out that theory. But you know, all of these things that we are going through, you know, not only transitions with careers and starting new things and experiencing new areas of creativity, but also this like sleep issue are things that I want to bring to our audience, maybe with some experts. So I'm hoping that we can get some experts to come talk to us about women's health and men's men's issues if they have experienced the same thing with lack of sleep in the middle of the night and and those types of issues. I think it it's important that we all learn about those kinds of things and understand we're not alone in in experience in that. I mean, I was really surprised that every person on our text chain has had the same issue because we haven't really talked about it. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. I agree. So that's gonna bring us to our next episode. This is the attorney general Lynn

Upcoming Episode with Attorney General Lynn Fitch

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Fitch, who was kind enough to join us for an episode. And I just love her story and what she had to say. And I thought she was very interesting. I think the audience is gonna really enjoy hearing about everything that she's done as attorney general and everything she did to get there.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Yeah, she reinvented herself later in life after being in private practice to pivot to public service. And whether or not you agree with her politics, you have to agree that she is a hard charger and she goes all in when she's given task, you know, once serving as head of the state personnel board, and then she served two terms as treasurer for the state of Mississippi, and now in her second term as attorney general for Mississippi.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

It's a real thoughtful conversation, and we're very honored to be able to share it with the public.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yeah. Well, let's dive in.

Conversation with Attorney General Lynn Fitch

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Today we're honored to have Attorney General Lynn Fitch. She's the first woman to hold this office in Mississippi. She has been well known to shape policies that affect women and families in our state, not only in our state, but nationally. In 2022, she was named Times 100 Most Influential People.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Good afternoon, General Fitch. Thanks so much for joining us today. Well, your office has been so accommodating to us. Everybody's been a delight to work with. We love your digs here, and you've made us feel very comfortable. So we uh we appreciate the warm welcome. And you know, we talked a little bit about what we wanted to speak with you about today. And obviously, there are many, many issues that you cover as uh Mississippi's attorney general. But before we get there, we kind of want to get a little bit of a background from you because just reading like your Wikipedia page, you seem like you've had a lot of pivots and you've navigated a lot of different things in your life, and that might be something that our listeners especially would be really interested to hear.

Career Pivots, Mentors, And Public Service

SPEAKER_03 24:00

So, I mean, we know you grew up in Holly Springs, Mississippi, is that right? I did, North Mississippi. Right. And then from there you went to went to school up there, and then you went to All Mass Law School. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 24:10

I did.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

And then after law school, tell us what what you did at that point with a law degree.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Well, I've been very blessed, but I'll say to both of you, I it's so special to be with you all. And for everyone that is listening or watches the podcast, it it always goes back to your friends and the relationships and the people that you know in your life. So I'm grateful for both your friendships and the opportunity to sit down and to visit. So it makes it very special for me as well. So all the things that I've done always relate back to again your relationships, your friendships, those you keep up with, those that you always stay in contact with, the people you can trust and rely on. I was very fortunate when I left law school at OMS. I was an intern at the Attorney General's office. So that was just an incredible internship experience. And then they asked me to stay on. So I've served as a special assistant attorney general for five years, my first five years practice. This office, it was amazing. I loved every minute of it back then. So for me to come full circle now, it's just such an honor. It's just so humbling to know all the angles, understand that this office, the complexity of who we represent across our state, how every Mississippian is supported and represented in this office. So it's just such an incredible honor to come full circle. So that's where I got my start. And again, the friendships I enjoyed working with the legislature. We were just talking earlier about how important that is, working with Governor Barber and the opportunity to just meet people all along the way. So I was here working, and an opportunity came up to go work in the legislature, the House of Representatives. So again, having all the friendships and meeting a lot of those legislators was a great experience. And so they asked me to come over and serve as Ways and Means Council and Local and Private Committee Council at the House of Representatives. Again, an amazing experience. You know, here I've been working with agencies, I've been doing litigation, and then to be able to go over there and then now to write the legislation and to be involved in that side of it was great. Meeting all the people there. My chairmen were amazing to me, and that's an important pivot because when I left the legislature to work, I went into private practice. Again, people I had met through this office, through my legislative stent. But when Governor Barber came back in 2004, chief of staff, Charlie Williams, who had been my former boss and chairman came up, and said, You have a heart for public service. When you come back, but that's back to that relationship and having that friendship and that trust. And I was so excited. I don't even think I asked for air when he first called me because I I do enjoy public service. I feel like it's so rewarding. It's such a blessing to be able to help those, particularly those who need us the most, and to really, like I said, drive policy, shape things. But and doing it from a woman's perspective has been amazing. So that was kind of a pivot for me too to come back because that really, you know, not that you ever script out your life. I think God always scripts out where we're going. We might think we're gonna get involved, but He really has our plan for us. And it's just been amazing to be back, having worked for Governor Barber, having been the executive director of the state personnel board. I've been serving as state treasurer for two terms, and then now to hold this office. It's just incredible. Every day is a new day. We never do what we did yesterday, and we're always looking to be proactive. I have a great team, and I think that's what has made the difference for me all over the years. There are a number of people that I met from the very beginning and still work on the team. And so I think that that makes a huge difference when you're really trying to craft things to be proactive, and particularly in the the women's area.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

Sure. In I mean, you just gave a whole I could go into each one of those categories of pivots that you just gave us, and I'm gonna let Serena interject it here in a second before I take up all the time. But in between all of that history that you just gave us, you also had three children and managed to be a mom. How did how did that role in your life impact the choices that you made in terms of your career?

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Well, I think serving as a mother is just the the greatest gift, you know, your children and always that my family goes first. And, you know, as always balance as mothers, you look for those opportunities, you don't want to miss whatever activity they're in. And I think certainly being in whatever role we've been in, whether it's private practice or serving in the public space, it is always about how you balance that,

Building Women’s Networks In The Law

SPEAKER_01 28:30

you know, late night, running, you know, to get something, buy something, whatever your child might need for that craft or that activity, but at the same time being able to feel like you are doing the best professionally that you could. And so I think it's just it's looking for that absolute balance.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

And that's a great segue into the question of how some of your individual personal experiences shaped your professional focus throughout the years. And so had you not had that experience as a mother, you may not be so focused on some of the women's issues that you have been and done so well as attorney general. So are there other instances like that that you think you could point back to profession experiences that shaped your professional focus?

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yeah, absolutely. I was very blessed when I first got out of law school. Uh and now I've been practicing for a few decades. I was very blessed that I had a mentor. So I always encourage, you know, our younger uh attorney to look for a mentor, be willing to ask for someone to mentor you because I had a mentor and it was Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Getting. Oh wow. What an amazing time. And she mentored to about 12 women, yes. And that really shaped a lot of the things that I've been able to do over the course of my my practice. But you know, Governor Danny was such a gracious lady, you know, thing like she was the first trial water, the first statewide elected official. She always said, you know, help those that need you, be gracious, be kind to whatever you're doing. But you know, look out for others. So that was a huge inspiration for me. So she took. About twelve months and he would make more enough and few, you know, the poor we get together and how much anything all right. How's your personal development plan? What are you doing for yourself in the next year or the next three years? That made a huge difference in my life, just having that guidance and that insight and thinking, Wow, this is the lady that we have trouble and invested in all of us in the future. We all feel all of us who are fortunate to have been mental Lieutenant Governor Evan Gandhi. Now there's a couple other things that came from that, which have really shaped all the things that I've been doing. We're sitting at the day one day, and she said, You know, there's a national trend right now where across our country the bar associations are having women in the profession committees. And we were like, Wow, we need to do that. That is great, Governor Gandy. And she looked at me and she said, You need to go make the presentation. So, of course, I mean, Governor Gandy, absolutely. Carol West, she's like, So we went over and made the presentation to the Board of Bar Commissioners. And they were very gracious. I will say that they said, All right, ad hoc committee, one year, can you do all that in a year? I just shook my head and said, We'll try. But this kind of goes back to where we are for women in our profession. So they did allow that.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

I chaired it for the first three years, that committee. I had no idea that you had done that.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Well, every time we do these things, we learn new stuff about people. But I mean, just as a female lawyer, I had no idea that you were the one that instituted the women in the profession committee of the Bar Association.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

And it's just been so strong for our women lawyers to be out there. What year was that? Oh my goodness, let's see. Let's see, we've been doing the Gandhi Lecture Series 32 years. So that was probably 34. Because in my second year of chairing the Women's Profession Committee, nobody showed up one day for a luncheon except Carol West and me. And we said, you know, we should do a CLE for women. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Amazing. Uh, this is great. We're learning all kind of women's history about Mississippi right now.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

So I went over back to the Board of Bar Commissioners and I said, you know, this committee, we would like to do this. We'd like to have our own CLE. And they said, Okay,

Running Statewide, Gumption, And Policy

SPEAKER_01 32:00

that'd be great. Good luck. So I chaired it the first year, the 25th year, the 30th year, and have spoken at 31 and 32 for the Ganges series. And now it's a section of the bar. Right. So look how far we've come. It's so exciting, you know, women professional lawyers to see that and know that we were we stood very strong for women back then and how successful we are now.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

And I'm so glad you brought all that up because we have actually surprisingly a large number of younger female followers. And I didn't know that history about the Mississippi Bar and the and the women's section. And so now those younger lawyers, you know, had you not shared that today, they may have never heard that story before. So thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Well, thank you. And and we do need to encourage them and we need to mentor to them. You know, because one of the things we did early on when I first shared that committee, we found that we lost a lot of our younger women lawyers. About 30, we lost them for various reasons, not having a support system, might have children, whatever the case might be. And so they kind of dropped out because back then we had no part-time, we had no different schedules, no flexibility for young women attorneys. So wow, look where we've come now to have all those opportunities to not have those issues as you raise your children because we have those different capabilities so that women can continue professionally.

SPEAKER_04 33:21

Fabulous.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

You've talked about having super mentor, probably in our state, the most historical female mentor that that someone could have. And you've talked about having friends, and friends led to jobs and other opportunities that you had. But General Fitch, at the end of the day, it was your own gumption that got you where you are. And I would like to hear from you about how you made that first step to decide to take yourself to the statewide position of treasurer when you decided you were gonna throw your hat in the ring to become treasurer of the state of Mississippi.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Well, it was an interesting moment because first and foremost, you have to talk to your family because if you get in, everybody's involved. Your entire family's involved, you're under a microscope. So if you don't have the blessings of your family, it's very hard to be successful. My family was all in, and you know, having been here, having worked for Governor Barber, having represented different agencies, particularly the treasurer's office, having been a bond lawyer in private practice, I knew that office. And when it became available, I said, I think this is my calling. I think Governor Gandhi would say, now. Because she was very good about consistently calling and saying, Are you ready? Are you ready? And so we saw a number of women who moved into judicial slots from the time we started the Gandhi Lecture Series and the Women's Profession Committee. We just didn't have many that would move over. Some into mayor's positions, some on the school boards, municipal, county supervisors, just weren't having anybody really make that big jump over. And I thought, wow, I've been so blessed. I have had her as a mentor all these years. I have to do this. They gave me zero chance of winning. But it went back to your friends. So I call my friends, I called, you know, people that I had known all across time, and they were so supportive. And they said, you should do this. You have the skill set. It's not like you're jumping in something you don't know. You've been in state government, you understand how it works, you've represented the state agencies in the past. So this is not foreign to you. So I really that empowerment was so such a gift to say, Hey, we'll help you all across the state. And that's what really kind of launched me into I I I can do this and I'm gonna jump in and and give it a whirl.

Defining And Fighting Human Trafficking

SPEAKER_00 35:30

And that's where you were first given the opportunity to shape policy that has uh resonated across the state with the financial literacy program that you started there. And that was from you know, what I recall the Women's Summit. That was the major theme of the Women's Summit this year as well, too. So thinking back to your treasurer days, what initiated that kind of this is something that's important to me that I think that we need to do some education on, and I'm gonna use this office as a platform to kind of drive policy around financial literacy.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

You know, is that looks it over, particularly for women. Women just didn't have financial education and they'd not gotten it in school, they not learned it from their parents, so consequently the their children didn't know what was going on. And as you look at Mississippi, we we still are extremely high in poverty for everyone in our state, but particularly for women. And so we I've looked and these children are all caught up in it too. So how are they gonna get out of this cycle if we don't teach them financial education? I've now taken it to the legislature for over a decade. I think hopefully this time it'll pass so that every child graduates and they have a financial education credit, and that's part of their graduation process because we're doing a disservice to our children if we don't teach them about money. And so I feel like we're gonna help elevate our entire state if we do that. And so I couldn't get them to pass it early on. So as the at the treasurer's office, I just went out and raised money and we called it team, treasurer's education about money. And we went into the schools, and by the time I left there, we had trained about 140,000 students across Mississippi in financial education. So that was exciting, and I appreciate all the partners that believed and put up money. And then we started training the teachers too, because the teachers didn't know. And then we started doing some parent groups at the schools because the parents signed up because they didn't know. And I I just thought, you know, if we can do more and more of that, that that makes our best day for the state of Mississippi. It trains our workforce, and it doesn't matter what you're gonna grow up to be, you still have to understand money. And we we really need to help our young people who grow up into the adults, into the workforce to understand.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

I'm sure that that role as treasurer and a leadership position on a statewide basis gave you some motivation for your current office and seeking your current office. But I would also think that at some point it had to be daunting thinking that you might become the first female attorney general for the state of Mississippi and one of very few in the entire country. What was that like for you? What was that decision process that you went through to get to get?

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Well, I mean, again, the most humbling experience and such an honor. You know, and this is certainly the probably the most complex office in state government. And I felt, like I said, from very early on, having been in this office, I understood this office, having been a client for eight years, I understood from that capacity and what we need to do, how we need to serve. And so again, I felt like my skill set really lined up. So for me, when I would go out and talk about this office and why I felt like I could do this job, even though I was going to be the first female, I I understood the office. I understood the needs of the people across the Mississippi and that this office represents everyone. This is a very non-political office. This is how do you help people? What do you do? How do you protect the state interests? And so being out there, but people were very excited for me. That was again very uplifting and empowering. They thought, oh my goodness, you're going to go for this. I'm like, yes. So it made me feel really good when people were extremely supportive.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

Do you ever have those moments of just, I really can't walk through that door? Like, I don't know if I can get through that door. And if you are there and just kind of like hanging on to the doorknob and you're not sure you can get through kind of moments, what makes you open it and go through it?

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Well, I I think we all experience that at some points in our life, but we're all very driven personalities. And again, knowing that you have a real mission and there's a real charge, and no one else can do it but you. And so when you make that that entrance and then you have an amazing team to get to work with, you know that you're gonna make things happen. And we've seen it come together time and time again in this office. This office, again, is very hard-driven. We have thousands of open cases, we're we're doing everything, the criminal side, the civil side, but we have the compassionate side in this office. And I think that makes a huge difference as we talk about the initiatives, the programs that we do here. Everyone in this office resonates. Yes, we we have a mission, we are the guardians of the rule of law, but we are here to serve. And we embrace that every single

Be The Solution And Simply Report

SPEAKER_01 40:00

day. And kind of the the motto is in our office, you go home at the end of the day, who'd you help today? How'd you make a difference?

SPEAKER_00 40:06

And you've obviously done that very well with the human trafficking initiative that you've you've put in place here. And if you would just kind of share with the listeners a little bit about what you've done in that area, because that's a huge policy area that you have greatly impacted in our state, driving the policy and then seeing the immediate results of some of the processes that y'all put in place. So if you would just take a few moments and share that with us.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Oh well, and and it's a tough subject. Human trafficking is hard. There's still a lot of people, not only in our state but in our country, who just don't realize it's really going on. You kind of don't want to believe it, but it really is. That was one of the things that I said if I was fortunate enough to serve in this office, we would attack human trafficking. We'd go after it very strong. In order to do that, again, it's always back to your partnerships, your relationships, you know, coming in and partnering with all of our different law enforcement agencies because you can't do this by yourself. You gotta have everybody on board, your federal, your state, your local, to go after these traffickers because remember, human trafficking is a hundred and fifty billion dollar illegal industry annually across our globe.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

That's daunting, isn't it? It it really is. And I've I've learned a lot more about that issue very recently, and some of it was spurred on by the Women's Summit that we'll talk about in just a minute, when you mentioned the AG of Louisiana being present at the summit this year and your joint effort with her and hearing from you about the fact that the Super Bowl is one of the biggest human trafficking events. And I just found that so fascinating. But for our listeners who may not even know what human trafficking is, can you just kind of give us just a a bare bones definition of what that means and what is happening?

SPEAKER_01 41:41

Absolutely. These are these are victims, and they have been taken into a ring. A lot of it is a sex trafficking ring, and none of these young women, young men didn't ask to be in these rings. And I think the other thing that is just so hard to understand is the majority of these individuals that we rescued, we call them takedowns, and I'll kind of walk through that, but they were trafficked via a family member or somebody that they loved and trusted, like a boyfriend or something like that. And they trafficked these young people for quick cash and drugs. And again, it doesn't matter. So now they're in this ring and this vicious cycle and they can't get out. So now they've gone through all this for years and years, and this is their money. This is how they eat, this is how they live, and they can't pull out, and there's nobody there to help them. So when we came in, we said, you know what, we're gonna train up our law enforcement, we're gonna do operations, we're gonna do takedowns. Takedowns is absolutely going out, getting the the pimp or the John and arresting him or her because there are women traffickers too. This is their money. So they're protective of these victims. We see them as victims as these individuals in their trafficking ring. And so we gotta take them down and we gotta we gotta get this this individual to safety. Um and I think that's really key too, because you there's a lot of predators out there. There are a lot of men that think they're meeting up a 14-year-old girl for

Mississippi Women’s Summit: Community And Impact

SPEAKER_01 43:00

sex. They they're out there on so many different levels. So going after these predators very hard, and at the same time, the compassionate side. How do we get that victim? How do we get them to safety? Um so we really expanded that role in doing that. Um our most recent operations, we have a sexual assault nurse there when we we bring the victim back. We've got counselors, we've got shelter advocates, we're talking to them, but we have survivors now. And when you have a survivor that sits across, like you all, like we're all talking, and says, hey, it's gonna be okay. There's some hope. And all these people here are here to help you. And we don't keep them all. You know, I wish we did, but we we send them with a backpack, with numbers, with information, anything that they might need. And sometimes it's three months later, maybe six months later, and they say, Hey, we're ready. We we want to get out of this. The horrific thing is not only are these lives, you know, at risk, but you know, we've rescued 22 minors. Some of them are babies, toddlers, five-year-olds. So you see it all. I go out on the takedowns because I can't tell you from my heart if I don't tell you I've seen it all. I'm out there, I wear my bulletproof vest, I get out there with my team members and I watch and I see the takedowns and I see the victims come back. And it's it's rewarding and such a blessing to know that we're able to help with all of our partners. We just did Operation Guardian Force, and it was the first time we've done a statewide human trafficking event. We started on the coast, went through Hattersburg, Tupelo, and ended in DeSota County. We brought all of our task force together. We had about 400 law enforcement officers together working all those different ops all the way up. But here's the the real beauty. We went after and arrested 72 of those criminals. They were drug dealers, predators, you know, the pedophiles, 72 in two and a half weeks.

unknown 44:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

And we rescued 29. That's amazing. So it's very effective, and I think that's really key. We have the gold standard. Our team does amazing work, and everybody will say around the clock, do whatever we need to do to make sure we get that last victim out, to make sure we find that last predator and we arrest him. And then we prosecute him really hard. The legislature's been great about giving opportunities to have new laws for us, to to really strengthen them. Like our our last two human trafficking individuals, 48 years, 45 years, day for day. So the message is from us if you come into Mississippi and you're gonna traffic these individuals, we're gonna we're gonna go after you really hard.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

And you would think a state like Mississippi, you wouldn't have that kind of problem, but because of the major corridors that we have running through here with 55, which is which goes from New Orleans to Chicago, I guess, and then I-20 and I-10 down on the um in the central part and the coastal part. I mean, I guess is that one of the reasons that you think that it's so prevalent here? I don't I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

I think I think that's absolutely a key factor. I really do. I mean, the accessibility, the capability to do that. And then I think some of it is too, you know, being in a big rural state, there are easy ways to try to move these girls. And I will say, just to your point too, I mean, we work with all of our colleagues in our uh AGO offices across the the southern part, and we talk to each other. Is there a ring coming across? We're watching these girls. I mean, it's like a TV show. We're seeing the ads, we're looking at, you know, where they're coming across, and it's helps us be very successful. And then to go with that, we created be the solution. All the partners, Department of Public Safety, Department of Education, Department of Ag, then private partners, hospitality, gaming, casinos, convenience, and the list just goes on, the medical community because knowledge is really powerful, but only if we share it and we actually use it. And that's really helped us with our tips and understanding, looking at locations. And then if we get a call like, hey, we think this young woman at this convenience store is a victim, then let us get out there. And if it's not, that's okay too. But if it is, we've saved a life. We just started this new app nationwide, we're the pilot called Simply Report. It's a free app. We're gonna be rolling it out. But we started on our Operation Guardian Force. So that again, easy

Faith, Stories, And Cross‑Industry Connections

SPEAKER_01 47:00

reporting. If you're sitting somewhere and you say, you know, I think that might be an an individual that's being trafficked, you can sit there and type it right in on the app, it comes immediately to us, and then we can immediately, you know, send out law enforcement and determine is this individual being a trafficked victim? And I think that's gonna be a game changer for us as well. Absolutely, absolutely. And what was the name of the app again? Simply Report.

SPEAKER_03 47:22

Yeah, we're gonna put that in our show notes so that people, listeners, can have access to it because it's obviously, like you said, a really important tool that could go a long way to helping a lot of people down the road.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

And again, it when everybody reports and the traffickers know, hey, Mississippi is on high alert, they're gonna call us in, then that only helps us and it saves those individuals.

SPEAKER_03 47:44

I'm so glad that we were able to hear more about the human trafficking issue because we did touch on it at the at the Women's Summit. So that sort of brings me back around to wanting to talk about the Women's Summit because it was such a great experience for Serena and me this year, and we loved being one of your sponsors, and we're thrilled to be able to participate in some small way and hope to continue to do so in the future. But this sort of reinvention of the Attorney General's office that you've done since you've been here with all your new initiatives has also led to this creation of the Mississippi Women's Summit. So if you tell our listeners what what brought that about and what is it?

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Well, thank you so much. And I really, again, back to the friendships, you and Serena, it means a lot. And thank you for being there and being such a special part of the Women's Summit. You know, it kind of pulls you back to the days on trying to create the Women's Profession Committee, bringing women together. Very busy. We don't take the time. We should be spending time with each other, empowering each other, lifting each other up. And it's hard because we're doing a lot of different things every single day, not only professionally, whether you have children, grandchildren, or whatever the case might be. So I always had this vision. Uh, we need to do a women's summit. So when we did it last year in Oxford, I didn't know if we'd have 10 women come, 100. And again, my incredible team did amazing work, planning the speakers and the same this year. I mean, the first year we had 400 women. So when we moved it from Oxford down here, again, we just thought, okay, it's gonna be great. Uh maybe we'll hit our 400 mark again. We had over 600 women. And again, it gives women the opportunity to have friendships, if you hadn't seen a long time, meet new friends, resources, talk about lifting each other, being there for one another. And I think that's really special to know that there are 600 other women and we're all in this together and we're having a great time. We're enjoying each other's company, we're learning, and again, we're again giving each other the support that we all need. And again, having amazing sponsors like y'all and being one of the women-owned business. We had about 50 women-owned businesses and for women to support women and coming out and women go, Oh my goodness, I have all these new places I'm gonna shop now. I didn't even know, you know. And I I think that just shows again putting us in direct

Empower Women, Promote Life: Post‑Dobbs

SPEAKER_01 50:00

contact with each other, opening those lines of communication and going, Oh, these are new friends, or these are old friends, and I want to be there with them. So we were excited. It was an incredible time. I mean, Chapel Heart, oh my goodness, what a Mississippi group of women and what a show they put on. And then, you know, like Shannon Bream, you know, she's a Florida girl, and having her here and all the amazing women speakers.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

You had a stellar lineup for sure. I mean, just a stellar lineup. And one of the things that an immediate result that you don't know this until I and I hadn't even thought about it until just now, but one of the vendors who was two spaces down from me, I'm doing business with her now. Oh nice. She's doing all my monogramming now for my for my jackets at my store. And I didn't know her before the event, and we connected that day, and I moved from another vendor to her. I moved my business to her because of the connection we made that day. Oh, that's perfect. There you go. It's making an immediate impact in women owned businesses and one of the other vendors there. I purchased the scarf from her there that day. So yeah, that was that was really I I went into it thinking it was gonna be more policy oriented just because of my background and how you know, normally go into those kind of a thing. But it wasn't like that. It was empowerment, it was engagement, it was meeting new people. It was really just a blessing. And so I appreciate you for doing that. I appreciate you for doing it for the women across the state and for the women that don't know about it. They will be able to learn about it in our notes for our podcast, and we would love to be involved again next year.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Oh, that that would be great. That would be amazing. And we've already got the dates. They are the end of August and September 1st at the refuge again, and you can sign up already. We've got 300 women already signed up for next year.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

Wow, that's terrific.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Um, so we'll encourage, you know, women to please sign up because I think it's really special. Just as women, we need that. We need to be there with each other, we need to be like I said, empowering one another.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

And I love that it it was across the board age-wise, uh the diversity of the the women that were there, you know, the the diverse professions that were there. Because I do think sometimes, you know, there are women's group like the women in the barper the group, but we're all female lawyers. But this was unique because it it brought all kind of cross-sections together. I mean, you had medical professionals there, you had financial professionals there, you had entrepreneurs there, you had political type folks there, you had attorneys there. I mean, it really was a a great representation of women from all across the state. So kudos to you for that.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Well, thank you. And what a great opportunity for everybody to meet one another. Right. And like you said, already doing business together, working together, or if something comes up in this part of the state, you go, oh wait, I met her on the coast, or maybe she's up in Oxford, or I now know all the women that were there. Right.

SPEAKER_03 52:38

And one of the reasons Serena and I wanted to even start this podcast was because of the fact that we know that there are these people out there, not only in our state, but across the country, who have stories to tell about how they picked themselves up from dire circumstances or how they came up with an idea and made it, turned it into something, or, you know, were full-time moms and then invented something and sold it on eBay or whatever it might be. There were these stories out there just among our friends and people that we knew that have, you know, a story to tell and incredible things to share with other people that can be inspirational to them. Because I find and have found with myself, with my friends, with my family, clients, everybody faces times when they have to reinvent their life or pivot in some way. A chapter closes, your kids go to college, you have to start a new life for yourself without them at home, or you get divorced and you have to start a new life as a single person when you've been married forever. Someone dies and you have to deal with that through grief. And so there are all these moments in time, not only in women's life, but in in everyone's life, when you have to open a door and and walk through. And at the Women's Summit, you had several women on the dais that that spoke about things that they went through and that they had to overcome

Five Pillars: Childcare To Adoption Reform

SPEAKER_03 54:00

in order to start their small businesses. I think about Lisa Pickering and her story with opening her business here in Mississippi, that's just grown tremendously. And so I think every opportunity we have to hear those kinds of stories is just one more little piece of information. Somebody who is afraid to open the door can lean on and say, okay, they did it, I can do it. It's just like having this conversation with you and and our other guests that that we've had. I think every time that we give a listener an opportunity to hear someone else's story, it becomes better for them and it gives them some sense of belief that they can do it too. So I appreciated all the people that spoke at the summit because I felt like they all had great stories to share and offered me inspiration and and I could see from the rest of the folks inspiration as well.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Well, thank you. They amazing women that were there, and again, as you said, different stories. And I thought this was sort of an interesting and a very engaging and for women to feel so comfortable. For all of us, it's very easy for all of us to talk about our faith. I am, you know, certainly a believer, and I think it's important that we have that conversation. Every woman that was on that stage or that it was our uh keynote, be it Shannon Ring, be it Chapel Heart, they talked about God. It was always that thread of faith got them through it. Faith led them to that, oh, I'm gonna do this, or I'm gonna keep believing, I'm gonna get to the other side of that door. And I thought, what an inspiration. This is very unscripted. Every woman talked about that. And I think that's really impactful because women felt so comfortable not only to talk about what they were doing, but they talked about their faith in God and how they got there.

SPEAKER_03 55:46

Do you think that's more of a unique conversation for women to have versus men, especially in a professional setting?

SPEAKER_01 55:52

I th I think so, but I think you've not seen as much of that. But I think in this environment, women felt very comfortable talking about their faith and truly sharing that there were tough times and you know, God was there for me, God helped me through this. My faith got me to the next level. And I quite honestly just think that's an amazing revelation for every woman to talk about it. Yeah, we've we've had other guests that that had that have had that same experience.

SPEAKER_03 56:19

They said it was, you know, a God wink or or God opened the door, or you know, it was their faith that got them through knowing it was gonna be okay at the end of the day. It was gonna be tough, and I might not know exactly how it's gonna look at the end of the day, but I've got faith that something good is gonna come out of this and I'm gonna turn this in my direction.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

And I think for all of us, having that belief and that God is helping us get to whatever our next journey step stop is, is so key. But I will say, as you both said, all age groups, everybody was there, everybody had a great time. And I think, you know, I looked around the night Chapel Heart was performing and every woman was up, moving. It didn't matter if you were 80 or 20. And I think that's a great comfort level too, you know, instead of like being more introverted, but there was just great ease about every woman being there together and how having fun.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

Well, the last initiative that we'd like to bring up with you and ask you to address is the women's empowered initiative about the maternal aspects of things where, you know, Mississippi, we do have the highest teenage pregnancy rate, we have the highest low birth weight rate in the country, and but you are attacking that from this office, which is something different that hasn't been done. And so this is post-DOBS, and of course, you know, you led the charge on that. Date is now and forever gonna be recognized for that, and so we appreciate your leadership in that area. And then now the the aftermath of that, what are you doing now? Because we will have, you know, more new babies, uh I would suspect. And so you have some initiatives in place that will help take lift these women up that maybe find themselves in situations where motherhood is a struggle for them. So if you would share a little bit about that and what your office

MAMA App: One‑Stop Maternal Support

SPEAKER_00 58:00

is doing in that area.

SPEAKER_01 58:01

Sure. And thank you for that. You know, the Mississippi Dobbs case, I mean, it changed history, and that was our case. And I think and think about that, that's just again, it was a God case and it could have gone a lot of different directions. And so to come to Mississippi and have a female attorney general leading this case was all supposed to be the right people at the right time, the right places. And so as we approached that case, we we looked at it very differently. Uh, we've all been in cases, and you look at, okay, how are we gonna plan? How am I gonna get ready for this litigation? What am I gonna do for my opening, my clothing, whatever the that might be. And and this was a different scenario. And we'd given this opportunity to really embrace a huge change. And so to post up the question to overturn Roe v. Wade. And they're like, Oh, you're you're Mississippi. I'm like, Oh, we're doing it. And um, some of the backstory is is what we did initially to how we got to the empowerment project. So in our brief and in our argument, we said, you know, it should certainly go back to the states, and we knew every state would look at it differently. Excuse me, every state would have a different plan as it should happen across the board. But we also argued empower women and promote life. And we said in Mississippi, we're ready. If you give us that job in Mississippi, we will take action. We're not just gonna talk about it, we're not just gonna put it in our brief, we're not gonna do our argument, but we're actually gonna do something. So we had a very strategic plan as we went into that case. We had outreach plan, we had Amicus plan, we had everybody engaged, a lot of partners. And so as we came into it, and then the decision came down, it was like, now we have the next strategic plan. What are we doing? The empowerment project. And I will say to the legislature, thank you, thank you, thank you. They have been great. I have taken so many proposals over there, and they have passed nearly everything that I've asked for because it is an action plan. And I like us leading in this regard too. I like when people say, Hey, I need your legislation. How'd you do this? How's your policy looking? Like, yes, we're glad to give it to you. But in the empowerment project, we looked at things that were important to all of us. What are we gonna do? So we had five pillars. One was Childcare. We need affordable, accessible, quality child care. We've all been through that. Child care is so expensive. It takes up so much of your paycheck. And think about it if you're a young mother. And you know, right now in Mississippi, to send an infant and a toddler to daycare for a year costs more than to send someone to one of our fine colleges and universities in tuition.

unknown 1:00:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:21

Isn't that alarming? That is alarming. So we we have to change that dynamic for sure. Because we got to give a support to some to these young mothers, these young families. You know, COVID was terrible. So we looked at the next pillar about having more flexible work options. And as we were talking about earlier, we almost had none. You know, and we've grown in our state, but COVID, as bad as it was, it made us review that and go, particularly, how can we help our young parents? How can we help our young mothers? Because we don't want to lose them. We want to keep them in the workforce. We looked at child support because child support, women bear the brunt of that. Economically, financially, women carry the burden. So how can they upskill? How can they have their resources if they're not getting any dollars in? And right now, four out of five parents that are the custodial parents are mothers. And the majority of people that owe the child support are the fathers. And we looked at it from a different perspective too. If those dads will give something, then they'll be invested in their child's life. And you want to get to a healthy environment for that child. But at the same time, you want to help that mother. And we get we got to figure out how do we keep them from gaming the system. You know, switch jobs, you do different things, and we got to figure out how do we get the child support into the hands of that mother for that child because that can make the difference between a child going hungry that night or having dinner. And I think it has to, it's that significant. And particularly here, we have to address that. We looked at how we should provide resources and tools to upskill our mothers, our young mothers to be, because they need to know what are their options. How do I get that job? How do I go back to community college? How do I get my degree? What do we do? How do I go to a trade school? And so that again is very impactful for the workforce and

Rapid Fire And Closing Notes

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

for the children. And then we looked at a really tough one. We've got to fix our broken foster care and adoption system. I mean, that's horrific. There are too many children that are out there right now. There are about 4,000 children that are wards of the state as we sit here and talk. And we've got to get them into forever homes and have love and be comforted and help them on their journey. So those were kind of our five big pillars. And as visit with the legislature, everything that we brought over, like tax credits for adoption, tax credits for childcare. Yes, this year was paid maternity leave. First time ever. Wow. It would have been nice if had it years ago. But that says to women in state government, you're important, and we're going to support you as you have these precious children. Safe haven baby boxes. Oh yeah.

unknown 1:02:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Oh, I mean, what a blessing that is. We have now eight in the state. We've had three babies more. Isn't that so amazing to read about these verse and this courageous young mother who takes her baby there rather than reading about it in the paper where you found a baby in a dumpster or in the woods. I mean, so we we see that's just a great opportunity to do that as well. So there were a lot of things like that, but then the mama program is my personal favorite. Yeah, I I loved hearing about that. Tell tell our listeners about what that is. So um this is Mississippi Access to Maternal Assistance, Mama. And there's an app and a website, M-A-M-A.ms.gov. Free app, download it, utilize it. It is amazing. Now, you know very well you go to the legislature and you go, hey, I'd like a new program. Not so much. And I said, Oh, we want to do this. We think this is a one-stop shop. We know it's never been done before, but we want to do this, bring all the resources together, have our public resources out there, our private resources, and we want to add our faith-based resources. So if you're that young mother or mother to be and you Google Hunts County, you've got nine different things you can look at. Three clicks, you can get everything you want, and you can see every resource here in Hunts County. You can pick any area of the state, DeSota County, and you could do that as well. You could go to the coast, wherever you live, and all of the resources come up. But they're very informational. If you need a job, you can hit a job. If you need food, you can do that. If you're looking to have your baby adopted, you can do that. And so I I was excited that I mean we're gonna do this. We run it in this office. We've got over 400 resources right now out there that are willing, and so many of them are faith-based. Now, here's the great part, and I do have to report back to the legislature again this year. Okay, how many hits have you had? About 140,000 in two years. That's amazing. And about 40,000 we've been able to uniquely help, be it a car seat, a toddler bed, a job, whatever the case might be. So we know it's working. So I love when people go, I want your legislation, I want Mississippi's policy. Tell me like we will load you up.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:50

Have other state AG offices approached Mississippi's office about that program in particular. I would think they have, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:57

And I'm telling you, it's been great. I mean, we were glad to send them all the information. Here's how you set it up, what you need to do. But I I think that really resonates. The numbers, people use it. I mean, most everybody has a phone, so that that's their lifeline now. And so to see it being put into use is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:14

Particularly the age group that's having children. So I mean, they rely on apps and technology for everything now. So but that's such a great thing that y'all have done that y'all have engaged technology to that y'all have taken the program to the consumer in that way. The old ways of going down to an agency to to seek resources or what they don't want to do that. There's a stigma attached to it, and so the way that y'all have taken it to the individual, it removes that stigma or maybe that fear or that embarrassment of needing some assistance. So, you know, that's that's outstanding that y'all developed a way that you can take the program to the individual.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:47

Thank you. Again, we said we were up for the job, and Mississippi is up for the job, and we we've been really putting into action, but it's the partners, it's the legislation, it's the policies, and it's exciting to see them change.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

All of that goes back to just the way that you've shaped policy through the two statewide offices that you've held. You've been very active in that regard, and history will show that you were very made a huge impact in in both offices that you've held, and hopefully, you know, down the road we'll see some other things that come out of Attorney General Lynn Fitch and whatever else holds the future for her.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:21

Well, I appreciate getting the the opportunity to to be with you all. And and I just want to say thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for your podcast, thank you for sharing information. And you you both are lifting women up and you're telling great special stories that I think is just such an inspiration and so motive motivational for our women listeners.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:39

And uh this is called Pairs Well With Rapid Fire.

unknown 1:06:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

And we will give you some slogans, and I will I will say X pairs well with, and you say the first thing that comes to your mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:57

Light or infection. There's no right or wrong answer. And we can always edit. Great. So the first one pairs well with leadership. Motivation. How about a long day at work pairs well with self-profession?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:12

A Mississippi Saturday night pairs well with.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:15

An opportunity to visit your family and friends. How about a small town? What does a small town pair well with? Who you really are and where you're from. And the next chapter pairs well with your God's grip. Very well said. Very well said. One last one. Sweet tea pairs well with almost everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:35

Certainly here, right? It does, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:37

Well, General Fitch, this has been just such a delight for us to be able to spend this afternoon with you. I learned many new things about you today. And I know that our listeners are going to be thrilled to learn as much as we have about you and be inspired by your story and by all you've done to help the women and children and citizens of the state of Mississippi in your role as public servant and certainly now as the Mississippi Attorney General.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:01

So we so appreciate your time today.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:03

Thank you so much. I appreciate being with you. This has been really special to the team.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:07

Well, and for our listeners, next time we'll have another interesting guest, and we will reveal that at the appropriate time. But for today, we will drop the show notes for the Empowerment Project, the Mississippi Women's Summit, and the Attorney General's office itself. So should you need any of those resources, you'll be able to find them in the show notes. Until next time, we'll see you on Pairs Well With. The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Although your hosts are attorneys, Pairs Well With does not provide legal, medical, financial, or professional advice. Listening to this podcast does not create an attorney client relationship. Always seek the advice of qualified professionals regarding any specific questions or concerns you may have.