Jackson Free Press

The Mississippi College School of Law awarded Patti Gandy, who is the founding director of the Mission First Legal Aid Office in Jackson, with the school's Community Spirit Award during the annual MC Law Alumni Dinner on April 27.

Mission First, which is a faith-based nonprofit that started in 1999 as a ministry of First Baptist Church of Jackson, worked with MC Law to establish the Mission First Legal Aid Office in 2006.

As director, Gandy leads the office in providing civil legal services to low-income residents of Hinds, Madison and Rankin counties. Mission First also has offices that deal in medical and dental care, adolescent mentoring, sports programs and community services such as construction projects, helping clean up yards and doing fix-up projects.

"The people who qualify for our services here are people who in many cases can't get the help they need through (legal services corporations) or can't afford a lawyer," Gandy said. "I make sure those people get whatever services they require, whether it be help with a landlord, government and disability issues, or consumer debt issues."

Gandy, who lives in Madison, graduated from Forest Hill High School and worked as legal secretary with the Watkins & Eager law firm until 1984, when she went on to Mississippi College. She majored in accounting and received a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1988.

She opened an employment agency for legal-support workers called the Gandy Agency and ran it until 1995, when she enrolled at MC Law, receiving her juris doctorate in 1998. She then worked as a law clerk for the former Chief Judge Billy Bridges at the Mississippi Court of Appeals for a year before signing on with the law firm of Butler, Snow, O'Mara, Stevens & Cannada, PLLC (now known as Butler Snow) in 1999. Gandy is also an adjunct professor at MC Law.

May 31, 2017, will be Gandy's last day as director of the Mission First Legal Aid Office before she steps down. She plans to continue her pro bono legal work afterward.

"Since this office opened and I became the founding director back in October of 2006, we've helped more than 11,000 people, which I think is not bad for a little office in the West Park community of Jackson," Gandy said. "I definitely never got hugs from my clients in any of the jobs I used to have, but here, I get hugs all the time. It's been an honor to serve with this office these last 11 years."