Cliff Johnson

Johnson earned a B.A. in political science from Mississippi College in 1989 and a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1992.[2] After a federal clerkship he worked for three years as an associate at the Jackson law firm Butler Snow, then spent five years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney; the Mississippi Free Press reports that during the Clinton administration he prosecuted health-care fraud cases in Mississippi's federal courts.[2][4] He was a partner for 13 years at the Jackson firm Pigott & Johnson before joining the Mississippi Center for Justice, and he was a Fulbright Scholar at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Lund, Sweden, in 2005-2006.[2]

Johnson now directs the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law, where the center has litigated cases on cash bail, debtors' prisons and appointed counsel for indigent defendants, and where he supervises students in its clinic.[5][2] Public Justice named him a National Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2016, and the Mississippi Association for Justice named him Mississippi Trial Lawyer of the Year for 2017-18.[2]

Johnson describes himself as a lifelong Democrat who has practiced law in Mississippi for 33 years, and he lives with his wife in the Springdale community of Lafayette County.[5][4] He won the March 10, 2026 Democratic primary with 63.4% of the vote over Kelvin Buck.[1] He described his campaign as focused on working people, democracy and independence from party.[5] Johnson received 40.3% of the vote to Trent Kelly's 58.3%, according to unofficial results reported by NBC News.[3]