Reilly Morse

Reilly Morse is policy director at the Mississippi Center for Justice. Before joining the Center in 2005, he maintained a solo and public interest practice for nine years, including six years as a municipal prosecutor and judge in Gulfport, Mississippi. Before opening his solo practice, he spent 11 years in insurance and commercial litigation. He received the 2010 legal award from the Mississippi Conference NAACP and a 2006 public interest lawyer award from the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. In Mississippi NAACP v. HUD, he negotiated a three-way settlement with HUD, the State of Mississippi, and housing advocates to create a $132 million plan to perform disaster housing repairs for thousands of households across 9 counties. He has testified on disaster recovery and fair housing before six Congressional committees and speaks and writes on environmental justice. He is author of “Come On In This House: Advancing Social Equity in Post Katrina Mississippi,” a chapter in the book, Resilience and Opportunity: Lessons from the U.S. Gulf Coast after Katrina and Rita, Brookings Institution Press, August 2011.