Casey Bonner Farmer
Name:
Casey Bonner Farmer
MSU Degree:
B.A. in English, summa cum laude, 2010
Any other degrees:
J.D., University of Alabama School of Law, 2013
Favorite memories of being an undergraduate English major:
Any class with Dr. Little or Dr. Anderson. I also loved Dr. Marsh’s class on British and Irish novels, but it is the only English class I got a B in. I almost certainly deserved it.
Current Position:
Special Assistant Attorney General, Public Integrity Division
Organization:
Mississippi Attorney General
When you graduated with a degree in English from MSU, what were your plans for your future? Has your career path mostly realized those early plans, or have you discovered new plans and goals along the way?
By the time I graduated, I knew I was going to law school, but beyond that I was not sure what I wanted to do with my law degree. I did not have any lawyers in my family, and though I worked for a local attorney in Starkville during undergrad, I still didn’t know the full range of what a law degree could do. I honestly think I thought I might want to be a professor of law, because one of the things I really loved was just talking about the law and the Constitution.
But once I got to Alabama, I really fell in love with criminal law, probably due to a visiting professor I had in my second year, Susan Kuo. I told someone recently that I like it so much because I get to grapple with the Constitution, which is not what most lawyers do every day!
What is your current occupation, and what does your work mostly consist of?
I’m currently a Special Assistant Attorney General in the Public Integrity Division (PID) at the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office (AGO). Essentially, I am a prosecutor, and we focus mostly on felony crimes, like a District Attorney’s office would. But instead of covering one district in the state, we cover the whole state for certain crimes, conflicts of interest, and issues involving public officials.
Before PID, I worked in the Criminal Appeals Division at the AGO. In that capacity, I worked on the cases after prosecution—I defended felony convictions in written briefs and oral arguments before the Mississippi Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.
And prior to that, I clerked for a judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals for about six years.
Which skills that you learned as an English major do you use most in your job?
Analytical thinking and strong writing skills, hands down.
Particularly when I clerked and worked on appeals, my writing was my job. There are so many lawyers who have to write—motions, briefs, draft orders—who don’t have the same background, and sometimes that’s really apparent in their writing (to their detriment!).
What additional skills did you need to learn in order to do your job, and how did you learn them?
Once I started doing oral arguments and working in PID, I needed to be able to handle public speaking with (some) ease. Luckily for me, I have never been afraid of public speaking, and I find being in front of a court or judge to be one of the more exciting parts of my job! But I have many friends who never go to court and have never had to speak to a judge or jury, so a fear of public speaking is not disqualifying. And if public speaking excites you, there are so many ways to use that to your advantage in the legal field.
Are there common misconceptions about your career field, which current English majors might share, that you have learned the truth about?
This might sound silly, but being a prosecutor is nothing like Law and Order. In fact, after I started law school, I couldn’t watch Law and Order: SVU anymore. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but sometimes it’s bliss!
In what ways does your career enrich your life and help you to achieve your personal as well as your professional goals?
I love being a lawyer. I love puzzling through a legal issue or piecing together an investigation. I love—as corny as it might sound—seeing justice served. And that doesn’t always mean putting someone in jail! Sometimes that means making sure that no one goes to jail. Each case I work on is different, and I learn new things all the time.
On a personal level, working for the government allows me a better work-life balance than some of my friends in the private sector. There are a lot of jokes about government lawyers, and most aren’t true, but we do seem to have it a little easier finding some balance between work and personal life. As a mom to two young kids, that’s important to me!
What advice do you have for undergraduate English majors right now who might want to follow the career path you did?
Don’t make assumptions about what you think you want to do with your degree. It’s been a long time now, but I think when I went to law school I just knew I didn’t want to do criminal law.
Dr. Little encouraged me to get a job at a local law office in Starkville, and that was great advice too. Though I don’t practice in the same areas as that attorney does, I really did learn a good bit about the day-to-day of a local lawyer.
Talk to attorneys you might know and take opportunities to watch them do their jobs, if you can. Go to court—not as a defendant. Just watch proceedings in your local chancery, county, or circuit courts. You’ll see some of the day-to-day workings of our legal system.
Finally, don’t go to law school just for the sake of going to law school. I knew several people who thought they should get a law degree because it would “be helpful” in some other, non-legal job. Law school is too hard and too expensive to get a degree “just in case.” Sure, there are plenty of people who get law degrees and later find themselves in a non-legal job, but entering into an expensive and stressful program just for fun is not a good use of your money or time!
[Updated December 2025]