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Dickie Scruggs is a former lawyer and Navy fighter pilot. He is best known as the architect of the litigation that resulted in the multi-billion dollar Tobacco Settlement, and for later going to federal prison in a judicial bribery scandal. In prison Dickie taught GED to other inmates. That experience led him upon his release to establish Second Chance Mississippi, which is a non-profit collaborative effort with Mississippi’s Community Colleges to raise awareness and funds for GED and adult education.
Dickie is a native Mississippian and Ole Miss graduate. He and his wife Diane have been married 46 years, and moved to Oxford from the Coast in 2003. The Scruggs’s have two grown children and four grandchildren, and they are members of the First Presbyterian Church.
Zach Scruggs serves as the Executive Director of 2nd Chance MS., whose mission is to raise awareness and funds for adult education and work skills training for low income Mississippians. Zach learned firsthand of the importance of adult education while serving as a GED and literacy instructor for federal inmates at the Forest City Federal Correctional Facility in Forest City, Arkansas. He was also active in the St. Peter’s Episcopal Church’s prison and education ministry for Federal and State inmates at the Lafayette County Detention Center in Oxford, Mississippi.
Zach grew up in Pascagoula, Mississippi along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He received his undergraduate degree in Accountancy at Ole Miss in 1996. After graduation, Zach worked for in Washington, D.C. as a Legislative Assistant for United States Representative (now United States Senator) Roger Wicker (R) Mississippi. Zach received his Juris Doctorate from Ole Miss in 2000, graduating Cum Laude. While at Ole Miss Law School, Zach was a member of the prestigious Mississippi Law Journal.
Zach practiced law for eight (8) years in Mississippi. First with the prestigious civil defense firms of Mitchell, McNutt & Sams, and Carrol, Warren & Parker in Jackson, Mississippi, and then in 2003 as a Partner with The Scruggs Law Firm in Oxford Mississippi. His primary practice areas included civil litigation, mass tort litigation, class action litigation, complex litigation, bad faith insurance litigation, and criminal law. During his career, Zach litigated thousands of cases in state and federal courts all over Mississippi and the United States. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Zach represented over 2000 Mississippi Gulf Coast homeowners in insurance coverage disputes against the largest Property Insurers in the United States. Zach and his firm successfully settled over 1200 of these cases, which resulted in approximately $145,000,000 net to his clients. Zach also maintained a significant pro bono criminal defense practice for defendants who could not afford legal representation, obtaining not guilty verdicts for his clients in two separate criminal murder cases.
In 2012, Zach relocated to Orlando, Florida to enter into the growing renewable energy savings industry. He formed an energy savings and renewable energy development company specializing in the origination, development, management, finance, and acquisition of renewable energy projects, energy efficiency and savings projects, and groundwater supply projects for large Hospitality and Commercial companies in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean.
Zach returned to Oxford, Mississippi in April 2016 to run 2nd Chance MS., where he lives with his wife Amy and their three children: Jackson (13), Augusta (12), and Elizabeth (7).