Jessica Parks

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Parks served as one of three board members on the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board as a Senate-confirmed Presidential appointee. She was first appointed to the Board by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, and was named Vice Chair of the Board by President Bill Clinton in 1993. She served as a Board member until 1995, when she joined the firm. During her tenure as a Board member, Ms. Parks reviewed and decided thousands of cases, setting precedent for the two million Federal employees and managers that constitute the nation’s largest employer, the federal government.

Prior to her appointment to the Board, Ms. Parks was an Associate Regional Counsel for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in HUD’s Atlanta Regional Office, where she represented the government in cases before the MSPB, the EEOC, the FLRA, and in federal district and appellate courts. She also handled labor arbitrations for the government and advised managers on a wide range of personnel issues.

From 1982 to 1985, Ms. Parks served as an Administrative Judge for the MSPB in the Board’s Atlanta Regional Office, conducting hearings and settlement conferences, and deciding the merits of the cases she reviewed.

Ms. Parks currently represents clients in the federal sector, before both the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In particular, she handles removal and other disciplinary actions, reductions-in-force, and whistleblower retaliation appeals, as well as claims of employment discrimination. She also represents and advises employees who are subjects of investigations, and represents employees in mediations.

Ms. Parks is admitted to the bar in North Carolina. She is a cum laude graduate of Tulane University and is a graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law, where she was a Judge George Caldwell Taylor Memorial Scholar.

Ms. Parks has been an active participant in several organizations and served as an appointed member of the Advisory Committee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She is also active in the Federal Bar Association where she has served on the FBA’s National Council. In addition, Ms. Parks is a past president of Executive Women in Government.

She has published several articles on personnel issues in the civil service, including the following: “The Merit Systems Protection Board as a Model Forum,” The Federal Circuit Bar Journal, Spring 1994; “Remarks on Decisions of the MSPB Under the Whistleblower Protection Act,” Federal Merit Systems Reporter, January 1993; “Creative Settlement Strategies,” The Army Lawyer, September, 1992.

E-mail: jparks @ katorparks.com

Practice limited to Federal courts and agencies.

Admitted only in North Carolina.