Civil Rights Litigation Program
Shawna L. Parks, Legal Director
Shawna L. Parks is the Legal Director at the Disability Rights Legal Center in Los Angeles. Ms. Parks has worked extensively on high-impact cases affecting the rights of people with disabilities. These include cases regarding the rights of people with disabilities in the criminal justice system, and the rights of children with disabilities in the juvenile justice system, as well as a wide variety of cases addressing access to government programs and services, such as the court system, educational institutions, and government benefits. Her work in this area has also encompassed cases addressing housing and homelessness for people with disabilities, and other issues directed at the needs of very low income people with disabilities.
In light of this work, Ms. Parks was named a Southern California Rising Star by Superlawyers Magazine for 2006-2009, and in 2010 was named one of the Top 100 Women Litigators in California by the Daily Journal. In 2011 California Lawyer magazine named Ms. Parks an attorney of the year in the area of juvenile law for her work on a landmark case addressing systemic education reform in Los Angeles’ largest juvenile detention camp.
In addition to her litigation responsibilities, Ms. Parks is an Adjunct Professor at Loyola Law School where she supervises the DRLC’s litigation externship program and co-teaches Disability Rights and Special Education Law. She is also a member of the DRLC’s management team.
Ms. Parks is a 1995 graduate of U.C. Berkeley, and a 1999 graduate of Boalt Hall School of Law at U.C. Berkeley, where she was a Notes and Comments editor for the California Law Review. Ms. Parks was also a Fulbright Fellow in Budapest, Hungary from 1999 to 2000.
Prior to joining DRLC Ms. Parks was an Equal Justice Works / Cotchett-Furth Fellow and Staff Attorney at Disability Rights Advocates in Oakland, California, and an associate at the civil rights law firm of Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman, where she focused on cases addressing race and gender discrimination.
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