Civil Rights Litigation Project
Shawna L. Parks, Director of Litigation
Shawna L. Parks is Director of the Civil Rights Litigation Project at the Disability Rights Legal Center. Ms. Parks has worked extensively on high-impact cases affecting the rights of people with disabilities. These include cases regarding the rights of children with disabilities in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, the rights of people with disabilities in the criminal justice system, as well as a wide variety of cases addressing physical and communication access at private and public entities. Ms. Parks is a 1999 graduate of Boalt Hall School of Law at U.C. Berkeley where she was a Notes & Comments Editor of the California Law Review and a member of the Task Force on Public Interest Law. Upon graduation from law school, Ms. Parks was a Fulbright Fellow in Budapest, Hungary, where she focused on the implementation of Hungary’s disability rights legislation. 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.