1. PEORIA — There’s something to be
said for having a tech-savvy millennial as
your lawyer.
At 33, Robert R. Parker of Peoria’s
Parker & Parker grew up with the Internet
at his fingertips, and he’s not afraid to use it
in his family law practice.
“The older attorneys don’t know
what’s there, and they don’t see the
value of Facebook,” says Parker, who
subpoenas Facebook messages along with
other social media.
“I obtain Facebook archives, LinkedIn,
Instagram and Twitter histories. They don’t
often respond to civil subpoenas, so I typically
force disclosures of them through discovery,
and leverage spoliation claims if they try to
delete. The archives often display deletions.
“You are combing through a person’s life
and what they believed was private. That’s
where you get the true person.”
He’s quick to remember the story of a
father who was avoiding being served court
Rob Parker
Peoria’s Savvy
Adoption and Family
Law Counselor
by Elizabeth Davies

2. made those procedures harder to do.
Parker remembers co-chairing a four-day
trial with his mother early in his practice.
She impressed on him the value of knowing
adoption law inside and out.
“It really showed me how much more
control you have of a proceeding if you have
the Adoption Act basically memorized,” he
says. “That was the value of having Mom
teach me.”
She also impressed core legal lessons:
“Read the statute, always check it again,
and know it better than anyone else,” he
remembers. “She also taught me to never
forget to be mindful of the client’s feelings
and emotions.”
But for as much as Parker learned from
his mother about adoption law, he has
gleaned just as much from his father, who
specializes in divorce and personal injury
cases. Parker says it’s common for others
in the office to be uncertain about which
Parker is coming around the corner — they
sound and act similar. And it’s fortunate
that they get along so well: Even working
together every day, father and son maintain
a healthy relationship.
“I honestly can’t remember us having any
arguments at the office, ever,” Parker says.
The firm was founded as Parker &
Halliday until the name changed in 2012
to reflect Rob’s practice. He brought with
him a new focus on nursing home litigation,
contested custody and adoption cases.
Regardless of the focus, Parker says
his dad’s basics remained the same:
“Don’t forget that you’re also supposed
to be having fun” and “Our job is to be
composed and relaxed, not to feed into
emotions or fuel the arguing.”
Parker secured a traditional education,
too: a bachelor’s degree in political science
from the University of Illinois and a law
degree from Saint Louis University School
of Law. There, he was on the trial team and
served as vice president of the student bar.
Before graduation, he worked at the office
of the Missouri Attorney General, helping
prosecutors fight child sex crimes, and at
the St. Louis Public Defender’s office,
working on felonies.
Parker says the most challenging aspect
of his legal practice is functioning at 100
percent all of the time.
“People don’t understand how minute-
to-minute rapid fire this job is,” he says.
“Phone calls, emails, appointments, court
—sometimesoverlappingandallatonce.All
the answers must be delivered immediately.
In cross-examination, you must keep
mental pace ahead of the witnesses, some
papers. Parker Googled him and found a
Target registry that belonged to the father.
All it took was ordering a $5 gift card, and
the man’s new address popped up.
Indaysfilledwithbothadoptionandcustody
cases, the rewards can be very different.
Parker enjoys how adoption is unique
from other areas of law because he is
building new and stronger families, and
also because the case always has a good-
and-bad narrative.
“There’s very much a white hat I believe
you wear,” he says. “You’re really driving
this new family unit, replacing the one that
wasn’t working. To terminate rights, it
means a parent consistently failed a child,
which becomes a true moral contrast with
the adoptive family I represent.”
By comparison, in divorce court the
feeling of nailing a cross-examination,
Parker says, just can’t be beat. And for all
the cases he handles, the reward is the same
at the end of the day.
“When I put in real solid work, accom-
plishing a lot and moving cases through,
there’s a feeling…of relief, exhaustion and
pride,” he says.
A Family Connection
It’s no surprise where Parker’s legal
mind came from: He’s the only child of
two Peoria lawyers. Though they divorced
when he was 2 years old, Drew Parker and
Theresa Rahe Hardesty remained on good
terms and even joined up forces again once
Parker was working in his father’s practice.
For years after Rob graduated from law
school, she took her son under her wing
and trained him to take over her adoption
practice before she retired.
“Mom was always guided by her
Catholic values” in adoption law, Parker
explains. With the experience of handling
more than 3,500 adoptions during her
career, she taught him the importance of
building families through adoption. Now,
he does between 70 and 80 adoption cases
each year, primarily domestic. International
adoptions, he says, have decreased to a
third in recent years as other countries have
At a post-engagement dinner in Sarasota, Florida, in 2013. From left: Drew Parker, Lisa Parker
(now Rob Parker’s wife), Rob Parker and his stepmother Rena Parker
From left: father Drew Parker, mother Theresa Rahe Hardesty and Rob Parker
This article originally appeared in Emerging Lawyers Magazine for 2016 and has been reprinted with permission. © 2016 Law Bulletin Publishing Co.

3. of whom are doctors, CPAs, PhDs and so
forth. Being at 95 percent on a given day
can mean the difference between you and
someone else.”
Outside of the office, Parker is involved
with the Peoria County Bar Association,
where he chaired its entertainment
committee and planned its annual holiday
roast last year. He also is helping with a
court improvement project to reduce the
longevity of juvenile cases.
Parker enjoys cooking for his wife, Lisa,
an exercise specialist. The pair like to
listen to live music, travel and do home
improvement projects.
Fighting for His Clients
If it were up to Parker, his job would
be as heavy on adoption cases as possible.
He is a fellow of the American Academy of
Adoption Attorneys, one of only about 340
lawyers in the United States and Canada.
“I feel privileged to be a part of these
families’ lives,” he says. “Like a wedding,
it is sharing an intimate, touching and
formative experience. Ultimately, they
end happily. How many areas of law can
say that? Personal injury, a big jury award?
Sure, there’s happiness, but it comes out of
tragedy. Adoption typically has an absence
of the negative.”
Also, he appreciates the statutory nature
of adoption, where guidelines direct the
process, which is not as heavily influenced
by a judge’s rulings.
“In adoption, there’s a pre-defined
course of action that can be followed with
an increasing level of skill as one knows
the act better and better,” he says. “So,
less opportunity to go astray, and more
certainty to clients that the happy result
will be achieved.”
Parker has the personality to do his job
well. That means being a risk-taking, fly-
by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of guy. And
that’s why the courtroom is his favorite
place to be.
“When you can stop preparing and stop
reading all these dry documents, and the
pressure comes to a head when you finally
get to a courtroom, you have all these plates
spinning around you, and I love managing
all that,” he says.
Plus, there’s the fun of seeing kids at
their final adoption hearings — the only
time they come to court. He remembers a
3-year-old from China who tried to eat the
microphone, but ended up spitting its foam
cover into the well of the court. Or the child
who told a judge, “I like your costume.”
“The things they do during the final
hearing are hilarious,” Parker says.
But getting to that point is no
laughing matter.
“I definitely see the emotional roller
coaster that everyone inevitably ends up on,”
he says. “Even if it’s this wonderful ending,
they’re still sweating it out to get there.”
FamilyCore Adoption Specialist Jill
Bachman has worked with Parker for about
four years to help families come together.
“He is a very professional attorney who
always makes the people he works with feel
welcome and important,” she says. “He
shows that he has a passion for representing
those who are adopting and always treats
them with respect.”
Parker celebrates right along with families
when an adoption is final, Bachman says.
“All of my adoptive parents have always
told me how much they enjoyed working
with Mr. Parker,” she says. “Those who have
used him as their attorney for one adoption
always go back to him for future adoptions.”
Those endings are Parker’s favorite part
of the job, too.
“Clients get elated at the case’s
completion,” he says. “I get a real kick out
of getting big bear hugs.”
Sometimes, Parker takes on cases that
should have been closed years earlier.
He represented parents of a girl who was
brought to the United States on a medical
visa for a heart transplant in 2002. With the
medical concerns and recovery, the parents
didn’t realize until some 10 years later that
they had never updated her visa. They came
to Parker to straighten it out.
He was happy to do it.
“I like connecting with people,” he says.
“It’s very much a ‘your problems have
become my problems, and we’re going to
work through them together.’”
Theresa Farber hired Parker to represent
her in a divorce where she won sole custody
of her two children.
“I was extremely impressed with my
custody trial,” she says. “It was a two-
day trial, and Rob showed how intelligent
and incredibly efficient he was. There was
nothing standing in his way, he was 100
percent organized and ready for anything.”
Parker was the third lawyer to take on
her case, but Farber says he was the first to
make her feel safe.
“He listened and was very open and
honest with me,” she says, acknowledging
that he was walking into a “messy case.”
“Rob took me in and stuck his feet in the
dirty water and went full force and actually
fought for me,” she says. “Rob saved me.
He saved us.”
Protecting the Elderly
In addition to adoption, Parker also
handles divorces along with nursing home
neglect and personal injury cases. In nursing
home cases, Parker files against nursing
homes — not the employees. Neglect, he
says, tends to come from companies who
try to save money by lowering staffing
ratios. It is rewarding to know that he’s
helping the elderly by combatting that.
“I like to feel that, when we go to court,
we are on the right side of things,” he says.
Parker worked alongside Chicago
attorney Matt Dudley on the case of an
elderly man who developed bed sores while
in a nursing home. They became infected,
and he died.
It was Parker’s very first nursing home
case. He took it over from another law firm
and had one day to work on a lawsuit before
filing it. He spent all night researching the
Nursing Home Care Act and writing up
the suit. It worked: Parker and Dudley
secured the highest-ever settlement for a
nursing home case in Knox County.
Dudley says the way Parker worked
with and consoled the family during that
difficult time was impressive.
“He had the ability to shepherd the
clients through a very difficult factual
circumstance and allow them to express
their happiness with the care received,” he
says. “He explained that, in the end, we
were protecting someone else from this
happening again, and that really gave the
surviving family peace.”
After the case, the nursing home
changed its policies, secured a grant for
improvements, opened new facilities and
doubled the staff. Parker has no doubt that
elder care in Knox County has improved
because of that suit.
Being able to blend both adoption and
nursing home neglect practices together, as
Parker has, is only accomplished by a truly
caring person, Dudley believes.
“With these two practices, there’s
a compassion that really needs to be
present,” he says.
Dudley has known Parker for about six
years and finds his intelligence noteworthy.
“He’s beyond his years in terms of
knowledge of legal issues,” Dudley says.
“One of the things I’m most impressed
with is how much he enjoys being a lawyer
and enjoys helping families. He knows best
about what his client needs.” I
This article originally appeared in Emerging Lawyers Magazine for 2016 and has been reprinted with permission. © 2016 Law Bulletin Publishing Co.