Ozark Profile : Local couple bound by law, love
Posted on Monday, September 24, 2007
Scott and Lisa Parks sat down at a table in an attorney's lounge at the Washington County Courthouse last week, trying to explain their jobs and their lives together.
Married to each other, both work as defense lawyers for the Washington County Public Defender's Office.
They talked about intermingling their legal and home lives and came to the conclusion that it is difficult to leave behind what they do for a living when it is time to go home.
Like a lot of public defenders, they have a big caseload and are always busy, dealing with often difficult and messy situations, but both say they really like criminal law.
"I like helping people out, I really do," Scott said. "And that's what I do for a living is try to help other people with their problems."
He and his wife said they try to look beyond the criminal files of their clients as they defend them during the worst times in their lives.
"What's in that file isn't the measure of a person," Scott said.
The two lawyers have managed to create a careful balance of work and home life while never really leaving work alone, helping each other with cases and sharing the joys and sorrows of their jobs.
They met while working at the Benton County Public Defender's Office. They each were assigned to different criminal judges, but they both left behind a reputation for working hard for their clients.
"Scott is a person who always had the best interest of his clients at heart, fought hard for his clients and did a really good job of representing his clients," said Jay Saxton, chief public defender for Benton County.
He describes Lisa, who was his chief deputy public defender, and Scott as "two peas in a pod"in terms of fighting for their clients.
Each of the Parks is from a small town in Arkansas, and each took circuitous paths to become lawyers.
A National Merit scholar, Scott attended the University of Texas at Austin, initially majoring in chemical engineering. He ended up changing his major to history / political science and graduating from Arkansas Technical University in Russellville.
After a stint at Wal-Mart, he decided to go to law school in the early 1990 s. He completed work at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law. He passed the bar exam and worked for a title company before putting his degree to work in private practice in Little Rock and Searcy.
In the meantime, he got married and had a son before later divorcing.
In 2002, he moved to Rogers and worked for the Public Defender's Office in Benton County.
Lisa got married and had children after high school. She eventually graduated with a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Arkansas-Monticello.
She moved to Lincoln while still married to her first husband and worked as administrative assistant for Ralph Nesson, executive director of the Arkansas Single Parent Scholarship Fund in Springdale.
Nesson saw Parks was smart and that he asked her what she was going to do with her life. She told him she had always talked about law school.
He recalls when she told him she had been accepted into law school.
"She came in one day and looked at me kind of hesitantly and said, ' You're not going to like what I'm about to tell you, '"he said.
She had gotten one of the few major scholarships available to women to go to law school and was worried about his reaction to her leaving.
Even now it is difficult for Lisa to believe she is a lawyer.
"Being a lawyer just seemed like such an unattainable goal," she said.
While she worked for him, Nesson said, he saw a bright woman, a single mom taking care of three kids and persevering.
"She is so smart and has such a wonderful ability to figure things out and to see things in all their complexity, that she's able to do things that other people aren't because of her superior intellect and steel-trap memory," Nesson said. "I've just marveled at what she's been able to accomplish professionally and her devotion to the people that she serves. I just have the utmost respect for that woman."
Her first job as a lawyer involved working juvenile cases for the Benton County Public Defender's Office, where she began work in 2000.
By the time Scott arrived in the office a couple of years later, Lisa was working in adult felony court, as was Scott, but the two were assigned to different criminal judges, David Clinger and Tom Keith.
The two lawyers became good friends.
Their first date was on Dec. 17, 2002. They wanted to go to Olive Garden, Lisa recalls, but it was too busy and they ended up going to Red Lobster. Then, Scott, who is a self-described science fiction geek, took her to a "Star Trek"movie.
They were married in 2005. Lisa began working for the Washington County Public Defender's Office that year, while Scott arrived last year.
The couple balance their legal lives with their children: Scott's son, Jackson, 13; and Lisa's children, Zach, 22; Rebecca, 20; and Ethan, 15.
They say they also enjoy gardening at their home just south of Tontitown, as well as camping.
The couple took a vacation traveling the West last year with the two boys.
"Scott and the boys are big hunters," Lisa said.
It was a welcome break from work, which seems to always linger.
"You can't do what we do and not take it home," Lisa said.
But the two don't mind working together. In fact, they like it.
"Lisa makes me a better lawyer because she is so compassionate - and organized," Scott said.
Lisa said she can go home from work, talk about it and Scott really "gets it."
For Lisa, one of the hardest cases was Chris White, a Benton County man found guilty of raping his two daughters.
"I believe to this day that he's innocent," she said.
He is serving 40 years in prison.
"Somebody told me that the hardest client to have is an innocent one," she said. "That case taught me that. Sometimes I start thinking about it and I can't sleep."
Both agree that it helps to share life with someone who understands.
"I like that we do the same thing, that he really knows what it feels like to do what we do," Lisa said.
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