From billion dollar lawsuits and working with some of the most demanding clients in the country to preparing lectures and grading essays, Thomas Parker has done it all. Leaving behind a high-powered position as an attorney and choosing to follow his passion for teaching, the path led him here to LTHS where he spends his day preparing lectures and educating students in his AP Government and Politics class.
Before taking on the role as educator, Parker earned his law degree from Harvard Law School and worked at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, one of the nation’s most prestigious law firms where he found himself working 45-50 hours on a light week and 90-plus on a heavy one.
“The old joke is that law firms input coffee into associates and output billable hours,” Parker said. “When you’re at trial, you’re sleeping four hours a day and working seven days a week. Clients are paying insane amounts of money, and they expect to get their money’s worth.”
After three years of this intensity, Parker reached a point of burnout and knew he was ready for his life to take a different path.
“Some people thrive on the adrenaline and high-stakes work, but it wasn’t for me, “Parker said. “I wanted a life that actually felt like mine again.”
A Non-Linear Path
Though Parker’s impeccable resume may seem like something right out of the Netflix series “Suits,” his journey was not glamorous nor linear.
“In high school, I was in band and debate, and my parents would joke, ‘You argue a lot, you should be a lawyer,’” Parker shared. “That stuck with me.”
He began college at Texas State University as a political science major but didn’t take it seriously. “I spent a lot of time not going to class. I didn’t take things seriously,” Parker said. “I failed a bunch of classes, and it ended up taking me about eight years to graduate.
With a degree in general studies, Parker decided to begin teaching math at Mount Calm High School, a small rural town in Texas, where he “taught everything from 8th-grade math to calculus.”
After a few years, Parker revisited his original dream of pursuing a degree in law. “I took a practice LSAT, did pretty well, and thought, ‘Okay, maybe I’ll try this,’ Parker said.
That decision led him to Harvard Law, and later, to a career in corporate litigation. Even as his law career flourished, Parker never quite felt satisfied, so he made the choice to return to Texas.
“[Making the move] gave my wife and I the opportunity to move back to Texas,” he said. “When we did, I realized I didn’t want to take the Texas bar. My teaching license was still valid, so I went back to the classroom.”
Courtroom to Classroom
Today Parker’s background in the law field deeply impacts his teaching style, one he describes as “principles first.”
“I want my students to walk away understanding the bigger ideas: natural rights, liberty, limited government, and how those ideas apply to everyday life,” Parker said. “It’s one thing to say Tinker v. Des Moines gives students free speech. It’s another to understand the bigger ideas, [and] it probably leads me to over-teach concepts that we don’t technically have to cover. I think its helpful to understand the principles behind the cases, not just memorize the outcomes.”
Shockingly, Parker has found his many hours spent in a courtroom help him manage his classroom. “For litigators, your job is to take complex issues and explain them to a jury of regular people who don’t know the law,” he said. “You’re trying to keep them engaged, awake, and convinced. Honestly, that’s not so different from teaching high school students. Law school trains your brain to look at a situation and spot problems. I use the same mindset when helping students craft arguments or write essays. You’re learning to think like a lawyer, even if you don’t realize it.”
Words of Wisdom
Parker encourages all of this students, regardless of their academic strengths and weaknesses to challenge themselves with advanced social studies courses, and does not hesitate sharing what he hopes students will take away from his course.
“These classes get a bad reputation for being tough, [but] they prepare you for college in ways few others do. Learning to analyze situation and build arguments is useful in every field: business, STEM, law, you name it. The goal of a government class isn’t just to memorize how a bill becomes law. Instead, it’s to understand the big ideas that shape our country and use them to make informed decisions.”
As Parker reflects how far he has come, from pulling all-nighters and preparing legal briefs to assisting students in understanding how the United States government operates, he is extremely proud of his journey, and he offers these words to wisdom for seniors taking government.
“Don’t blow off your government class; AP or on-level. Go in planning to learn,” Parker said. “These classes are more interesting than you think, especially if you engage with them. Dive into it. Have fun with it.”
This is the precise energy Parker brings to his classes day in and day out by encouraging his students to embrace their curiosity and humor while teaching them to think about the bigger picture, much in the way legal officials do every day. Ready to take his classes on? Registration is opening up in January for next school year, so make an appointment with your counselor early to learn more about government and politics here at LT.
