The NABL Member Spotlight initiative is a volunteer-based program. All featured members participate voluntarily and are selected to highlight their contributions and achievements within our community. Participation in the spotlight does not imply endorsement by NABL. If you would like to be featured, please contact us! Now, let’s meet Adam Parker and learn more about his public finance journey:

1. What inspired you to become a NABL member and how did your career in Public Finance start?   

I can trace it back to playing Sim City as a child when I learned that I needed to finance city improvements with bonds (while of course monitoring coverage ratios and interest rates). More seriously, I worked in several different capacities with state and local governments before starting as an MPA student at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Government. Once I started at the School of Government, I met incredible friends and mentors like Jack Vogt, Kara Millonzi, Richard Stevens, and Tyler Mulligan and learned all about municipal financing and economic development. I also learned particularly about the role of bond counsel in municipal transactions, which was the primary reason I went to law school. 

While in law school at UNC, I learned about NABL and was fortunate to receive the Ballard Scholarship in 2014. I remember attending the Essentials conference and thinking to myself “these are my people.” It was affirming to be around folks who were as interested in public finance as I am, and I still enjoy that camaraderie today. I am still very grateful for my mentors like Jason Akers, Matthias Edrich, Rene Moore, and Dee Wisor who welcomed me with open arms into NABL. 

After law school, I clerked with Judge Robert N. Hunter, Jr. at the North Carolina Court of Appeals and then started working as a public finance attorney with NABL member Bob Jessup at Sanford Holshouser LLP in North Carolina. In 2015, I came home to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to practice with Butler Snow and have worked on all manners of public finance ever since. 

2. You helped draft a resource that will offer summaries of recent case law on religious use and the Establishment Clause, which NABL will publish in the coming weeks. What key insights do you hope NABL members will take away from it? 

It is designed to be a resource and repository of the various Establishment Clause cases, so I hope members find it useful for that purpose. This area of law has changed rapidly in recent years, and NABL members need practical and living resources to keep up with those changes. I hope we can continually update these summaries, so we have a map of Establishment Clause cases past, present, and in the future.  

3. What advice would you give to new attorneys who want to get involved with NABL projects? 

Jump in! Every project can benefit from additional review and research. You have something to offer, even if you’re just getting started as a public finance attorney. The best way to get better at anything is repetition, so get involved with NABL, and you will get some more of those reps as a bond lawyer who knows the subject matter. And be ready to do things like cite checking or simple editing. That stuff helps as well. 

4. Is there a particular project or deal that stands out as especially meaningful in your career? 

A lot of my work over the past five years has been in prepaid natural gas and commodity transactions. Each one is unique and meaningful in its own way, but a particularly meaningful series of projects relates to attending a fairly lengthy public meeting.  

At said Parish Council meeting, a presentation was made describing a litany of infrastructure needs for the Parish’s utility system. The presentation was exhaustive and at least an hour and a half if I remember correctly. Many different pieces of infrastructure were described, and I got a tangible sense of both the replacement needs of the Parish and how the Parish was stretching every dollar to provide high quality services to its residents. 

After the meeting, we were able to close several prepaid natural gas transactions that directly benefited the Parish and which provided revenues to the Parish’s utility system that helped fund many of the needed infrastructure improvements. It always feels good when you get results like that and it’s one of the things I feel very thankful for when doing this work. 

5. What is a fun fact that people might not know about you?

I was a high school math teacher in Henderson, North Carolina. 

I spent one summer living in a firehouse. 

Everyone who knows me knows that I love LSU sports, but I also married into being an Indiana Hoosier fan (my wife played soccer there). 

My favorite Star Wars character is Boba Fett and it’s not particularly close.