ERA celebrates and thanks ERA Executive Board member Beth Parker for her long years of service to the organization and social justice.  Beth was first elected to ERA’s Board of Directors in 2008 and served as Board Chair from 2011 to March 2013.

Beth has had an esteemed career of lawyering and dedicated pro bono and public interest service.  She is the newly appointed Chief Legal Counsel of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.  PPAC provides legal, legislative, policy and regulatory services to the eight California affiliates, which combined operate 100 health centers and serve more than one million patients annually.  PPAC is also working to ensure that the seven million uninsured Californians will receive primary and reproductive health services, including abortion, under the Affordable Care Act.  Prior to that Beth was a partner and complex civil litigator at Arnold & Porter LLP in San Francisco.  She specialized in intellectual property, complex commercial, constitutional, and civil rights matters and spent a significant part of her practice on pro bono matters.  In 2004, she led the trial team in Planned Parenthood’s successful challenge to the first federal attempt to criminalize abortion since Roe v. Wade.  She has represented Planned Parenthood’s Bay Area affiliates for more than 25 years in a wide variety of matters, many involving access to clinics in Northern California.  Between 1997-2000 she left private practice to work as the Director of Program & Litigation at ERA.

Beth graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and received her law degree from Harvard Law School. She serves as a Mediator and Early Neutral Evaluator for the United States District Court of the Northern District of California.  She currently serves on the national board of CORO Center for Civic Leadership, having previously chaired the Board of CORO, Northern California. Beth is a former director of the San Francisco Bar Association, Association of Business Trial Lawyers, Yale University Dwight Hall, Planned Parenthood Alameda/San Francisco and Planned Parenthood Golden Gate.  She was a founder and Board Chair of the San Francisco Women Lawyers’ Alliance and the Women’s Leadership Alliance. Beth will be married thirty years this spring, and has two children.  In her spare time, she loves to travel to less visited countries and photograph markets.

Our heartfelt thanks to Beth Parker.  We are honored to have her as part of ERA’s Community.

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