Ty Parks L’24

Ty graduated from Columbia University in 2019 as a Gates Millennium Scholar and is originally from West Philadelphia. While at Columbia, he interned for the Columbia Justice Lab, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute at Harvard Law School, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Defender Association of Philadelphia, and Councilwoman At-Large Helen Gym’s Office.

After graduating, Ty began working at Neufeld Scheck & Brustin, LLP as a civil rights paralegal. There, he assisted in the representation of wrongfully convicted clients in their §1983 lawsuits that alleged a wide variety of police misconduct against cities and individual officers, including claims made against the Philadelphia Police Department. In addition to working on all aspects of the litigation in these cases, Ty worked closely with the firm’s social worker to connect clients to housing, employment, and other necessary resources.

At Penn Carey Law and beyond, Ty’s work centers low-income Black and Brown communities in Philadelphia. He is specifically interested in supporting workers in their fight to secure quality resources and opportunities, and ultimately take power back from large corporations. To him, this fight includes a broad coalition of workers, ranging from prospective workers that have been excluded from the workplace because of their criminal records to union members that are bargaining for a contract. He hopes that his work will contribute to larger social movement efforts to abolish systems of oppression.

Ty is the Co-Chair of the Criminal Record Expungement Project, a leader of the Walk in Legal Assistance Project, and the former Co-Advocacy Chair of BLSA. In his 3L year, Ty is a Littleton Fellow, where he teaches 1Ls legal research and writing, and a Certified Legal Intern for the Civil Practice Clinic. During his 1L summer, Ty interned at the Public Interest Law Center. In his 2L summer, Ty was a Peggy Browning Fellow in Community Legal Services’ Employment Unit and a law clerk at Willig, Williams & Davidson, a union-side law firm in Philadelphia.

After graduating from Penn Carey Law, Ty will clerk for the Honorable John Milton Younge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 2024 to 2025. He looks forward to opportunities following the clerkship to advocate on behalf of workers and unions.