Barbara Jean Parker

Barbara J. Parker is the City Attorney for the City of Oakland.

Barbara was born and raised in Seattle, Washington where her parents migrated to escape the poverty and oppression of the segregated South.

Barbara and her siblings are the first generation in her family’s history to attend college.  Barbara graduated from Harvard Law School and earned her undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Washington. She has practiced law for almost four decades in the private sector (including the law firm of Pillsbury Madison & Sutro (now Pillsbury Winthrop) and Kaiser Hospitals) and at every level of government, including more than five years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney.

After serving as Chief Assistant City Attorney in Oakland for more than 10 years, voters elected Barbara to a full term as City Attorney in 2012.

As Oakland’s City Attorney, Barbara has worked to improve public safety, to secure equal opportunity and justice for all Oaklanders, and to assure that City Hall operates in a transparent, honest and fair manner. She shut down two Oakland hotels that were centers for prostitution and the sexual exploitation of minors. She has sued big banks and financial institutions to hold them accountable for violating antitrust laws and mortgage lending violations. She won a record $15 million judgment in a lawsuit against a fraudulent immigration consultant preying on Oakland families. And she launched an initiative to crack down on illegal dumping, which has resulted in thousands of dollars in fines for people who dump their trash on Oakland streets.

Barbara also serves as Board President of the Black Adoption Placement and Research Center, which for more than 30 years has found permanent homes for children, the majority of whom are in California’s foster care system.

She has lived in Oakland for more than three decades and is a long time resident of the Haddon Hill neighborhood near Oakland’s Lake Merritt.