Lawyer is keen on justice for FLDS clients

He is not a member of the FLDS Church. Nor is he a member of the LDS Church, though he used to be.

Rod Parker, the Salt Lake attorney who the past two months emerged as the front man for the Fundamentalist LDS Church, is a Catholic.

The question about Parker's religious affiliation, specifically if he is a polygamist, inevitably came up during frequent news conferences in Texas the past two months.

"The answer is that I'm not," he said.

But the Utah native and Olympus High School graduate did find out through a genealogy search that he descends from the fifth wife of a polygamous grandfather or great-grandfather. (He can't remember which.)

Outside of being thrust into the spotlight of the nation's largest child custody case, Parker, 49, lives a rather vanilla life. He describes himself as boring. Hobbies include woodworking and astronomy.

Parker lives with his wife, Lynn, and four children ages 7 to 16 on Salt Lake City' east bench. He earned bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Utah. He worked 18 months in the George H.W. Bush administration as an associate deputy attorney general, handling mostly land and natural resources issues.

Parker specializes in family law as well as litigation and appeals in several areas. Clients have included Envirocare (now EnergySolutions) in an antitrust case, Lamborghini in a dealership termination and Toyota and General Electric in product liability.

"One concern I have is being pigeonholed as doing this (representing the FLDS Church) and nothing else. The market for representing fundamentalist Mormons is a very small market," he said.

Local attorney Brent Hatch, who has known Parker for 20 years, describes him as insanely bright and a brilliant writer.

"I really think he's one of the top legal minds in our community," he said.

Unlike some high-powered attorneys, flamboyance does not figure into his persona. "He's not a self-promoter at all," Hatch said. "There are some people who are recognized as big-time lawyers who can't hold a candle to Rod."

The large desk in Parker's downtown office at Snow, Christensen & Martineau in the historic Newhouse Building is littered with legal correspondence. FLDS Church files anchor both ends, while the middle is strewn with documents from his other cases, the ones he has neglected the past two months. He had 275 voice mails waiting for him.

"My other work is in a general state of chaos," he said.

So how did a Mormon-turned-Catholic with latent polygamist roots come to represent a group of people whose religious practices, particularly underage marriage, turn off most Americans?

Happenstance mostly.