We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Molly Parmer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Molly, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Resilience, essentially, is the the ability to adapt and recover from difficult situations. It comes from adversity. This means that most truly resilient people have experienced hardship. Like them, I didn’t have a choice in the matter. But having a non-traditional — and challenging — childhood has made me one of the more resilient people I know.
These days, I look back at my past and where I come from and view it not with regret or shame but pride for how far I’ve come. I’m a first generation lawyer. I came into the legal field — where people wear their familial connections as a badge of honor, and where parents (specifically, lawyer parents) are often a guarantee of success no matter your education or academic performance — without knowing any attorneys. I grew up poor, in an occasionally dysfunctional home, and my initial exposure to the criminal legal system came from the times my dad was arrested. I’ve held down multiple jobs since I was preteen and have managed adult responsibilities since a very young age. But I also fell in love with school — which became my haven and an escape from my home life — and this made me the focused academic that I still am today.
Honestly, I’m grateful that I was forced to learn how to handle life’s difficulties in ways that foster strength and growth. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Maintaining a positive outlook and being able function effectively despite challenges has given me quite the edge in the legal world. At this point in life, I can say that it’s much better to be self-made than it is to be the product of nepotism.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’m a criminal defense attorney who owns her own law firm, Parmer Law, and I specialize in defending high-stakes cases for select clientele, predominately in federal court. I’m also an adjunct law professor at Emory Law School and a television legal analyst. You can catch me every Wednesday night at 9 PM on CourtTV and I also appear occasionally on FOX, CNN, and other national networks. My courtroom work mostly involves trials but I also handle appeals. My firm is not what’s called a “volume firm” — I take very few cases and maintain a manageable case load so that my clients can receive the attention they deserve. This is what sets me apart from other criminal defense attorneys who spend their time driving all over the state and running from courtroom to courtroom. If you’re up against the all-powerful government and fighting for your life, you need someone accessible, knowledgeable, and organized. Clients should be able to expect that, always, from their lawyer, and with me, they can.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
You get out what you put in. I’ve always worked extremely hard to achieve my goals and believe that extra effort makes all the difference. For example, when I wanted to go to law school, I created a multi-month study schedule for myself prior to taking the LSAT. It required that I spend all evenings and most weekends alone, in a library, in addition to working my full-time job and a part-time job. Despite having no social life and very little sleep that summer, I committed to what I set out to do. And when I scored above the 99th percentile and was able to go to law school on a full-tuition scholarship, it was all worth it.
I take the same approach when preparing for court. I will happily outwork anyone if it means a better result for my client. Hard work doesn’t happen in a vacuum — it’s a catalyst to achieving incredible things. If you approach seemingly insurmountable tasks with a sense of purpose, you’ll make it through without getting overwhelmed.
I also think kindness goes a long way. The more successful you are, the more criticism you’ll receive. But you have to ignore the pettiness of others (most of it comes from insecurity, anyway) and be nice for the sake of being nice. Of course, I work in an adversarial system with extreme consequences, so the gloves come off occasionally.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
You have to have a life outside of work, even if work is your passion. I have a wonderfully supportive husband, the most fun group of friends, and an unbelievably good balance between my job and my hobbies. When I need a break from the demands of the courtroom, I take one. I travel a couple of times per month and I like taking quick trips to the mountains in my vintage VW van, which I’ve had since well-before the “vanlife” craze. Being outside, in nature, works wonders. Don’t ever get too tethered to the desk that you forget the beautiful simplicity of the wilderness.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.parmer.law
- Instagram: @mollyparmer
- Other: TikTok – @atlantalawyer
