While in law school, Rob worked at the Missouri Attorney General helping prosecute child sex crimes. He worried that continuing on such a career path would change him as a person. In 2009, he returned to Peoria and joined his father’s law firm, Parker & Halliday, to gain trial experience.
Right away, Drew Parker had Rob doing divorce trials for CAT executives and Doc Halliday had Rob writing wrongful death cases. Then his mother, Theresa Hardesty, convinced Rob to also learn how to do adoptions when she retired.
It’s true that there are not many adoption lawyers in the country who do injury cases, or vice‑versa. Rob continued each path and found that they work well together in Central Illinois. Peoria is home—Rob grew up here doing farm work, pouring concrete, and working in a restaurant. He’s also a husband and a father, and he brings that perspective to every case.
In 2012, Rob began handling a case involving wrongful death in a nursing home due to extreme neglect. The case concerned the parent of Drew Parker’s neighbor and was sent over by another law firm who wanted a second opinion on the nursing home’s $40,000 offer to settle. The statute of limitations was about to expire. Rob worked through the day and all night writing the lawsuit, and the case was filed with one day to spare. It later settled for $600,000—a record in Knox County for nursing home injury cases. This began the firm’s nursing home work, and it began broader recognition of Rob’s work. Now these results happen routinely every year. (Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.)
Starting in 2015, Rob’s adoption work met the criteria for inclusion as a Fellow of the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys. Fellows are rigorously vetted for competence and ethics, and the organization now includes nearly 500 Fellows worldwide. Rob has also helped author the Illinois Continuing Legal Education (ICLE) legal guide for attorneys in the area of adoption. For many years now, Rob and paralegal Beth Flores annually complete more foster‑care adoptions (around 150 each year) than anyone else in Illinois. Rob is a licensed DCFS Panel Attorney for adoption out of foster care.
Rob has always been recognized by Super Lawyers and Leading Lawyers. It began with Super Lawyers as a Rising Star in 2015, who recognizes no more than 2.5% of lawyers in Illinois. Also in 2015, Leading Lawyers profiled Rob and Drew Parker’s law practice as a father‑son duo; read the profile on the firm blog: Leading Lawyers profiles Rob and Drew Parker. Rob was named an Emerging Lawyer by the Leading Lawyers Network and in 2016 was featured as “Peoria’s Savvy Adoption and Family Law Counselor.” In 2020, Leading Lawyers ranked him #9 among all under‑40 downstate attorneys.
Rob has handled trials in both federal and state court, and appeals in the Third and Fourth District Appellate Courts. Trials have included seven‑figure divorces, contested adoptions, murder appeals and trials, and international child abduction under the Hague Convention. Rob is involved with the Peoria County Bar Association, chairing and assisting in a number of committees; the American Bar Association; and a Master in the American Inns of Court.