Former U.S. Attorney - Ronald A. Parsons, Jr.

Ron Parsons is the 42nd United States Attorney for the District of South Dakota.  As U.S. Attorney, Mr. Parsons is the chief federal law enforcement officer for a district comprising the entire State of South Dakota, including nine Indian Reservations.  The district serves almost 900,000 residents with approximately 32 Assistant U.S. Attorneys and more than 60 total employees located in three district offices in Sioux Falls, Pierre, and Rapid City.

Mr. Parsons was nominated by President Trump on September 11, 2017, confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 20, 2017, and sworn in as the District of South Dakota’s top federal prosecutor on January 5, 2018.  He currently serves on the Attorney General Advisory Committee’s Terrorism and National Security, Native American Issues, and Elder Justice Subcommittees.

Mr. Parsons received a B.A. in English from the University of Minnesota and his law degree from the University of South Dakota School of Law.  After graduating first in his law school class, he completed a federal appellate clerkship with the Hon. Roger L. Wollman, Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

In August 1998, he entered private practice in Sioux Falls, SD, where he headed his firm’s strongly-developed Appellate Department and managed a broad range of complex civil litigation matters in federal and state courts.  He has argued or handled well over one hundred appeals, primarily in the U.S. Court of Appeals and South Dakota Supreme Court.  While in private practice with the same firm for almost 20 years, two of the cases in which he appeared as counsel of record were heard by the United States Supreme Court.

Mr. Parsons previously was appointed and served as a Limited Deputy State’s Attorney in Minnehaha County, South Dakota.  In 2016, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, the preeminent national association recognizing distinguished appellate advocacy.  In 2015, he was honored with a Star Quilt for his legal work on behalf of the religious freedom of the Lakota people in Native American Council of Tribes v. Weber, 750 F.3d 742 (8th Cir. 2014).

He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, and their two children in Sioux Falls.

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