About Us
Trusted Advisors for AmLaw 50 Firms
We believe retirement is not an ending, it's an opportunity. Attorneys face unique pressures as they step back — balancing client obligations, firm requirements, and personal identity outside of their career. Our work ensures that transition strengthens both the firm and the individual.
Experience That Matters
For more than 15 years, Zelinka Parsons has worked with elite AmLaw 50 firms that entrust us to work with their attorneys when navigating retirement and succession planning. In that time, we’ve guided hundreds of professionals, ensuring their firms maintained continuity, their clients remained confident, and their equity was preserved.
Our results are built on focus. We work exclusively with attorneys and professional service firms, applying proven strategies that protect value, prepare future leaders, and safeguard reputations. Every number reflects our commitment to helping attorneys exit with clarity, confidence, and a legacy that endures.
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Experience
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Success Rate
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Guided Clients
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Attorney Focused
Our Guiding Principles
The foundation of our work rests on values that attorneys and firms can trust. Excellence, integrity, and people-first relationships guide every program we deliver, ensuring lasting impact through retirement and succession.
Excellence
Our programs are built by lawyers for lawyers—and other intense career professionals. Our methodology centers around the understanding that high-achieving professionals require more than generic retirement planning; they need sophisticated, precision-crafted guidance that honors the excellence they've embodied throughout their careers.
Integrity
Integrity is reflected in every interaction, ensuring clients feel understood, supported, and fully equipped for transition. We bring the same ethical standards that attorneys expect in their own practice—complete transparency about processes, honest assessment of challenges, and unwavering commitment to client interests.
People First
Behind every professional transition are real human beings facing one of life's most significant changes. By focusing on people first, we ensure that both firms and their attorneys experience stability and reassurance throughout the process. Our work emphasizes the trust, confidence, and personal connection required for attorneys to step into retirement with clarity.
Meet Our Team
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons and David Parsons combine legal transition experience with business strategy expertise to guide high-achieving professionals through retirement and succession with confidence.
Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons
Elizabeth Zelinka has worked with law firms and individual attorneys in professional development and transition for more than 15 years. Following a successful legal career at Milbank, she created the methodologies behind Zelinka Parsons’ programs, now validated by industry experts and clients alike. Alongside her husband, David Parsons, she co-facilitates programs, leads customized firm workshops, and supports succession planning for leaders. Elizabeth is a published author, a Board Certified Coach, and holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, magna cum laude, and a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from James Madison University, summa cum laude.
David Parsons
David Parsons is a business leader and entrepreneur with a history of helping successful people succeed in new spaces. Throughout his career, he has worked with executives in real estate development, management consulting, and publishing to develop strategies and optimize business performance. Fluent in four languages, he is a Board Certified Coach who received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Colorado College.
David now works with his partner, Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons, to offer customized talent solutions to AmLaw 50 firms and other businesses.
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David Parsons
David Parsons is a business leader and entrepreneur with a history of helping successful people succeed in new spaces. Throughout his career, he has worked with executives in real estate development, management consulting, and publishing to develop strategies and optimize business performance. Fluent in four languages, he is a Board Certified Coach who received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Colorado College.
David now works with his partner, Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons, to offer customized talent solutions to AmLaw 50 firms and other businesses.
Checklist for Firms
Is your firm ready for retirement? Download our checklist to see how prepared your firm is for retirement.
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