Mayor Parker’s campaign is spending far more on lawyers than it did when she was running for office
Parker's campaign spent less than $15,000 on legal bills in 2023, when she was elected mayor. Since 2025, it has spent $108,000.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s campaign has spent about $108,000 on legal fees since the start of 2025, far more than it shelled out in any recent year, campaign finance records show.
For instance, in 2023, when Parker’s legal bills would have been expected to spike amid her winning campaign for mayor, the campaign paid about $14,900 in fees to its law firm, Dilworth Paxson, according to campaign finance reports. In 2024, Parker’s first year in office, the campaign sent Dilworth about $19,300.
But in 2025, payments to Dilworth more than quadrupled.
Aren Platt, executive director of the Democratic mayor’s campaign, People for Parker, did not respond to a request for comment on what was driving the increased legal bills.
“Our lawyers at Dilworth are an essential part of our team and it’s important that we are able to talk to them on a variety of strategic initiatives,” Platt said in a statement.
The campaign paid Dilworth about $88,700 in 2025, and another $19,700 between Jan. 1 and May 4 of this year, according to the most recent report.
“It’s an unusual number to see right now,” said Matthew Haverstick, a Philadelphia-based elections attorney who has primarily worked with Republican candidates. “There could be lots of prosaic or benign explanations for it, but it’s not normal.”
Election law gives campaigns wide latitude over how they spend money from donors. In addition to election-related expenses like advertisements or legal work on campaign finance compliance, campaigns can spend money on everything from constituents’ funeral expenses to airfare for candidates to attend political events. They can also support the candidates’ work in government.
Public records do not provide detailed information about campaign expenditures. After multiple requests from The Inquirer for the campaign’s legal expenses, Dilworth attorney Timothy J. Ford, who handles most of the campaign’s legal work, on Monday provided copies of invoices from 2023 through 2025.
The campaign told the Office of City Commissioners, which oversees elections and processed the request, that the delay was due to a mix-up involving an email address that is “not checked regularly.”
The invoices, which the commissioners said were “redacted for attorney-client privilege and client confidential information,” show Dilworth billed the campaign during that three-year period for four separate matters.
For “Matter 01,″ which included all the invoices during the election year of 2023, the firm billed the campaign for about $12,400, and almost all of the work appears to have been done by Ford. (The campaign spending reports and Dilworth’s invoices do not exactly align, due to the timing of payments and potentially other factors such as reimbursements.)
“Matter 02″ listed in the invoices lasted from February 2024 to March 2024, with Dilworth billing $2,300. Ford appeared to complete all the work.
The billings escalated with “Matter 03,” which began in March 2024, three months into Parker’s tenure, and lasted at least through October 2025, the period covered by the most recent invoice provided to The Inquirer. The firm billed about $62,100 for its work on that matter, and the invoices show that at least four people from Dilworth billed hours.
“Matter 04″ began in August 2025, and has resulted in $45,300 in billing with as of October 2025. Although most of details are redacted, the invoices show extensive billing around an “interview” on Sept. 12, 2025. From Sept. 10 to 13, Dilworth billed nearly $7,800.
Additionally, the Parker Mayoral Transition and Inaugural Committee, which aided her transition into office and has since closed, paid Dilworth about $9,700 between December 2023 and March 2024, when it was active.
Parker’s campaign has been more active with fundraising during non-election years than the campaigns of her recent predecessors. In 2025, she raised $1.7 million, more than any another second-year mayor since at least the early 2000s, according to her campaign.
People for Parker had about $1.4 million in cash-on-hand as of May 4 after raising about $241,000 and spending about $390,000 in the first four months of this year. Parker is up for reelection next year, and rumors have swirled about the potential of her facing a challenger backed by the progressive movement.
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Earlier this year, Parker’s campaign donated $23,000 to the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary and $25,000 to Pick Pennsylvania, a committee led in part by Parker to lure the Democratic National Convention back to Philadelphia.
Allies of Parker also set up a 501(c)4 nonprofit called One Philly that has raised and spent vast sums in 2024 before appearing to fade away in 2025.
Political consultant Jeff Sheridan, who helped lead a super PAC that was critical to Parker’s 2023 victory, was a public point person for the One Philly nonprofit. In March 2024, he said the group was formed to advance Parker’s governing agenda, not to get involved in politics.
One Philly, which is not required to disclose its donors, raised $658,500 in 2024, Parker’s first year in office, according to an annual return the nonprofit filed with the IRS. It spent $484,900 that year to “promote policies and actions championed by City leaders.”
The group also reported paying nearly $19,000 in legal bills that year, and listed its representative as the Ballard Spahr law firm.
In 2025, the group reported raising only $15,000 and spent all of its remaining money, according to its most recent disclosure, filed in May.
Sheridan did not respond to a request for comment.
Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article.