Janie Parks Varnell '05

When Janie Parks Varnell ’05 looks back on her time at Girls Preparatory School, she doesn’t hesitate.

“If I had not gone to GPS, I don’t know that I would even be close to where I am now.”

Today, Janie is making history as the first woman to serve as Hamilton County Attorney. It’s a position that places her at the center of county government, advising the mayor and commission, overseeing litigation, and leading a collaborative legal team. But long before she stepped into a role, she was a quiet seventh-grader still finding her voice.

Finding Her Voice

“I was super quiet, super unsure of myself,” she recalls.

That changed thanks to teachers who saw more in her than she saw in herself. Mr. Zeller, her advisor and math teacher, consistently encouraged her to speak up “regardless of what others thought of me.” History teacher Mr. Tumelaire helped her transform from struggling student to History Award recipient. Ms. Kilbrew’s banned books unit left a lasting intellectual imprint. Head of School Randy Tucker made her feel seen in the hallways.

“It’s the people, hands down,” Janie says. “They taught me how to be, how to act, how to carry myself—and that’s what led me here.”

Her senior Chapel Talk focused on appreciating the remarkable women in her class. “We had a lot of really impressive classmates,” she says. Even then, she understood the power of strong women standing side by side.

It’s a theme that would define her career.

From Auburn to the Courtroom

Janie headed to Auburn University intending to become a pediatric nurse until science classes suggested otherwise. A government course that required her to analyze and argue positions lit a new spark. She switched to political science with a minor in criminal justice and loaded her schedule with law-focused electives that mirrored real law school casebooks.

She entered law school determined to become a prosecutor, inspired in part by her father, a former Chattanooga police chief. But graduating during the recession meant government jobs were scarce. Faced with a choice between corporate law and criminal defense, she chose the latter and spent 13 years in practice, often representing police officers and their unions.

That experience proved formative.

“I learned very quickly what a government’s not supposed to do when it comes to their employees,” she says.

When Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp approached her in 2024 about becoming the next county attorney, she considered it “for maybe 30 seconds” before knowing it was the right step.

Breaking the Glass Ceiling

Becoming the first female Hamilton County Attorney was historic, but not without challenges.

“I wish I could say that it’s all a bed of roses,” she says candidly. 

She was pleasantly surprised by the number of women in leadership roles in government, but speaks openly about those same women being interrupted in meetings, seeing women’s ideas dismissed and later praised when repeated by their male colleagues, and the double standards female attorneys face in court.

“Men can walk into court and yell and scream and they’re encouraged to do that. The second a woman does that, she’s overly emotional.”

She also shares a story that underscores the microscope women often operate under: after a jury trial, a juror told her that female jurors interpreted her pulling her hair into a ponytail on day three as “giving up.”

“I have never worn my hair differently in trial since,” she says.

The lesson? Details matter, but so does resilience.

“You always have to have a why,” she explains. “Mine is that I always want to make whatever situation I’m in or my client is in better. So no matter what somebody says or does to me, as long as I keep focus on that, it makes it easier.”

A Collaborative Culture

Janie didn’t just step into history; she reshaped the structure of the office. She declined a restrictive employment contract that had previously limited flexibility and worked with county leadership to create a system with clearer checks and balances.

Inside her office, she’s built something equally intentional: a collaborative team culture.

“I told them from the beginning, I wanted this to be a collaborative space.”

Couches and an open-door policy encourage attorneys to gather, talk through litigation strategies, and solve problems together. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

Janie’s Version

Spend five minutes in Janie’s office and you’ll notice something else: subtle nods to one of her favorite artists, Taylor Swift.

Like Taylor reclaiming her narrative, Janie has stepped confidently into spaces where women have not historically been centered. She leads in a male-dominated arena with clarity, conviction, and just enough sparkle to make it unmistakably her.

You might say she’s in her Fearless era when advocating in court, her Reputation era when challenging the status quo, and her Midnights era when the emails don’t stop coming.

But at her core, she’s still the GPS senior who urged her classmates to recognize the extraordinary women beside them.

And now, she’s making sure Hamilton County does the same.

As she puts it: “Remind yourself of why you’re doing it. And keep going.”