Wilson Parker is an expert teacher and scholar in the area of constitutional law. He is a primary author, with Wake Forest law professor emeritus Michael Curtis, of "Constitutional Law in Context," a constitutional law casebook that is in its fourth edition. His current research interest concerns constitutional history and federal-state relations. He is the co-author with JTom Morgan of Ignorance Is No Defense: A College Student's Guide to North Carolina Law. He was named the 2010 recipient of the Student Bar Association's Jurist Excellence in Teaching Award.

In October 2024 he organized and moderated a panel for the ABA Task Force for American Democracy and the Knight Foundation on Election 2024: Election Law Issues in North Carolina.

Prior to joining the faculty in 1981, Parker was a trial lawyer in private practice in North Carolina, litigating employment, civil rights, and civil liberties cases. He spent the Spring Semester of 1997 as a Scholar in Residence at University College Cork in Cork, Ireland. He has served as program director and taught Comparative Constitutional Law at the Wake Forest Law School Summer Programs in London, Venice, and Vienna. He served as Chairman of the Amicus Curiae Committee of the North Carolina Advocates for Justice for several years and has been on the Board of the North Carolina Center for Death Penalty Litigation.