Staff & Board of Directors
Robin M. Maher, Executive Director
Robin Maher has extensive experience in the death penalty field, including direct representation and training of judges and defense lawyers throughout the United States and internationally. Her work with legislators, prosecutors, judges, defenders, and bar associations has been focused on improving the fairness and accuracy of death penalty cases and reducing the errors and mistakes that lead to wrongful convictions.
Previously, Ms. Maher worked as Senior Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Access to Justice; as a division chief at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Defender Services Office; as an assistant federal public defender at the Capital Habeas Unit, Federal Community Public Defender, Eastern District of PA; and as Resource Counsel at the Texas Habeas Assistance and Training Project. For thirteen years Ms. Maher was the Director of the American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project where, under her leadership, the ABA produced guidelines for lawyers and judges in death penalty cases that are now the national standard of care in the United States. Since 2010, she has also been a Professorial Lecturer in Law at The George Washington University Law School where she has taught classes on public interest law and capital punishment.
Internationally, Ms. Maher has organized training seminars with judicial groups and bar associations in China, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Vietnam; trained capital defense lawyers working in Africa at Cornell Law School’s Makwanyane Institute; and trained and consulted with capital defense trial teams representing detainees held at Guantanamo. She is a frequent speaker at national and international death penalty conferences and has also published several articles on the professional and ethical responsibilities of defense counsel in death penalty cases.
Ms. Maher is the recipient of awards from the American Bar Association, Witness to Innocence, and the National Alliance of Sentencing Advocates & Mitigation Specialists.