About me
Robin Maher is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in the death penalty field, with extensive experience in direct representation, strategic training, and systemic reform. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with legislators, prosecutors, judges, defenders, and bar associations to improve the fairness of capital cases and reduce the errors that lead to wrongful convictions. Her distinguished background includes serving as Senior Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Access to Justice, a division chief at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, an assistant federal public defender in Philadelphia's Capital Habeas Unit, and Resource Counsel in Texas. Notably, during her thirteen years as Director of the American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project, she led the creation of the guidelines that now serve as the national standard of care in the United States.
On the global stage, Maher has organized judicial and legal training seminars across Asia, trained capital defense lawyers working in Africa through Cornell Law School’s Makwanyane Institute, and consulted with trial teams representing detainees at Guantanamo. An accomplished academic and author, she has served as a Professorial Lecturer in Law at The George Washington University Law School since 2010, teaching public interest law and capital punishment, and has published widely on the ethical responsibilities of defense counsel. Her profound contributions to justice have been recognized with awards from the American Bar Association, Witness to Innocence, and the National Alliance of Sentencing Advocates & Mitigation Specialists.
