Ask a Mitigation Specialist – April 15

Please only sign up for AMS if you can commit to attending, as this helps us and our advisors manage scheduling and keeps spots available for those who can fully participate. If an emergency or unexpected conflict arises, please notify us as soon as possible so we can adjust plans and honor the time our volunteer advisors generously offer.

If you need to speak with an Advisor but are unavailable during core Ask A Mitigation Specialist hours (3 p.m.–5:10 p.m. ET), or if you are an international practitioner who can only meet outside the times offered, please contact Reginald Lanier at [email protected]. We will do our best to accommodate requests outside of standard hours; however, availability for such calls cannot be guaranteed.

Dana Cook

Dana L. Cook, MSW recently stepped in the role of Director of Social Services Training and Recruitment at the Defender Association of Philadelphia after returning to the Homicide Unit in that office in July of 2023. From March of 2020 to May of 2023, she served as the National Mitigation Coordinator for the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Projects where she developed and ran national capital defense training programs, consulted with defense teams, and provided expert declarations and testimony on the standard of care in mitigation investigations in capital cases. In 2010, she co-founded the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation (ACCR) and served as its co-director for ten years. ACCR is a resource center that provides trial level consultation and training in death penalty and juvenile life without parole cases in Pennsylvania. She was a mitigation specialist in the Juvenile Special Defense Unit and the Homicide Unit from 2003-2010. Prior to that, she was an investigator in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia. She began her career as an investigator at the Post-Conviction Defender Office in Nashville, TN. She received her B.S. in Criminal Justice Administration in 1996 from Middle Tennessee State University and her MSW from the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania in 2003.

Kaylyn Christian

Kaylyn Christian, ACCR’s Mitigation Director, has been a practicing mitigation specialist for over 10 years. She currently runs the Atlantic Center’s training program including organizing the annual capital case conference and the bi-monthly capital CLE webinar series. Throughout her career, Kaylyn has given presentations for and served on the faculty at death penalty and non-capital conferences around the country. She has presented on a wide range of topics including mitigation storytelling, mitigation investigation and defense team toolkits. In 2025, Kaylyn was chosen to receive Advancing Real Change, Inc.’s Emerging Leader Award, which recognizes and celebrates a mitigation professional in the early stages of their career who is laying the groundwork for excellence in their direct casework, and has the potential to move the field forward through dedication to high standards, commitment to continued professional development, and encouragement of other practitioners. She graduated Cum Laude with her B.A. in Psychology and Criminal Justice from Temple University in 2015. As an undergraduate, Kaylyn became heavily involved with the Death Penalty Defense community through trainings and her position as a Homicide Unit Mitigation Intern at the Defenders Association of Philadelphia. Prior to becoming ACCR’s in-house mitigation specialist, Kaylyn began her own private practice based in Philadelphia. In addition to her work for ACCR, Kaylyn continues to hold her own part-time private practice as a paralegal and mitigation specialist where she focuses her representation on pre-trial and post-conviction capital cases, non-capital homicides, juvenile life without parole cases, and federal sentencing cases in the federal and state systems.