Ask a Mitigation Specialist
Ask a Mitigation Specialist, a resource program that allows defenders to meet directly and privately with a mitigation specialist for specific technical assistance. Complete the form below for a 40-minute session with experienced mitigation professionals. The information discussed during each session is confidential. Register using the link below.
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.
Mirra Schwartz
Mirra is a mitigation specialist and a trained defense victim outreach specialist. She has been working on behalf of men and women facing severe sentences for nearly 15 years. She holds degrees in psychology, mental health, and law from Stanford University and UC Hastings College of the Law.
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.
Ask a Mitigation Specialist, a resource program that allows defenders to meet directly and privately with a mitigation specialist for…
Holly Clifton & Kristen Samuels
Ask a Mitigation Specialist, a resource program that allows defenders to meet directly and privately with a mitigation specialist for…
Amy Williams & Heather Barrow
Ask a Mitigation Specialist, a resource program that allows defenders to meet directly and privately with a mitigation specialist for…
Mirra Schwartz & Lisa Eager