Who We Are

Staff

	Mark Kleinschmidt Mark Kleinschmidt, Executive Director: Mark Kleinschmidt, FTI's Executive Director, joined FTI after six years as a staff attorney at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation where he represented nine members of North Carolina's death row and consulted in numerous other cases. Mark continues to represent several death row inmates in his new capacity as Executive Director. Mark earned his bachelor's degree in Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1992 and his J.D. from University of North Carolina School of Law in 2000. He was also recently re-elected to a second term as a member of the Chapel Hill Town Council.
	Sarah Anthony Sarah Anthony, Deputy Director: Sarah Anthony is FTI's Deputy Director. She was one of FTI's two inaugural law fellows in 2001. Since then, she has served in a number of leadership capacities including Interim Executive Director, Director of Training, and Director of the Mitigation Program. She has assisted in the representation of indigent defendants facing the death penalty at trial in over 33 cases, has gone to trial in six, and was important in securing an acquittal in one. She completed training at Eastern Mennonite University in restorative justice and has spearheaded the development of Defense-Initiated Victim Outreach work in North Carolina. Sarah graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota in 1988 and spent the next decade serving limited income people and focused on matters of race discrimination. She worked as a grassroots community organizer in rural Montana and later as a program director for an urban Head Start school. She completed training at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy and served on the City Police Advisory Board. Sarah is a licensed attorney and a graduate of the University of Virginia's School of Law in Charlottesville.
	Zach Rowles Zach Rowles, MSW Mitigation Program Manager: Zach joined FTI as a Mitigation Fellow in June of 2004. Since then, he has worked on numerous death penalty cases, at both the pre-trial and post-conviction stages. In addition to his case work, Zach provides assistance and training to the Law Fellows on matters related to mitigation. He currently acts as the Field Instructor for a social work student from the UNC School of Social Work. Zach completed his undergraduate work at Bates College in Maine, earning a B.A. in psychology. Before getting his Master in Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Zach coached collegiate soccer and worked with people with severe and persistent mental illness at Threshold in Durham, NC. Zach interned at the Chatham County Dispute Settlement Center, where he became a trained volunteer community mediator, and with the Chatham Counseling Center, where he served a wide range of clients in need of mental health services.
	Karisha N. Harvey Karisha has been FTI's Office Manager since July 2009. She maintains and oversees all of the financial and office related day-to-day activities of FTI including billing, bookkeeping, managing office equipment, and receiving calls and visitors. Prior to joining FTI, Karisha worked for the MusiCares Foundation as the Health and Human Services Coordinator, specializing in planning and coordinating outreach and social events, soliciting sponsorship and donations for various silent and on-line auctions, and securing event volunteers. Karisha is a graduate of Norfolk State University.

Fellows

For information about our fellows, click here.

Board of Directiors

• Joseph Blocher; Professor, Duke University School of Law
• Ernest "Buddy" Connor; Attorney, Graham.Nuckolls.Brown.PLLC
• Samuel Dixon; Partner, Dixon & Thompson Law, PLLC
• Jack Fernandez; Partner, Zuckerman Spaeder, LLP
• Jack Lahr; Partner, Foley & Lardner, LLP
• Christine Mumma; Executive Director, North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence
• David Neal, FTI Co-Founder; Attorney in Private Practice
• Jonathan Soros, FTI Co-Founder; Deputy Chairman, Soros Fund Management, LLC
• William W. Taylor, III; Partner, Zuckerman Spaeder, LLP
• Zephyr Teachout, FTI Co-Founder; Professor, Fordham University School of Law
• Noell Tin; Partner, Tin, Fulton, Greene & Owen, PLLC
• Bob Trenkle; Attorney, Edwards & Trenkle PLLC

Board of Advisors

• John C. Boger; Dean, UNC School of Law
• William Bondurant; Former Executive Director, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation
• David Bruck; Director, Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse; Clinical Professor, Washington & Lee School of Law
• James E. Coleman; Professor, Duke University School of Law
• James G. Exum, Jr.; Former Chief Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
• Gene Nichol; Professor, UNC School of Law; Director, Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity
• Gerda Stein; Public Information Coordinator, Center for Death Penalty Litigation