Hannah Gorman

Hannah Gorman, is the director of the Balanced Justice Project at Florida International University’s College of Law. She is a dual qualified attorney (United Kingdom and USA – New York) with defense-victim outreach expertise and a license to practise as a mitigation specialist in Florida.

Hannah leads the project’s state-wide research and assists with cases that involve juveniles, carry lengthy sentences or have an international dimension. In particular, Hannah helps with empirical evidence and data collection, jury selection, life history investigation and victim outreach. She has extensive experience in representing foreign nationals and conducting in-field investigation overseas. She has worked on cases in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oregon and Florida as well as in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Hannah also co-teaches/instructs death penalty law and the death penalty clinic with a special focus on international human rights law.

Hannah was formerly associate director of the Centre for Human Rights at Birmingham City University, UK where she co-directed/founded the law school’s pro bono clinic. She previously practised as a solicitor-advocate in criminal and public law (right to education; property rights of indigenous tribes; right to life; right to freedom of religion; right not to be subjected to torture) in the UK and worked with the United Nations, European Union and various governments around the world on best consular practice for national detained overseas. She has worked on several successful appeals and referrals from the Criminal Cases Review Commission which ultimately resulted in acquittal. She has also drafted and co-ordinated the filing of amicus briefs on various key issues such as juvenile sentencing (Graham & Sullivan v. Florida; Miller v. Alabama; Jackson v. Arkansas), death row phenomena and the application of scientific principles in determining intellectual disability.

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