Jo Ann Harris,
Vice President

Jo Ann Harris was the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice, 1993–1995. Prior to her nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate to head the Criminal Division, she was a Visiting Professor and Director of Trial Advocacy at Pace University School of Law.  She also maintained a Manhattan-based sole practice specializing in federal white collar defense and devoting part of her practice to pro bono indigent defense.  Before entering private practice in 1983, she was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and in Washington as Chief of the Fraud Section, Criminal Division, Department of Justice.  After her last stint in Washington, she returned to Pace and to her white collar private practice. 

Ms. Harris is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

In addition to her law practice and public service activities, she has taught Trial Skills at numerous law schools, including Emory, Fordham, Harvard, Hofstra, New York and Pace and at the Prosecutor's office for the UN International Tribunal for Rwanda, in Africa.  Ms. Harris has been a program director, teaching team leader and team member in a multitude of programs for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA), including programs throughout the United States, and in Northern Ireland, Scotland and South Africa.  Most recently, her NITA activities have focused on NITA's Native American Advocates Training Program and other NITA public service programs in the United States and elsewhere in the world. 

She is Vice-President of the Board of the SHUMLA SCHOOL, a not-for-profit located on a ranch near the confluence of the Lower Pecos and Rio Grande Rivers.  Among other things, the school enriches kids with an academic curriculum tied to the natural resources and prehistoric cultural history of the land.  She is also former Chair and current member of the Board of the Center for the First Americans, now located at Texas A&M University.

Ms. Harris is a member of NITA's Board of Trustees, and Chair of its Public Service Committee.