Ed Monahan was a Kentucky public defender for 37 years specializing in death penalty litigation, and was the chief public advocate of the Department of Public Advocacy, Kentucky’s statewide public defender program, for nine years. He consults nationally on public defense issues including program assessments and hiring of chief defenders. He teaches public defenders through the National Association for Public Defense, and serves as an expert in litigation about the adequacy of public defense. He is co-editor with James J. Clark, Ph.D.  of the ABA’s Tell the Client's Story: Mitigation in Criminal and Death Penalty Cases (May 2017), and past-chair of the American Bar Association Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division Council.