Mara Gassmann is the Legal Director at PEN America. She oversees the organization’s litigation docket and provides legal support to U.S. Free Expression program teams.
She brings years of experience in First Amendment litigation and legal counseling in law firm and non-profit settings. Before joining PEN, she led the amicus curiae practice at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, overseeing the development and filing of state and federal “friend-of-the-court” briefs on issues affecting the right to gather and report the news and publish commentary and opinion. Prior to that, she was of counsel in the media law group at Ballard Spahr LLP, where she litigated on behalf of news media, authors, filmmakers, and non-profit clients and provided them with pre-publication review, newsroom counseling, and legal training. She was also an associate at the highly regarded boutique First Amendment law firm Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz LLP, until its merger with Ballard Spahr. Mara began her legal career as a law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema.
Gassmann has taught media law as an adjunct professor at The George Washington University and at American University in Washington, D.C. She is a co-author of the treatise “Anonymous Online Speech,” published by the Practising Law Institute in Communications Law in the Digital Age (2015-2022), and of the chapter, “The Reality of Contemporary Libel Litigation,” in New York Times v. Sullivan: The Case for Preserving an Essential Precedent, published by the Media Law Resource Center (2022). She regularly speaks to U.S. and non-U.S.-based audiences on free expression topics and has co-authored congressional testimony on related matters. She serves on the board of directors of the National Press Club Journalism Institute.
Mara graduated magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center. Before beginning her legal career, she was a spokesperson and later a freelance legal writer for CNN in its Washington, D.C., bureau.