Mark Schlakman, J. D.
Mark R. Schlakman, Esq., serves as senior program director for The Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights (CAHR). During his tenure at FSU he has served as coordinator for CAHR’s Human Rights & National Security in the 21st Century lecture series, and as principal investigator for both the Liberty in the Balance (post- 9/11), and American Bar Association (ABA) Death Penalty Assessment projects.
Prior to aligning with CAHR in 2002, Schlakman held several senior positions in state and federal government, including assistant general counsel to Florida Governor Lawton M. Chiles, Jr. with initial emphasis on executive clemency then subsequently as the governor's special counsel on Florida immigration issues. He later served as senior advisor to former Florida Governor Kenneth H. Buddy MacKay, Jr. amid MacKay's service as White House Special Envoy to the Americas during the latter stages of the Clinton administration. Schlakman transitioned the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs as a foreign affairs officer at the outset of the George W. Bush administration. At that point he was assigned as an Alternative Representative to the US Permanent Mission to the Organization of American States (OAS), and subsequently as an interim foreign policy advisor to four-star Marine Corps General Peter Pace during the general’s tenure as Commander, United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM HQ Doral/ Miami).
Schlakman returned to Florida from Washington, D.C. after these assignments via Naval Air Station Key West where he served as a special advisor to the Director of Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF South) who by position is a U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral -- JIATF South conducts international, intelligence-driven, counter-illicit trafficking operations generally optimized toward counterdrug operations. Schlakman also served as a consultant to Emilio Gonzalez, PhD, who was President George W. Bush's U.S. Senate confirmed Director, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS/ an Under Secretary position within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security “DHS”). He subsequently was retained as an advisor to Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) leadership and Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) leadership jointly within the context of issues involving maritime mass migration during the administrations of Florida Governors Charlie Crist and Rick Scott.
Schlakman currently chairs Leon County, Florida, Sheriff Walt McNeil’S Citizen Advisory Council (CAC), and is a board member and a past board chair for The Innocence Project of Florida - a not-for-profit organization that advocates for the exoneration of wrongfully convicted individuals based largely upon DNA and other forensic evidence.
He earned his B.A. from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL, graduating magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi; and his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., where he was elected president of the Student Bar Association and received the Dean's Certificate at graduation. Following law school amid Schlakman's tenure on Chiles' staff he completed Harvard University's Kennedy School post-graduate Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government in Cambridge, MA.
Schlakman developed/teaches a range of interdisciplinary and cross-listed human rights and national security courses primarily through Florida State University's College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. He is a periodic speaker, and contributor to Florida and national newspapers, and guest on/through various news platforms.
Schlakman is also "Of Counsel" to Rambana & Ricci, P.L.L.C., a statewide immigration law practice in Tallahassee, given his unusual background and cross-cutting experience which spans law, human rights, national security, foreign policy and emergency management.