A defense attorney who specializes in death penalty cases is taking the helm at the nonprofit that helps inmates challenge their convictions and looks into complaints of poor prison conditions.

The board of directors for N.C. Prisoner Legal Services hired Mary Pollard to lead the 28-year-old nonprofit. It is based in Raleigh and has a staff of 37, including 16 lawyers, Dan Kane reports.

Pollard may be best known for representing Alan Gell, a death row inmate, who was wrongfully convicted in 1998 of killing a retired truck driver in Bertie County.

She used a new law requiring access to prosecutorial files to find evidence proving that Gell could not have committed the murder. He was acquitted in a second trial.

A Wake Forest University law school graduate, Pollard worked nearly 10 years for the Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice law firm before joining the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation in 2002 as a staff lawyer.

Correction: An earlier version of this post included an inaccurate headline.