Cara has spent her career in public service roles and has extensive experience handling core social and public health issues. Cara focuses her practice on policy, investigations, decision-making, and training related to the prevention of child abuse and sexual and gender-based harassment and violence.
Prior to joining the firm, Cara spent 11 years in a variety of leadership roles for the state of Delaware and, before that, served five years in the District Attorney’s Office of Philadelphia. In her service to the state of Delaware, she was deputy director for the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health in the Department of Health and Social Services, and, subsequently, chief-of-staff, where she developed statewide policies and programs to create greater access to treatment and expand capacity for mental health and substance use treatment. Cara was executive director of Victims’ Compensation Assistance Program in the Department of Justice, where she managed the administration of the program and provided education and training to police-based agencies, public and private social services, nonprofit agencies, and other medical and mental health providers. Cara also served as deputy principal assistant, Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families (DSCYF), assistant attorney general, Civil Division in the Department of Justice, and planning supervisor, domestic violence coordinating council. While working as a Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney, Cara focused on child abuse, domestic violence, and rape prosecutions.
Cara earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Scranton, her Master of Arts in women’s studies from the University College Cork, in Cork, Ireland, and her law degree from the Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law.