Professional Profile

Since assuming office, District Attorney Mark Powell has made impactful changes to professionalize the DA’s Office and improve the capabilities and effectiveness of prosecutors and law enforcement officers across the county. His accomplishments as DA include a host of new policies, procedures and protocols designed to improve the Criminal Justice System in Lackawanna County and keep our communities safe.

Powell has made the opioid crisis his top priority, taking a multifaceted approach to combatting the problem by instituting aggressive drug enforcement efforts against traffickers and street-level dealers; creating a Fresh Start Program to get lower-level offenders into treatment instead of having a criminal record; aggressively investigating every overdose death and prosecuting those responsible for supplying the deadly drugs; prosecuting pill-pushing doctors; securing a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to study the root causes of overdose deaths in Lackawanna County and propose effective solutions; and co-chairing the Lackawanna Recovery Coalition, a multidisciplinary community group that provides community awareness, education, treatment, prevention and harm reduction programs. 

Powell also spearheaded the formation of the Lackawanna County Safe Schools Coalition to open the lines of communication between law enforcement and school administrators to identify and respond rapidly to school safety threats. Read Powell’s Guest Op-Ed in The Times-Tribune About the Safe Schools Coalition.

Powell has also become heavily involved with the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association where he has used his teaching skills to help train prosecutors across the state in various aspects of criminal trial advocacy. In his first term in office, Powell was elected to the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Institute, which is the educational and training arm of the PDAA. It is an honor rarely bestowed on a first-term DA. Involvement in the PDAA has plugged Powell into a statewide network of top prosecutors across the state who share information, strategies and tactics. The relationships he has formed and connections he has made with members of the PDAA have helped Powell become a more effective District Attorney.

In addition to training other prosecutors across the state, Powell devotes a great deal of time to teaching and mentoring younger prosecutors in the DA’s Office. Prior to becoming DA, Powell co-chaired the Lackawanna County Bench Bar Conference for seven years and remains active on the LBA’s Education Committee. He has lectured extensively on trial advocacy, jury selection, evidence, expert testimony, focus groups and high-tech exhibits, among other topics, in multiple forums. Most notably, he has been a longtime instructor for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, where he teaches trial lawyers from across the United States. In 2016, NITA awarded him the Teaching Excellence Award at the Advanced Trial Advocacy Program in Washington, D.C.

Prior to being elected DA, Powell spent 27 years in private practice as one of Lackawanna County’s top criminal and civil trial attorneys. He earned his undergraduate degree from Villanova University and his law degree from Catholic University School of Law. After practicing for several years, he chose to go back to school and obtain a Master of Laws in Trial Advocacy from Temple University where he graduated with honors. 

While in private practice, Powell obtained many professional accolades, including the rare distinction of being a Board-Certified Trial Specialist in both Criminal Law and Civil Law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. For 12 years, he served as a Hearing Committee member for the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board where he made recommendations for sanctions against lawyers who had violated ethical standards. He is a past president of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association and was a recipient of the group’s annual Lawrence W. Roth Award for Exemplary Character and Compassion for Victims.

The son of the late Christopher T. Powell Sr., a legendary Lackawanna County trial lawyer, Powell recalls accompanying his father as a child to visit clients in jail and sitting around the dinner table listening to his father talk about cases he was pursuing. His grandfather, the late James J. Powell Sr., who founded the family law firm in Scranton, served as First Assistant District Attorney under District Attorney Michael J. Eagen, who went on to become the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

“For as long I can remember, I wanted to be a prosecutor,” said Powell. “Serving as the District of Lackawanna County truly is my dream job. I literally wake up every day and can’t wait to get to work.”