Contact Information
Professor Pamela Foohey specializes in bankruptcy, commercial law, consumer finance, and business law. Her work primarily involves empirical studies of bankruptcy and related parts of the legal system, combining quantitative and qualitative, interview-based research. She is a co-investigator on the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a long-term research project studying persons who file bankruptcy. The results of this research have been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times, Financial Times, NPR, The Washington Post, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Professor Foohey’s work in business bankruptcy focuses on non-profit entities, with a particular emphasis on how churches and other religious organizations use bankruptcy. The results of this research likewise have been featured in media outlets such as Bloomberg, CBS News Moneywatch, and Reveal. Her two in-progress book projects, forthcoming with University of Chicago Press and University of California Press, draw on data from these two research projects.
She is a co-author for Secured Transactions: A Systems Approach, a leading textbook on the topic. She has assisted members of Congress and federal and state agencies in the areas of bankruptcy and consumer credit. Professor Foohey also is a contributor to the blog Credit Slips, a discussion on credit, finance, and bankruptcy.
Professor Foohey is a member of the American Law Institute, the past chair of several Association of American Law Schools (AALS) sections, and is on the executive committees of several other AALS Sections. She is a co-organizer of the Law & Society Association's Household Finance CRN, serves on the editorial advisory board of the Law & Society Review, and recently completed a three-year appointment to the editorial advisory board of the American Bankruptcy Law Journal, a peer-reviewed academic law review published by the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. She also is an active member of the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI). She has served as part of the ABI Diversity Working Group since its formation. In 2019, the ABI named her a “40 Under 40” Emerging Leader in Insolvency Practice.
Professor Foohey joined the Cardozo School of Law in 2021 from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where she chaired the Center for Law, Society & Culture’s advisory board. Prior to teaching, Professor Foohey clerked for the Honorable Thomas L. Ambro of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, worked as an associate in the Bankruptcy and Financial Restructuring Group of Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Minneapolis, and clerked for the Honorable Peter J. Walsh of the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
Featured Scholarship
Silencing Litigation Through Bankruptcy
109 Virginia Law Review 1261 (2023) (with Christopher K. Odinet)
85 Law and Contemporary Problems 101 (2022) (with Sara S. Greene)
Portraits of Bankruptcy Filers
56 Georgia Law Review 573 (2022) (with Robert M. Lawless & Deborah Thorne)
Steering Loan Modifications Post-Pandemic
85 Law & Contemporary Problems 201 (2022) (with Dalié Jiménez & Christopher K. Odinet)
Bursting the Auto Loan Bubble in the Wake of COVID-19
106 Iowa Law Review 2215 (2021)
11 California Law Review Online 222 (2020) (with Dalié Jiménez & Christopher K. Odinet)
55 Wake Forest Law Review 287 (2020) (with Robert M. Lawless & Deborah Thorne)
Graying of U.S. Bankruptcy: Fallout from Life in a Risk Society
90 Sociological Inquiry 681 (2020) (with Robert M. Lawless, Katherine Porter & Deborah Thorne)
A New Deal for Debtors: Providing Procedural Justice in Consumer Bankruptcy
60 Boston College Law Review 2297 (2019)
94 Notre Dame Law Review 219 (2018) (with Robert M. Lawless, Katherine Porter & Deborah Thorne)
90 Southern California Law Review 1055 (2017) (with Robert M. Lawless, Katherine Porter & Deborah Thorne)
Lender Discrimination, Black Churches, and Bankruptcy
50 Houston Law Review 101 (2017)
When Faith Falls Short: Bankruptcy Decisions of Churches
76 Ohio State Law Journal 1319 (2015)
78 Missouri Law Review 719 (2013)