Pamela Foohey

Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University
Professor Pamela Foohey’s research centers on bankruptcy, commercial law, and consumer law. Her work primarily involves empirical studies of bankruptcy and related parts of the legal system, combining quantitative and qualitative, interview-based research. Her 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 have been featured in media outlets such as the New York Times, Bloomberg, CBS News Moneywatch, and Reveal. Professor Foohey also is a co-investigator on the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a long-term research project studying persons who file bankruptcy which has been the leading empirical study of consumer bankruptcy for the past 35 years. The results of this research likewise have been featured in top media outlets, including the New York Times, NPR, U.S. News & World Report, and the Washington Post.

Professor Foohey joined the Maurer faculty in 2014 after two years as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Law. She currently serves as chair of the Center for Law, Society & Culture’s advisory board. In 2017, she received the Gavel Award for outstanding contribution to the graduating class; and in 2018, she received the IU Trustees' Teaching Award for excellence in teaching. Professor Foohey is a past chair of the Commercial and Related Consumer Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS); the current chair-elect of the AALS Section on Creditors’ and Debtors’ Rights; a current member of the executive committees of the AALS Sections on Commercial and Related Consumer Law, Law and the Social Sciences, and Real Estate Transactions; and a co-chair of the Law and Society Association’s Household Finance Collaborative Research Network.

Prior to teaching, she 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. Professor Foohey received a Bachelor of Science degree Summa cum Laude from New York University’s undergraduate Stern School of Business, where she majored in economics and finance, and a J.D. cum Laude from Harvard Law School, from which she also received a post-graduate research fellowship.