Minnesota Law Welcomes Pamela Foohey to the Faculty in 2026

The University of Minnesota Law School is thrilled to announce that Pamela Foohey will join the faculty as professor of law in fall 2026. Foohey is currently the Allen Post Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law, where she is a scholar of bankruptcy law, commercial law, and consumer finance. Her research primarily involves empirical studies of bankruptcy and related parts of the legal systems, combining quantitative and qualitative techniques.  

Foohey presently serves as a co-investigator on the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a long-term research project studying persons who file bankruptcy. Data from this research project serve as the basis of her co-authored book Debt’s Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy, University of California Press (Aug. 2025). Her work in business bankruptcy focuses on nonprofit entities, with a particular emphasis on how religious organizations use bankruptcy. Data from this project are included in her in-progress book Forgive Us Our Debts: How Black Churches Use Bankruptcy to Survive, forthcoming with the University of Chicago Press. She is also a co-author of a leading textbook in secured transactions. She has published extensively in law journals and peer-reviewed journals on topics related to consumer bankruptcy, auto loans, and other consumer credit, as well as mass torts in business bankruptcy.  

Foohey is a member of the American Law Institute and the American College of Bankruptcy. She is a co-organizer of the Law & Society Association’s Household Finance Collaborative Research Network and has served as the chair of several Association of American Law Schools sections. In 2019, the American Bankruptcy Institute named her a “40 Under 40” Emerging Leader in Insolvency Practice. She was previously part of the faculty of Cardozo School of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, and the University of Illinois College of Law. While at these institutions, she was honored with several teaching awards. Prior to entering academia, Foohey served as a judicial clerk for Judge Thomas L. Ambro of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Judge Peter J. Walsh of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. She also worked as an associate in the Bankruptcy and Financial Restructuring Group of Dorsey & Whitney in Minneapolis. Foohey earned a B.S. summa cum laude from New York University’s undergraduate Stern School of Business and a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School.

Welcome, Professor Foohey!