Professor

Pamela

Foohey

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. The results of this research likewise have been featured in media outlets such as Bloomberg, CBS News Moneywatch, and Reveal. She is the co-author of Debt's Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy, University of California Press (2025), which draws on data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project. Her most recent book, Forgive Us Our Debts: How Black Churches Use Bankruptcy to Survive, University of Chicago Press (2026), focuses on churches' reorganization cases.

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 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 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 University of Minnesota Law School in fall 2026 from the University of Georgia School of Law. Prior to joining UGA Law, she was a professor of law at Cardozo Law and 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.