University of Georgia School of Law Professor Pamela Foohey presented her forthcoming co-authored book Debt’s Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy (University of California Press, 2025) as part of the panel “The Effects of Insecurity in Times of Crisis” at the Society of the Advancement of Socio-Economics annual conference held in Montreal during July. This year’s conference is entitled “Inclusive Solidarities: Reimagining Boundaries in Divided Times.”

Foohey joined Georgia Law faculty as a full professor in 2024. She currently holds the Allen Post Professorship and teaches Bankruptcy, Secured Transactions and a Bankruptcy Practice Seminar. Specializing in bankruptcy, commercial law, consumer finance and business law, Foohey’s scholarship primarily involves empirical studies of bankruptcy and related parts of the legal system. She presently is a co-investigator on the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a long-term research project studying persons who file bankruptcy. Data from this project serve as the basis of her co-authored book Debt’s Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy, University of California Press (Aug. 5, 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.