Pamela Metzger is a nationally recognized expert on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, public defense, and criminal legal ethics, and her research focuses on combining theory and practice to improve the criminal legal system. Professor Metzger oversees the Deason Center’s independent research on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, criminal legal systems in rural communities, prosecutorial discretion, and early-stage criminal procedure.
Metzger joined SMU in 2017 after teaching at Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans for 16 years. Metzger’s work has appeared in publications such as the Yale Law Journal, George Washington Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and Southern California Law Review, and has been cited by leading authorities and by the United States Supreme Court. From 2001 to 2008 she directed Tulane’s Criminal Litigation Clinic, becoming a leading voice in reforming the criminal justice system in Louisiana. When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, she fought tirelessly to help 8,000 indigent defendants left incarcerated without legal representation.
After receiving her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and her JD from New York University School of Law, Metzger served as an assistant federal defender in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and worked in private criminal practice in New York City. She was also a visiting law professor at Washington and Lee University, where she directed the Alderson Legal Clinic for Women in Prison.
