Vera Institute of Justice

Pamela Metzger is the inaugural Director of the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center and is a Professor of Law in the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in Dallas, Texas. She comes to SMU from Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans, where she has taught since 2001. She captured a national spotlight for her round-the-clock work to help 8,000 indigent defendants left incarcerated without legal representation after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. From 2001 to 2008, she directed the Tulane Law School Criminal Litigation Clinic, where she became a leading voice in reforming the criminal justice system in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana. She has 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 has been a visiting law professor at Washington and Lee University, where she directed the Alderson Legal Clinic for Women in Prison.