Assistant Professor of Law
Biography
Pammela Quinn Saunders’ scholarly interests are focused on the ways that complex interactions among institutions and actors affect one another and contribute to the enforcement of legal rules and norms. She is particularly interested in the enforcement of international legal norms through overlapping and integrated actions undertaken at both the international and domestic levels.
Professor Saunders’ scholarly work has been published in the Emory Law Journal and the Duke Law Journal. Her most recent article, “The Integrated Enforcement of Human Rights,” is scheduled to appear in a forthcoming issue of the New York University Journal of International Law and Politics.
Before joining the faculty, Professor Saunders was an attorney-adviser in the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, where she received a Meritorious Honor Award. At the State Department, she represented the United States in commercial arbitrations, real property transactions and diplomatic property disputes around the globe. Previously, she was counsel at O’Melveny & Meyers LLP in Washington, where she was a member of the appellate and Supreme Court practice group. In this capacity, she drafted dozens of briefs on diverse topics, including international, foreign relations, education and intellectual property law.
She received her J.D. from Duke University School of Law, where she was executive editor of the Duke Law Journal and a member of the Moot Court Board. At graduation, Professor Saunders received the Willis Smith Award for having earned the highest academic average in her class and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.
After clerking for Judge Paul V. Niemeyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, she was a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the Solicitor General of the U.S. Department of Justice.