Pamela Harris

Of Counsel

Pamela Harris is Of Counsel in O’Melveny’s Washington, DC office, where she works on Supreme Court and appellate litigation.  Pam's practice focuses on public interest litigation, with representative matters including:

• Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (pending in Supreme Court), a First Amendment case involving the right of a religious group to display a monument in a city park that already contains a monument to the Ten Commandments;
• Herring v. United States (pending in Supreme Court), representing the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as amicus in a Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule case;
• Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. ___ (2007), defending public school districts’ voluntary integration efforts under the Equal Protection Clause;
• Rumsfeld v. FAIR, 547 U.S. 47 (2006), a Free Speech challenge to a statute withholding federal funds from law schools that apply their anti-discrimination rules to deny access to military recruiters; and
• Colorado Christian University v. Baker (pending in Tenth Circuit), defending a state statute limiting public funding of pervasively sectarian colleges and universities.

Pam is a Lecturer at the Harvard Law School, as Co-Director of the Harvard Law School Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Clinic. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where she teaches a first-year class in Criminal Justice.

Pam is a frequent speaker on constitutional law, criminal procedure, and the legal profession. She has spoken recently before such groups as the American Constitution Society, the Federalist Society, the ACLU, the Constitution Project, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Pam has also mediated cases as part of the DC Circuit’s mediation program.

Before joining the firm, Pam was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she specialized in constitutional criminal procedure and the law of church and state. From 1993 to 1996, Pam worked in the Office of Legal Counsel at the US Department of Justice.

Professional Activities

Law Clerk, Honorable John Paul Stevens, US Supreme Court; Honorable Harry T. Edwards, US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit
Member, Board of Directors, American Constitution Society; Co-Chair, Amicus Committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; Georgetown University Law Center Supreme Court Institute Advisory Board