Pamela Izvănariu

Pamela Izvănariu

Professor of Law
Sacramento
Email Address:
pizvanariu@pacific.edu
Phone Number:
916.644.8990
Dr. Pamela Izvănariu is a Professor of Law and Public Policy at McGeorge School of Law. She joined the faculty at McGeorge in 2024. As a legal and sociological scholar, she uses historical, legal, and empirical methodologies to investigate both historical and contemporary questions on law, labor, inequality, and social movements. At one end, her research examines the unrecognized movement lawyering, mobilization, and empirical methods of John P. Davis as he exposed and challenged discriminatory labor and employment law in the early New Deal. At the other, it explores the impact of platform-based companies, automated decision systems, artificial intelligence, and emerging platform-based worker law and AI regulation on the lives of workers in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe.
 
Dr. Izvănariu’s work has been published in top-tier law review and peer-reviewed journals, including The American Journal of Comparative Law, Michigan Journal on Race & Law, Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She is completing a book manuscript on platform-based ride-hail work to be published by University of California Press. The book draws on long term, interdisciplinary ethnographic research in South Florida.
 
Currently in her sixteenth year of teaching, Dr. Izvǎnariu has previously been recognized for her work as an educator by the Kennedy Center, which awarded her the Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award, a grant that publicly recognizes American teachers by spotlighting their impact on the lives of students.
 
Prior to joining McGeorge, Dr. Izvǎnariu served as an Assistant Professor of Law and Sociology at the University of Dayton, Director and faculty member of Florida International University’s Research Institute for Social and Economic Policy, and Director of Research and Development and faculty member at University of California, Los Angeles’ Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.
Education

PhD, Sociology, City University New York, The Graduate Center
LLM, International and Comparative Law & Critical Race Theory, University of California, Los Angeles School of Law
JD, Loyola University of Chicago School of Law
BA, English, DePaul University

Teaching Interests
  • Criminal Law
  • Family Law
  • Critical Race Theory
  • Law and Society
  • Law and Social Movements
  • Labor and Employment Law
Research Focus

Selected Publications

Pamela A. Izvănariu, Automated Decision Systems, Artificial Intelligence & Work Law in the United States, 74 American Journal of Comparative Law. i208 (2026).

John P. Davis and the Joint Committee, MICHIGAN JOURNAL OF RACE AND LAW 29, no. 2 (2025): 217-292.

El trabajo mediante plataformas digitales desde una perspectiva crítica y comparada (Digital Platform Work from a Critical and Comparative Perspective),with Federico Rosenbaum Carli: in TEORÍA CRÍTICA DEL DERECHO Y JUSTICIA SOCIAL EN LAS AMÉRICAS (Critical Legal Theory and Social Justice in the Americas), edited by Hugo Rojas Corral and Sheila I. Vélez Martínez (UAH Publicaciones) (2024): 462-489. 

>Contesting Racial Wages, GEORGETOWN JOURNAL ON POVERTY LAW & POLICY Vol. 30, Issue III (2023): 437-498. 

>Plataformas digitales y el derecho del trabajo: un análisis comparativo y una guía para el futuro. (Digital Platforms and Labor Law: A Comparative Analysis and Guide for the Future.) With Federico Rosenbaum Carli, REVISTA JURÍDICA DEL TRABAJO (Labor Law Review) 3, no. 8 (2022): 118-175.

Afterword: Lesson from the Nordic model - The US perspective, with Jerome Lieberman, in SUSTAINABLE MODERNITY: THE NORDIC MODEL AND BEYOND, edited by Nina Witoszek and Atle Midttun, Routledge. (2018): 229-236. 

>Matters Settled but Not Resolved: Worker Misclassification in the Rideshare Sector, 66 DEPAUL LAW REVIEW (2016): 133-173. 

>The Development of Sectoral Worker Center Networks, with Hector Cordero-Guzman and Victor Narro. THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, Vol. 647, Reconsidering the Urban Disadvantaged: The Role of Systems, Institutions, and Organizations (MAY 2013): 102-123.