Kelly Pfeifer
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Biography
Kelly Pfeifer is an assistant professor (teaching) of law at Wayne State University Law School. She teaches principally in the law school’s non-J.D. programs, including the Master of Laws, the Master of Studies in Law, and the undergraduate Minor in Law and new Bachelor of Arts in Law programs.
Prior to joining the faculty at Wayne Law, Pfeifer completed a four-year clinical teaching fellowship in the University of Michigan Law School's Community Enterprise Clinic. She co-taught the clinic’s seminar, which was largely based on legal skills such as interviewing, counseling, cross-cultural lawyering, and drafting transactional documents, and also included topics related to community and economic development. Additionally, she supervised student attorneys’ representation of neighborhood-based entrepreneurs and small businesses in the city of Detroit.
Prior to teaching, Pfeifer practiced at Community Law Center, Inc., a public interest law firm in Baltimore, Maryland. As supervising attorney, she counseled nonprofit organizations in a variety of transactional matters including entity choice, organizational documents, tax exemption applications and compliance, capacity building, employment matters, and contracts. She also advocated for community-based nonprofits in land use and equitable development matters by appearing before administrative agencies and negotiating community benefits agreements with developers.
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Degrees and Certifications
J.D., University of Maryland School of Law
Certificate in Environmental Law, University of Maryland School of Law
B.S., Purdue University
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Publications of Note
Gowri J. Krishna, Kelly Pfeifer, and Dana Thompson, Caring for the Souls of our Students: The Evolution of a Community Economic Development Clinic During Turbulent Times, 28 CLIN. L. REV. 243 (2021).
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Recent courses taught
Winter Term 2025 (future)
Fall Term 2024 (current)
Winter Term 2024
Fall Term 2023