Faculty/Staff ProfileTitle

Pathmanathan joined the University of Baltimore School of Law faculty in 2026. Prior to joining the law school, she was an Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School, where she taught in the criminal justice related clinics of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization as a fellow. Before that appointment, she was an Assistant Professor of Legal Writing at St. John's University School of Law and an Adjunct Professor of Clinical Law at Brooklyn Law School.

Before entering academia full-time, Pathmanathan spent a decade in practice as a public interest lawyer. Her areas of expertise include criminal procedure, criminal law, evidence, and appellate advocacy. She served as a Senior Appellate Counsel for the Center for Appellate Litigation, where she litigated criminal appeals and post-conviction matters on behalf of indigent individuals convicted of state crimes; as a Program Associate for the Vera Institute of Justice, where she provided technical assistance for programs supporting individuals facing deportation and removal proceedings; and as a Staff Attorney for the Legal Aid Society of New York, where she represented indigent individuals facing criminal allegations as a trial public defender in state court.

Pathmanathan's scholarship interrogates the doctrines, procedures, and principles that shape the American criminal legal system from the investigative stages of a criminal case through the trials and subsequent appeals. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the American Criminal Law Review, Georgia Criminal Law Review, The Harbinger of the N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change, and International Criminal Law Review, as well as in the New York Law Journal.

She is a member of the New York and Connecticut bars, and earned her J.D. from Boston College Law School and B.A. from New York University.