Patricia Perkins has expertise in and teaches courses addressing the rights of incarcerated people, civil rights litigation and the law of section 1983, constitutional law, and civil procedure. 

Her research and teaching interests include state and federal constitutional issues involving solitary confinement and methods of execution, legal vehicles for litigating state constitutional claims, and international law and comparative law perspectives on conditions of confinement, with particular focus on the Constitution and laws of South Africa. 

Perkins leads students in travel to South Africa as part of her Prisoners’ Rights course. She represented death row inmates raising Eighth Amendment challenges to lethal injection in litigation that included briefing in the United States Supreme Court. Perkins is a past Chair of the Constitutional Rights and Responsibilities Section of the North Carolina Bar Association.

At Elon Law, Perkins coordinates the Mock Trial Program and serves as an advisor to the Advocacy Fellows Program. She has taught courses in pretrial litigation, trial advocacy, and legal method and communication, and has coached the school’s trial teams. In addition, Perkins taught in the leadership curriculum, including the Public Law and Leadership course, and is a certified MBTI practitioner.

Prior to joining the law faculty, Perkins was a civil litigator with Smith, Helms, Mullis, & Moore LLP and Smith Moore LLP (now Fox Rothschild LLP) in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she litigated section 1983 claims involving law enforcement, jails, and prisons, as well as complex commercial disputes. She left her litigation practice to serve as the chief operating officer of Master Key Consulting, an information technology services firm headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.

Perkins graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Law where she was a member of the mock trial team and moot court board and was selected for membership in Order of the Coif. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree, with a major in history, magna cum laude, from Davidson College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.