Emily Pelphrey ’99

Emily joined Denison University’s Knowlton Center in 2021 as the pre-law advisor after spending 15 years as a practicing attorney. She earned her BS in Psychology from Denison University and her JD, cum laude, from Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts. She is dual barred in Ohio and Massachusetts.

Prior to rejoining the Denison community, she worked as a criminal prosecutor at the County, State, and Federal levels. She conducted jury trials throughout Ohio and has had some of her trials featured in the media, including Dateline, American Justice, and various programs on the Oxygen network. She was a member of the Craigslist Serial Murder Investigation/Prosecution Team that received the Ohio Attorney General’s Distinguished Law Enforcement Group Achievement Award.

She was part of a multi-disciplinary team responsible for training law enforcement, prosecutors, nurses, and victim advocates on how to investigate sexual assault and child exploitation cases. She conducted classes at OPOTA (Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission and Academy) on how to investigate infant and child homicides.

She sat as a member of the Ohio Child Fatality Review Board, the Ohio Human Trafficking Commission, was a co-chair of the Ohio Attorney General’s Criminal Justice and Mental Health Task Force (Juvenile Justice Committee & Pandemic Response Committee), a member of the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect, and various other professional memberships. In addition to her criminal law practice, she practiced administrative law and represented the Ohio Board of Nursing and the Ohio Medical Board, presenting evidence of licensee misconduct. She has served as a legal expert/commentator for local news media and is currently working with Carol Costello, a former CNN anchor, on a podcast titled Blind Rage.