Pamela Dru Sutton

Panama City, Florida, family law and elder law attorney
Attorney Pamela Dru Sutton has practiced law in state and federal courts and before administrative agencies for over 30 years and has the highest peer review rating from Martindale-Hubbell.

The current focus of Pam’s practice is in the areas of family law and estate-planning, probate, and elder law. She has found that assisting families can have a multi-generational dimension and that it is helpful to clients to have expertise in each of these areas. Pam provides family court representation and support to the surrounding Panama City communities.

Pam Sutton was born in New York City and graduated from Glen Cove High School in Glen Cove, NY.

Pam attended Radcliffe College, Harvard University, graduating with a B.A. degree cum laude. After working for the City of New York, she attained a J.D. degree from Brooklyn Law School where she served as Associate Editor of the Law Review.

During law school, Pam Sutton interned with the ACLU Children’s Rights Project, beginning her career-long history of commitment to the rights of children and families. While still in law school, she worked for a New York City law firm focusing on criminal defense and family law, and co-authored the brief for the successful appellants in a New York State case invalidating restrictions on the rights of older couples to adopt children.

An article Pam wrote for the Brooklyn Law Review on the fundamental rights of families in foster care adjudications has been cited as an authority in the Florida Bar publication on juvenile law and practice.

Pam Sutton worked for Legal Services of Northwest Florida in their first Panama City office, and then opened her own practice, focusing on civil litigation, civil rights, and family court representation and administrative law, before forming the firm of Stone & Sutton. During this time, she assisted in the preparation of two amicus curiae briefs to the United States Supreme Court on issues relating to the rights of parents.

Pam worked as a part-time Assistant Public Defender for the 14th Circuit of Florida for almost 10 years, representing clients in felony cases and working with law partner Mike Stone on capital murder cases. She co-authored two chapters of the Florida Public Defender Association Death Penalty Manual and served on the death penalty steering committees of both the Florida Public Defender Association and the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Pam Sutton has represented clients in all aspects of family law litigation including family court representation and on-going support. She represented the winning party in a Florida Supreme Court case concerning the right of spouses to receive military retirement benefits. She served for many years as counsel for the Panama City adoption services office of the Children’s Home Society of Florida.

Pam currently serves on the Bay County Circuit Court Family Law Bench-Bar Committee.

Pam Sutton has lectured at conferences sponsored by the Florida Public Defender’s Association and by the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. With law partner Mike Stone, she was featured on CBS-TV’s “48 Hours” news program for winning the acquittal of a teenager suffering from Battered Child Syndrome who was charged with first degree murder in the shooting death of his father.

Pam was a principal presenter at a seminar for U.S. Navy and Marine JAG Officers at Camp LeJeune, NC, and was invited to lecture on family law and elder law to JAG Officers at Tyndall Air Force Base.

She taught a semester-long course on law and social policy at the Panama City campus of FSU. She taught the unit on constitutional law for a Bay High School law studies course, gave a training on child abuse reporting to local teachers, and has given talks on elder law topics at nursing homes in the Panama City area.

Pam Sutton is admitted to practice in the state courts of Florida and New York; the U.S. Tax Court; the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida; and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Pam is the recipient of the Florida State Guardian Ad Litem attorney pro bono award for her work on behalf of children and families and was named Woman of the Year by the Bay County Chapter of the National Organization for Women for her community work.