ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The University of New Mexico has announced the appointment of the first American Indian scholar to serve as dean of its law school.
Kevin K. Washburn, an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, has been named full professor of law and dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law. He will begin his tenure June 30.
His appointment was announced March 3 by University of New Mexico Provost Suzanne Ortega.
“Professor Washburn has deep roots in the New Mexico legal community and national experience in legal education. We are fortunate to have him return to the School of Law.”
Washburn began his legal education at UNM’s American Indian Law Center’s summer program and served as adjunct law professor there in 1998-1999.
“UNM School of Law has a talented and committed faculty, a diverse and dynamic student body, and a deep and devoted alumni base. I will be honored to serve this community,” Washburn said.
He teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, American Indian law, criminal law and procedure, gaming law and property.
He was selected for the UNM position after a national search.
He currently holds the position of Rosenstiel Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.
During the 2007-08 academic year, Washburn served as Oneida Nation Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he taught American Indian law, gaming law and first year criminal law. The position – the first chair in American Indian studies at Harvard University – was established and endowed by the Oneida Nation in 2003. [The nation owns Four Directions, Inc., which publishes Indian Country Today.]
From 2003-2007, he was associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School, earning tenure in 2006. He taught American Indian law, criminal law, administrative law, gaming law and property law.
Washburn graduated in 1993 from Yale Law School where he was an Arnold & Porter Scholar, and also served as editor in chief of the Yale Journal on Regulation.
He attended Washington University (St. Louis) School of Law in 1990-1991 as a Gustavus A. Buder Scholar, a full tuition scholarship.
After receiving his Juris Doctor, Washburn clerked for Judge William C. Canby Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
He joined the U.S. Department of Justice in 1994 through the Attorney General’s Honors Program and litigated cases involving Indian tribes, mostly in the context of environmental and natural resources law. He was later a federal prosecutor in New Mexico, where he primarily prosecuted violent crimes arising in Indian country and referred by the FBI.
Washburn served as general counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission, the independent federal regulatory agency that regulates Indian gaming nationwide.
In addition to his teaching and handling of numerous bench and jury trials in federal and state courts, and arguments in courts of appeal, Washburn has published a number of books, papers and articles, and has testified frequently before Congress.
He is a member of the Criminal Law and Procedure Drafting Committee of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, which is responsible for drafting questions of the Multistate Bar Examination, and serves on the Executive Committee of Board of Authors and Editors of Felix S. Cohen’s “Handbook of Federal Indian Law,” among other boards and committees.
