Hon. Pat Sekaquaptewa
Justice, Hopi Appellate Court
Consultant, Tribal Law & Policy Institute
B.A., Stanford University, 1990
J.D., Boalt Hall (University of California at Berkeley), 1995
Pat Sekaquaptewa works as a legal consultant with the Tribal Law & Policy Institute
in West Hollywood, CA.»She also presently serves as a tribal judge, arbitrator, and
mediator in a number of tribal communities.»She is currently a sitting justice on
the Hopi high court.»More recently she served as the Executive Director of the Nakwatsvewat
Institute, a non-profit that established and operates an innovative tribal community
mediation program on the Hopi reservation in Arizona.»Formerly she was the Director
of the UCLA Native Nations Law and Policy Center and its Tribal Legal Development
Clinic.»At UCLA, she provided instruction in, and supervised legal clinical projects
on, tribal constitution and statutory drafting, and in tribal court development nationally.»She
continues to train and supervise UCLA law student clerks for the Hopi Appellate Court.»She
also taught Federal Indian Law, Tribal Legal Development, and National Building at
UCLA and UC Berkeley.»Previously, she worked for the law firm of Alexander & Karshmer,
which represents American Indian tribes, Alaska Native villages, and inter-tribal
organizations.»Recently, she moved to Fairbanks, Alaska to continue her work with
the Native village sovereigns there on their tribal court development efforts – and
to support her husband in his work as a family practice doctor at the Tanana Valley
Clinic.