Education: J.D., University of Tulsa College of Law

Deanna Hartley-Kelso, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, has served as attorney general and administrator of the nation’s Division of Justice since 2001. Ms. Hartley-Kelso belongs to the Oklahoma Indian Bar Association, Native American Bar Association and the Federal Bar Association. She is a fellow of the College of the State Bar of the State of Texas, an organization that recognizes professionalism through education. In addition to serving on many Chickasaw Nation boards and committees, she is vice-chair and a previous chair of the Chickasaw Foundation Board of Trustees, a citizen appointee to the Arkansas Riverbed Authority, an occasional adjunct professor at East Central University, and a past volunteer of the North Texas Legal Services-American Indian Law Project.

Ms. Hartley-Kelso was appointed by Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry to the Oklahoma Juvenile Affairs Board and serves as its 2012 chair. She represented the Chickasaw Nation at the 2004 United Nations Working Group on the Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva, Switzerland.

Education: J.D., University of Oklahoma College of Law

Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Tulsa College of Law, G. William Rice (Keetoowah Cherokee) spent almost 18 years in private practice representing tribes and tribal entities. He successfully litigated cases in the federal courts including Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Sac and Fox Nation in the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as Attorney General for the Sac and Fox Nation and other tribes, Chief Justice of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Supreme Court Justice for the Sac and Fox and Kickapoo Nations in Kansas, and Assistant Chief of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma.

Mr. Rice taught in the former Antioch School of Law's Indian paralegal program, was a visiting professor in the University of Oklahoma’s Political Science Department and at Cornell Law School, and was founding director of the Northern Plains Tribal Judicial Training Institute at the University of North Dakota School of Law.

He teaches advanced Indian law and constitutional law courses at the University of Tulsa, where he was the founding director of the L.L.M program in American Indian and Indigenous Law and co-directs the Native American Law Center. Mr. Rice's casebook, Tribal Governmental Gaming Law, is the first law school-level casebook published for use in Indian gaming law classes.

Education: J.D., University of Missouri-Columbia

Korey Wahwassuck is a judge of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court and a Core, Domestic, and Parent/Adolescent Certified Mediator of the Kansas Supreme Court. Judge Wahwassuck practiced law for 15 years, specializing in Indian law, child welfare, and juvenile delinquency. She taught courses on Native American spirituality and sovereignty, treaty rights and tribal sovereignty, tribal court-state issues, and juvenile delinquency guidelines at Penn Valley Community College in Kansas City, MO, and Leech Lake Tribal College. Judge Wahwassuck is a past chair of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) Tribal Court Committee and a member of the NCJFCJ Tribal Leadership Forum. She is on the board of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals; chairs its Tribal Courts Committee, and served on the Drug Court Initiative Advisory Committee and Racial Fairness Committee of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Her publications include "The New Face of Justice: Joint Tribal-State Jurisdiction" for the Washburn Law Journal and "Building a Legacy of Hope: Perspectives on Joint Tribal-State Jurisdiction" for the William Mitchell Law Review. Judge Wahwassuck is an alumna of the National Judicial College and joined its faculty in 2008.

David D. Raasch, an enrolled member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, is a Tribal Program Specialist at Fox Valley Technical College’s Criminal Justice Center for Innovation (FVTC-CJCI), which provides technical assistance to Native American communities throughout U.S. He is a former police officer who for 20 years was the clerk of the municipal court for the City of Green Bay, WI. Mr. Raasch is an associate judge and past chief judge of his tribal court. He is on the faculty of the National Judicial College in Reno, NV; vice president of the board of directors of the Tribal Law and Policy Institute in West Hollywood, CA, and past president of the Wisconsin Tribal Judges' Association. He contributed to the production of Tribal Nations: The Story of Federal Indian Law, a 60-minute documentary.

Education: J.D., New Mexico School of Law

Abby Abinanti (Yurok), the Chief Judge of the Yurok Tribe, has been a member of the California State Bar since 1974. She retired from the San Francisco Superior Court Commission after serving 17 years in the Family Law Division. Judge Abinanti chairs the Tribal Law and Policy Institute and is a director of the Friendship House Association of American Indians of San Francisco, Inc. She is also a member of the California Tribal Court/State Court Forum who was commissioned by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron George.

William J. Denke chairs the California Tribal Police Chief’s Association and is chief of police for the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation. Mr. Denke worked closely with Sycuan’s tribal community to develop and implement its first peace and safety codes, vehicle codes, and pre-hazard mitigation emergency response plan.

In 2009, Mr. Denke was a subject matter expert for the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training during the development of Policing Indian Lands and Responding to Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Calls on Tribal Lands , two new training curricula for California peace officers. He received formal law enforcement training at the San Diego Regional Law Enforcement Training Center and advanced training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. He also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in liberal studies.

Education: B.S., Southern Nazarene University

George Thurman is in his second term as Principal Chief of the Sac and Fox Nation. He has been a member of the Sac and Fox Nation Business Committee since 2000 and previously served as tribal secretary. Mr. Thurman is the vice chairman and secretary of the Self Governance Communication & Education Tribal Consortium Board in Bellingham, WA; a member of National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and the alternate NCAI Area Vice-President of the Southern Plains Region. Mr. Thurman is also a member of the National Indian Education Association and a Department of the Interior Self Governance Advisory Committee Southern Plains Region alternate. He is on the board of the Central Tribes of the Shawnee Area and board secretary of the Inter-Tribal Monitoring Association. Chief Thurman is the Sac and Fox Nation Business Committee liaison to the tribe’s Historic Preservation Office, Education Department, Environmental Department, Self-Governance Department, Law and Order Committee, and Rodeo Committee. He is a member of Shawnee First Indian Baptist Church who resides in Shawnee, OK.

Education: J.D., University of New Mexico School of Law

Robert Medina, a member of the Pueblo of Zia, is an associate judge for the Pueblo of Isleta and a justice on the Southwest Intertribal Court of Appeals. Judge Medina was formerly the chief judge of the Pueblo of Zia and has been a pro-tem judge for the Pueblos of Tesuque, Laguna, and Isleta. He is the Tribal Co-Chair of the New Mexico Tribal-State Judicial Consortium and served on the boards of the Sandoval County DWI Task Force, New Mexico Behavior Health Local Collaborative 16, and the T’siya Elementary and Middle School Board. He is a two-term tribal councilman official for the Pueblo of Zia. Prior to entering law school Judge Medina worked in campus security and conducted corporate security investigations.