Kevin Washburn to be 2016 NITA Keynote

Here (Kevin Washburn Press Release 8-8-2016):

NITA is pleased to announce Kevin Washburn, Professor of Law, University of New Mexico School of Law as this year’s Keynote .

Dean Kevin Washburn
Dean Kevin Washburn (Photo by Mark Holm © 2011_for UNM School of Law)

Keynote Speaker.  Kevin Washburn is currently a law professor, and was previously the dean, of the UNM School of Law.  Washburn previously served as the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the Obama Administration in Washington, D.C. from 2012 through the end of 2015. In that role, he was the highest ranking official in charge of federal Indian policy for the United States government, overseeing the Bureaus of Indian Affairs and Indian Education, together consisting of more than 8000 employees, and executed a budget of roughly $2.8 Billion. He also testified approximately thirty times before Congressional Committees and worked on a daily basis with the White House. He also appeared several times before the United Nations in Geneva to defend our nation’s adherence to international treaties.

Washburn graduated from Yale Law School, and has been a trial attorney at the Department of Justice in Washington and a federal prosecutor in New Mexico. He also served as the general counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission, a federal regulatory agency in Washington, D.C.  As an academic, he has taught law at the University of Arizona, the University of Minnesota and Harvard Law School. He also has several books to his name, and is a co-author/co-editor of the Cohen Handbook.

Washburn began his legal education in 1990 at the Pre-Law Summer Institute at the University of New Mexico. He is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.

NITA is honored and pleased to have Kevin Washburn as the keynote speaker for this year’s conference.  Additional conference details and registration information can be found on NITA’s website at:  http://intertribaltaxalliance.org/