Justice, the Law, and Storytelling: A Conversation with Yurok Chief Judge Abby Abinanti and New Yorker Journalist Sarah Stillman

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Join us for a lunchtime panel discussion with the Honorable Abby Abinanti and staff writer at The New Yorker Sarah Stillman.

Judge Abby Abinanti

The Honorable Abby Abinanti, is the Yurok Chief Judge,  an enrolled Yurok Tribal member, and the first California Tribal woman to be admitted to the State Bar of California. She served as the State Judicial Officer (Commissioner) for the San Francisco Superior Court  Unified Family Court for over 17 years, retiring in 2011 (although in 2014 she was reappointed as a part-time Commissioner and Duty Judge assigned to the Dependency Court where she served until 2015). She has been a Yurok Tribal Court Judge since 1997 and was appointed Chief Tribal Court Judge in 2007, a position she held in conjunction with her Superior Court assignment until 2015. She holds a J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law, and has been widely recognized for her advocacy work including work with the Yurok Wellness Court and restorative justice. She was recently featured  in the documentary “Tribal Justice”and in Hilary and Chelsea Clinton’s docuseries “Gusty.” Judge Abby has also received the Federal Bar Association’s  illustrious Lawrence R. Baca Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Indigenous law, and was recently recognized by the California  State Legislature as the 2023 North Coast Woman of the Year.

Sara Stillman

Sarah Stillman is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She teaches journalism at Yale and runs the Yale Investigative Reporting Lab, a non-profit newsroom creating new models for public-interest coverage of climate change, criminal law, migration, and more.

Sponsored by:

Criminal Law & Justice Center
Center for Indigenous Law & Justice