Kevin K. Washburn is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. His research explores the way federal law and policy works, and sometimes fails, for tribal nations in the United States. He has spent his entire career working in federal public service or public higher education. He seeks to improve the federal Indian law and policy landscape through his scholarship and service; he has made impacts in relation to criminal justice in Indian country, Indian gaming, and indigenous conservation. He has published several law review articles, law school casebooks, and is the co-editor-in-chief of Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law.
Prior to joining the Berkeley Law community, Professor Washburn served as the dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law (2009-2012) and the University of Iowa College of Law (2018-2024). He previously served as a professor at the law schools of the University of Minnesota and the University of Arizona. His federal service includes serving as a law clerk to Judge Williams C. Canby, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, as an Honors Program attorney in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C., as a federal prosecutor in Indian country in New Mexico, and as the third general counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission in Washington, D.C. In 2012, he was appointed by President Barack Obama and was confirmed unanimously by the Senate to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior, a position in which he oversaw the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education, and several other federal offices related to policy regarding tribal nations. He served in that role until 2016.
Professor Washburn has also been widely involved in service to legal education and the bar, serving as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Law School Admission Council, on the American Bar Association Accreditation Committee, and on the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools. He has also served the National Conference of Bar Examiners for 20 years drafting criminal law and procedure questions for the Multistate Bar Exam and the Next Gen Bar Exam.
Professor Washburn is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and spent most of his childhood living within or near the tribe’s reservation in Oklahoma. He has degrees from the University of Oklahoma and the Yale Law School. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Education
B.A., University of Oklahoma (1989)
J.D., Yale Law School (1993)