American Indian Law Center, Inc.

06/19/2026

Proud to know Laura Dorn (PLSI JCP 2025)!

We're excited to kick off our student highlights for summer 2026! Over the next several weeks we'll share a snapshot of NALS students who are doing great legal work this summer.

Up first, Laura Dorn (Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians), 3L. Laura will be working for the Hennepin County Public Defender's Office as a Law Clerk.

06/05/2026

This summer, we are hosting a Friday Speakers series exclusively for PLSI students to learn more about contemporary and relevant legal topics.

06/01/2026

Barbara Blumenfeld is a Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico School of Law. She has taught PLSI Advocacy several summers and looks forward to returning this year.

At UNM she designed and directed the first-year legal reasoning and writing curriculum. She also created and managed the New Mexico Court of Appeals Advocacy Tournament which comprised a
significant capstone event for first year students. In addition to teaching in the 1L program, Prof. Blumenfeld also taught upper-level advocacy. Her research often focused on methods of teaching
thinking as part of the writing process and she has published and presented several papers on teaching critical and creative thinking in the legal context. She has also coached several successful moot court teams and continues to give presentations on effective legal writing to practicing attorneys and the judiciary.

Professor Blumenfeld began her legal career in Michigan where she practiced primarily as a personal injury lawyer and litigated complex cases involving medical malpractice, products liability, and employment discrimination. She has practiced in Michigan, New Mexico, and federal courts at both the trial and appellate level.

When she is not reading or writing about legal concepts, Professor Blumenfeld enjoys other forms of writing as well as designing and creating flamenco dance costumes, and studying Russian language, history, and literature. She is an avid Detroit Tigers baseball fan.

06/01/2026

Professor Paul Figueroa brings extensive private- and public-sector practice experience to the classroom. Most recently, he served as a foreign service officer and legal advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Guatemala.

Prior to that appointment, Professor Figueroa worked as an attorney adviser to various regional and technical bureaus at the USAID/Washington office. Professor Figueroa served for five years as the chair to the Fund Council Group on Intellectual Property for the Consultative Group of International Research Centers to ensure responsible management of intellectual property assets that resulted from public funding.

During his ten years of government service, Professor Figueroa received several prestigious agency-wide awards related to strategic innovation in legal practice and institutional climate. In the private sector, Professor Figueroa served as manager for the Customs and Trade Compliance Group at Deloitte Consulting LLP in Chicago and as a senior associate in the Washington, DC office of New York City-based Grunfeld Desiderio, where he represented foreign corporations involved in trade disputes and won over 90% of appeals before the U.S. Court of International Trade.

An Economics and International Studies graduate of Beloit College, Professor Figueroa graduated from American University Washington College of Law. While in law school, he clerked for the Honorable Jennifer A. Hillman of the U.S. International Trade Commission and was a member of the American University Law Review. Professor Figueroa taught international trade law as an adjunct professor for several years in Washington, DC and is fluent in three languages.

06/01/2026

Professor Nazune Menka (Koyukon Athabaskan & Lumbee) currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the NW Center for Indigenous Law at Seattle University.

She teaches and writes at the intersection of Indigenous, Environmental, and Constitutional law.

Before becoming a tenure track professor, she served as the inaugural Executive Director for UC Berkeley School of Law's Center for Indigenous Law & Justice (2023-24), as a Supervising Attorney in their Environmental Law Clinic (2022-23), and as the Tribal Cultural Resources Policy Fellow (2020-22).

Professor Menka has a J.D. from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers School of Law with a certificate in Indigenous Peoples, Law & Policy and a M.S. in Soil, Water, & Environmental Science, also from the University of Arizona. She was born and raised in Alaska.

Professor Menka taught Advocacy at PLSI 2025 and is returning to teach Constitutional Law this year!

05/30/2026

Professor Noelle Graney has over 20 years of experience as a practicing attorney, primarily in private practice representing Indian Nations and tribal entities. She began her legal career with a judicial clerkship at the New Mexico Court of Appeals, after which she joined a small law firm that provided outside general counsel services to Indian Nations. At this firm, Professor Graney worked on diverse issues including water rights, land use, utilities law, protection of tribal sovereignty, criminal jurisdiction, game and fish regulation, negotiation of right-of-way and lease agreements, and fee-to-trust applications to the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Later in her career, Professor Graney was a partner in the tribal finance group of a national law firm. In this role she represented Indian Nations, tribal entities, and their business partners in business and public finance transactions, including taxable and tax-exempt loans and securities offerings. These transactions financed projects such as casinos, casino expansions, hotels, conference centers, general commercial projects, and health clinics.

Professor Graney earned her J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 2002. She received Honors in Clinical Law, Southwest Indian Law Clinic, and the Margaret Keiper Dailey Award for Awareness of Social Problems. She received her B.A. in History from the University of California, Berkeley.

In her free time Professor Graney studies Spanish language and is a huge music fan who enjoys listening to many genres. She also plays bass and sings in a rock band.

05/30/2026

The Pre-Law Summer Institute is privileged to welcome Joel West Williams as this summer’s Federal Indian Law professor. Professor Williams is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), where he has represented tribal nations, individual Indians, and Indian organizations in matters involving religious liberty, sacred places, voting rights, natural resources, administrative law, and constitutional law. He also served as a presidential appointee in the Biden-Harris Administration as Deputy Solicitor for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior.

Professor Williams earned a B.A. in Psychology and Religious Studies from Naropa University, a J.D. from Widener University – Delaware Law School, and an LL.M. in Environmental Law, summa cm laude, from Vermont Law School. Before serving at the Department of the Interior, he led NARF’s Tribal Supreme Court Project, which focuses on the strategy and coordination of Indian law cases before the United States Supreme Court. He has published scholarship on Indian water rights and Native American sacred sites protection and served as editor of the books Landmark Indian Law Cases and Labor and Employment Law in Indian Country.

Professor Williams also serves as the alternate federal commissioner on the Arkansas-Oklahoma Arkansas River Compact Commission and is a past president of the National Native American Bar Association. He currently practices law in Washington, D.C.

05/28/2026

"PLSI was such a transformative experience for me, and I am so grateful to be back in this space as a TA this year. The connections and skills I gained last summer have completely shaped my law school journey and path to becoming a Native attorney. PLSI has offered me a welcoming and supportive community, and I am excited to meet the incoming cohort of students to provide them with the same encouragement and empowerment I received from the program."

05/26/2026

"PLSI showed me that I belong in the legal profession and that my voice, background, and experience as a Native woman and nontraditional student matter in these spaces. The program challenged me academically, but it also gave me the confidence to pursue this career transition, knowing I was in a safe and supportive environment. PLSI connected me with mentors, professionals, and peers who understand the importance of Native representation in the law and the responsibility that comes with serving our communities. As a TA for the Class of 2026, I hope to remind incoming students that they belong in legal institutions, not only as students, but as future advocates, leaders, and judges."

05/26/2026

"Learning from students who stand at the brink of their legal careers, who will soon go on to lead this field, is a remarkable place to exist. Their energy keeps our minds fresh and curious about what is possible and what is worth protecting. I am grateful to be part of a greater mission, one that bridges our collective and shapes choices that age into the long-term sustainability of our homelands. One of the most exciting aspects of PLSI is being able to funnel the legal legacy of this program back into the hands of our people, those devoted to keeping our home fires going, whose present and historic voice continue to inform the heritage and tradition of democracy that long merits Wampanoag title to wampum and the sovereignty inherent in the exchange of knowledge."