Director
Mr. Nash is the Director of the Center for Indian Law and Policy at Seattle University School of Law. He is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe and a graduate of the University of New Mexico, School of Law where he is now a member of the Indian Alumni Council. He has practiced Indian law since 1971 in numerous capacities including the U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Solicitor’s Honors Program; staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund; and 14 years in a private, solo practice in Pendleton, Oregon, where he represented the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation as General Counsel and also represented the Tribe’s housing project and prosecuted criminal cases before the tribal court. He served as Chief Counsel for the Nez Perce Tribe from 1989-1999. From 1999-2005, Mr. Nash was head of the Indian Law Practice Group at Holland and Hart, LLP. He served as Associate Professor of Law and James E. Rogers Fellow in American Indian Law at the University of Idaho, College of Law. In August, 2005, Mr. Nash became Director of the Institute for Indian Estate Planning and Probate at Seattle University School of Law where he is also an Adjunct Professor of Law.
Mr. Nash serves as an appellate court judge for the Tulalip and Sauk-Suiattle Tribes and is Chief Judge of the Warm Springs Tribal Court of Appeals. He also has served as a pro-tem judge for several tribes at both the trial and appellate level. He is the past Secretary and President of the National Native American Bar Association, past Board member of the Northwest Indian Bar Association and was Secretary-Treasurer of the Indian Land Tenure Foundation Board from its inception until resigning in May 2005 to assume the position of Director of the Institute.
He is a member of the New Mexico (inactive status), Oregon, Idaho and Washington bars and is admitted to practice before the state and federal courts in those states, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and the United States Supreme Court. Other memberships include the Federal Bar Association and Indian Law Section, the Indian Law Sections of the New Mexico, Oregon, Idaho and Washington Bar Associations, and the Northwest Indian Bar Association.