Gloria

Valencia-Weber

Professor Gloria Valencia-Weber was nominated to serve on the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation by President Barack Obama on December 17, 2009, and her nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 29, 2010. 

Emerita Professor Valencia-Weber, University of New Mexico (UNM) School of Law, has a strong record of enabling poor people to obtain necessary legal services, especially for American Indians/Native Americans.  The Henry Weihofen Professor of Law and a Regents Professor, she continues to do research on Native American law.

The lawyers (American Indian and non-Indian) that she trains serve public interests, including the Legal Services Corporation grantees that specialize in Indian law.  In 1991-92 Valencia-Weber served on the Board of the Oklahoma Indian Legal Services, an LSC grantee.

She pioneered the Indian Law Certificate programs at the University of Tulsa College of Law in 1990 and since 1992 then at the UNM School of Law.  The model curriculum she designed is anchored in the unique law of the political relationship between the 562 federally recognized tribes and the United States.

She regularly instructs continuing education courses for Indian law attorneys and for tribal government officials and tribunal court judges.  An Associate Judge on the Southwest Tribal Court of Appeals, she adjudicates cases from tribes located in multiple states.  Moreover, her scholarly research in Indian law covers critical areas including tribal courts, domestic violence, and the constitutional interface of tribal, federal and state authority.  Among her honors are induction into the American Law Institute and the American Bar Foundation in recognition of her leadership and scholarly publications.

Valencia-Weber graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986.  She clerked for Judge Lee R. West, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, and Judge William J. Holloway, Jr., then Chief Judge of the Tenth Circuity Court of Appeals.