Eric Eberhard

Eric D. Eberhard is a Professor from Practice and the Associate Director of the Native American Law Center at the University of Washington School of Law. He began practicing federal Indian law in 1973, with employment in legal services on the Navajo, Hopi, and White Mountain Apache reservations. He served as the Deputy Attorney General of the Navajo Nation and Executive Director of the Navajo Nation Washington Office from 1983 to 1987, and Staff Director and General Counsel to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs from 1989 to 1995. From 1995 to 2009, Professor Eberhard was a Partner in the Indian Law Practice Group in the Seattle office of Dorsey & Whitney LLP. His practice involved the representation of Indian tribes, tribal organizations, and entities doing business with Indian tribes in federal, state, and tribal judicial, legislative, and administrative forums. Prof. Eberhard’s work included the areas of fee-to-trust transfers, water rights, leasing of land and natural resources, federal contracting, gaming, federal recognition, the formation of Tribal corporations, environmental law, administrative law, jurisdiction, the development of tribal law, self-determination and self-governance, cultural resource protection, and the federal trust responsibility. From 2009 to 2016, he was a Distinguished Indian Law Practitioner at the Seattle University School of Law. He has been at the University of Washington School of Law since the fall of 2016, where his courses include Water Law, Indigenous Economic Development and the Law, Indigenous Governance, American Indian Law, and Advanced Environmental Law – The Restoration of the Elwha River. He has served as an Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals for the Suquamish Tribe in Washington and for the Court of Appeals of the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Suislaw Indians in Oregon. He is currently employed part-time as a tribal attorney in the Legal Department of the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe. He is a frequent speaker at seminars and continuing legal education programs. He has testified as an expert on various topics in the law before tribal councils, state legislatures, and the US Congress on numerous occasions.