Stephanie M. Nichols

Biography

Prior to joining Seattle University School of Law as the Director of the Study Law in Alaska Program, Attorney for Native American Projects, and adjunct faculty, Stephanie was an Attorney for an Indian Tribe near Olympia, Washington. She was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, and has traveled extensively throughout Alaska. She teaches both Alaska Native Law for the Study Law in Alaska Program and the Indian Trust and Estates clinic in Seattle University's Ronald A. Peterson Law Clinic.

Stephanie has also been a speaker at several national conferences on the American Indian Probate Reform Act. She lived and worked with the Lakota people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota as well as worked with the Indigenous people in the village of San Lucas Toliman in Guatemala, and Oaxaca, Mexico. While a student at Seattle University School of Law, Stephanie was Co-President of the Native American Law Student Association and a First Place winner of the Fredric C. Tausend Appellate Oral Argument Competition. During law school, Stephanie clerked for the Northwest Intertribal Court System and worked with the Indian Estate Planning Project providing will drafting and estate planning services on the Swinomish and Upper Skagit Reservations in Washington state. Additionally, she completed an externship at the National Labor Relations Board in downtown Seattle.

As the Director of Seattle University School of Law's Study Law in Alaska Program, Stephanie teaches the Alaska Native Law class for that Program. In her position as Attorney for Native American Projects, Stephanie oversees the summer Indian Estate Planning Project where second and third year law students work under the direction of experienced attorneys to provide will drafting and other estate planning services for tribal communities throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.