About Robert A. Williams
Robert A. Williams Jr. earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1980 after completing an A.B. at Loyola College in 1977. His academic credentials placed him immediately into both teaching and practical work. In 1980 he served as a teaching fellow at Boston College Law School and worked as a legal consultant for Regional and Urban Planning Implementation in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
His early academic appointments took him to Rutgers Law School as an assistant professor in 1981 and then to the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1984. By 1987 he had joined the University of Arizona as a professor of law and American Indian studies. He later took on administrative responsibilities at Arizona, serving as the director of the Office of Indian Programs in 1990.
Williams has combined a scholarly career with long-standing involvement in tribal courts. In 1988 he served as judge pro tempore for the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation in Tucson and that same period saw him named an associate justice on the Court of Appeals for the Pascua Yaqui Indian Tribe. A decade later he became chief justice of that court in 1998. Those roles put him on the bench for both trial-type matters and appellate review within tribal judicial systems.
His later academic career included an appointment in 2018 at the James E. Rogers College of Law as Regents Professor and the E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law. He also served as faculty co-chair of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program. His classroom work and program leadership reflect long experience in Indian law, tribal governance, and related areas of public law. He has taught courses that touch on tribal jurisdiction, federal Indian law, and the intersections of constitutional and administrative law as they affect indigenous communities.
Williams holds membership in the Massachusetts State Bar, a status he has maintained since 1981. His professional path crosses state bars, university faculties, and tribal judiciaries. He has moved between scholarship and adjudication rather than remaining solely in one realm. Today he teaches at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law and concentrates on indigenous peoples law and policy in his teaching and writing.
