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Connect with the Indigenous Alumni of SLS and the Stanford Native Community to celebrate special guest, the Hon. Sunshine Sykes, ’97, JD ’01!
The newly formed Indigenous Alumni of Stanford Law School (IA of SLS), in partnership with the Stanford Native American Cultural Center (NACC), Native American Law Students Association (NALSA), Stanford Natives in Pre-Law (SNIPL), and the Stanford Indigenous Alumni Association invite you to an evening gathering of connection, community, and celebration.
Location:
Native American Cultural Center (NACC)
Old Union Clubhouse Ground Floor
524 Lasuen Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
About the Hon. Sunshine Sykes, ’97, JD ’01
On May 18, 2022, the United States Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s nomination of Riverside County Superior Court Judge Sunshine Suzanne Sykes to serve as a federal district judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Judge Sykes received her Presidential Commission on June 14, 2022 and took her oath of office on June 21, 2022. Judge Sykes presides over matters in Riverside, California, in the Court’s Eastern Division. She is a member of the Navajo Nation, the first Native American Article III judge in California, the first Article III judge from the Navajo Nation, and the fifth Native American Article III judge actively serving in the U.S.
Judge Sykes served as the first Native American judge appointed to the Riverside Superior Court from 2013 to 2022. Before her appointment to the Superior Court bench, she worked in the Office of County Counsel, Riverside County, where she served as a Deputy County Counsel from 2005 to 2013. From 2003 to 2005, she was a contract attorney for the Juvenile Defense Panel in Murrieta, California. In 1998 and from 2000 to 2003, Judge Sykes served at California Indian Legal Services, first as an administrative assistant (1998), law clerk (2000), then as a staff attorney (2001-2003). Judge Sykes was a clinical program advocate for the East Palo Alto Community Law Project from 1999 to 2000. In 1999 she was law clerk for DNA Legal Services on the Navajo reservation.
Born in Tuba City, Arizona, Judge Sykes received her Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 2001 and her Bachelor of Arts, with honors, from Stanford University in 1997.