Angela R. Riley (Citizen Potawatomi Nation) is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and Director of UCLA's Native Nations Law and Policy Center. She directs the J.D./M.A. joint degree program in Law and American Indian Studies and serves on the UCLA campus Repatriation Committee. Professor Riley's research focuses on Indigenous peoples’ rights, with a particular emphasis on cultural property and Native governance. Her work has been published in the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Columbia Law Review, California Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal and numerous others. She received her undergraduate degree at the University of Oklahoma and her law degree from Harvard Law School.
Professor Riley began her career clerking for Chief Judge T. Kern of the Northern District of Oklahoma. She then worked as a litigator at Quinn Emanuel in Los Angeles, specializing in intellectual property litigation. In 2003 she was selected to serve on her tribe’s Supreme Court, becoming the first woman and youngest Justice of the Supreme Court of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma. In 2010 and again in 2016 she was elected by her tribe's General Council to serve as Chief Justice. She previously served as Co-Chair for the United Nations - Indigenous Peoples’ Partnership Policy Board, with a dedicated mission to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She has also served in a judicial capacity for the Morongo Band of Mission Indians and for the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians.
Professor Riley is a member of the American Law Institute and a co-editor of the Cohen's Handbook on Federal Indian Law. She served as the Oneida Indian Nation Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in Fall 2015.