Sherri Thomas
Assistant Director, Collection & Systems
Associate Dean of Institutional Climate & Equity
Professor
(505) 277-2228
Office 3329B
thomas [at] law.unm.edu
Education
A.A.S. 1993, San Juan College
B.A. 1996, Fort Lewis College
J.D. with a Certificate in Indian Law 2005, UNM School of Law
Profile
Professor Sherri Nicole Thomas is the Director of the Law and Indigenous Peoples Program (LIPP) and Assistant Director of the Law Library at the University of New Mexico School of Law (UNMSOL), where she also serves as co-Faculty Advisor for the Tribal Law Journal. In her library role, she coordinates collection management, oversees print and electronic resources, leads the Library Systems Group, and provides research support to students, faculty, staff, and the public.
Professor Thomas teaches required Legal Research courses and developed a specialized two-credit Indian Law Research course. She frequently leads workshops and presents on topics including Federal Indian Law, Tribal Law, Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Advocacy. She also teaches Advocacy in the American Indian Law Center’s Pre-Law Summer Institute (PLSI). From 2019 to 2024, she served as Associate Dean of Institutional Culture and Equity (ADICE) at UNMSOL. In that role, she served on the New Mexico Supreme Court Commission on Equity and Justice, the UNM Diversity Committee, and continues her service as a member of the UNM Liaisons for Excellence, Innovation, and Development (LEID) Council.
Her recent university service includes leadership in two major initiatives led by the UNM Policy Office from 2023 to 2025: (1) serving as a group leader on the Policy Equity and Inclusion Taskforce, which reviewed all University Administrative Policies for accessibility and equity in alignment with UNM 2040, and (2) proposing and facilitating a Law Library/Policy Office collaboration in which library staff and post-doctoral fellows reviewed policies for outdated links, statutes, and legal references. She currently serves on the UNM Policy Review Committee.
Professor Thomas’s scholarly work and service have been widely recognized. In 2021, the Society of American Archivists awarded the C.F.W. Coker Award to the Indigenous Digital Archive Treaties Explorer, recognizing her contributions to developing innovative tools that improve access to historical records. In 2024, she was honored as a PLSI Champion by the American Indian Law Center for her longstanding dedication to the program. She was also acknowledged by the editors of the 22nd edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation for her contributions to creating a citation rule addressing Tribal legal materials.
Professor Thomas is Black and American Indian. She grew up on the Diné (Navajo) Reservation and is an enrolled member of Taos Pueblo. Before earning her J.D. and Indian Law Certificate from UNMSOL in 2005, she worked as an Information Manager at Environmental Risk Analysis, Inc., a bio-litigation consulting firm in San Mateo, California, and as a Database Specialist and Cataloger at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, PC, in Palo Alto, California.
Community Engagement
American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)
Southwestern Association of Law Libraries (SWALL)
UNMSOL Academic Success Committee
UNMSOL Indian Law Committee
Publications & Contributions
Academic & Professional Journals
When the State Bar Exam Embraces Indian Law: Teaching Experiences and Observations, 82 N.D. L. Rev. 741 (2013). Co-authored with Gloria Valencia-Weber.
Presentations
Digital Treaties Workshops, part of National Archives and Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Native American Treaties Digitization Project (2020). View the Workshops Online.
The UNM Law Library—An Information Partner for You and Your Community, Administration for Native Americans Grant Workshop for pueblo community library staffs (2015). Co-presented with Michelle Rigual.
Case Law Updates: Dollar General, Tribal Sovereignty, Child Custody, Tribal Court Jurisdiction, and Exhaustion of Tribal Remedies, 8th Annual Tribal Leadership Conference: Transitions (2015).
