Professor of Law

Robert J. Miller’s areas of expertise are civil procedure, federal Indian law, American Indians and international law, American Indian economic development and Native American natural resources. An enrolled citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, he is the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals for the Grand Ronde Tribe and sits as a judge for other tribes. He is also the Faculty Director of the Rosette LLP American Indian Economic Development Program at ASU. 

Before joining the College of Law in 2013, Professor Miller was on the faculty of Lewis & Clark Law School. Prior to his career in academia, he practiced Indian law with Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker, and worked for the Stoel Rives law firm. Following graduation from law school, he clerked for Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Professor Miller’s published works include articles, books and book chapters on a wide array of federal Indian law issues and civil procedure, and he speaks regularly on Indian law issues across the U.S. and in other countries. He is the author of Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny (2006), and Reservation “Capitalism:” Economic Development in Indian Country (2012), and he co-authored Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies (Oxford University Press 2010). Professor Miller’s blog on Indian affairs was noted by the wallstreetjournal.com and a poll of leading Indian blogs, and will be archived by the Library of Congress. He also has worked as a consultant with the American Philosophical Society since 2006 on tribal language and archival issues. He was elected to the American Law Institute in 2012 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2014.