Melissa L. Tatum

Melissa L. Tatum is the research professor of law and former director of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law. She previously served as professor of law and co-director of the Native American Law Center at the University of Tulsa College of Law.

Tatum earned her B.A. from Trinity University in Texas in 1989 and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1992. She teaches and writes in the areas of Federal Indian law, tribal law, jurisdiction, and cultural property.

Tatum has written and lectured extensively about cross-jurisdictional enforcement of protections orders, and is considered one of the leading national experts in the field, particularly with respect to tribal courts. She has served as a consultant to the New Mexico Attorney General's Office's Task Force on Best Practices for Enforcing Protection Orders (2007–2009) and to a Michigan Working Group on Full Faith and Credit for Protection Orders (2000–2001) organized by the Michigan Domestic Violence Prevention and Treatment Board.

Tatum has taught workshops across the country for judges, attorneys, victims services agencies and law enforcement officers on that topic. Her article "A Jurisdictional Quandary" is cited by the National Congress of American Indians' Fact Sheet on Violence Against Women in Indian Country, and the State of Montana's publication "Full Faith and Credit: Encourage to Arrest." Her articles "Tribal Efforts To Comply with VAWA’s Full Faith and Credit Requirements" (co-authored with Sarah Deer) and "Law Enforcement Authority in Indian Country" are listed as resources by the Tribal Court Clearinghouse; her article "Establishing Penalties for Violating Protection Orders" is cited as a resource by the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence. All four articles are also listed as resources by tribalprotectionorder.org. Tatum is also the co-author of a Model Tribal Code for Enforcement of Protection Orders.

Tatum works extensively with tribal courts and has developed a method for indexing, digesting, and publishing tribal court opinions. She served as the general editor for the Mvskoke Law Reporter, an eight-volume set containing the court opinions of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation from 1832–present, and as the editor for volume 8 of the Navajo Reporter, as well as the second editions of volumes 1 and 2 of the Navajo Reporter. Tatum served as a member of the Navajo Nation's Rules Harmonization Project, co-authoring a report on Navajo Nation Proceedings and Outside Review. She sat as a judge on the Southwest Intertribal Court of Appeals from 1999 to 2006.

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