Sarah Deer is a legal scholar and advocate leveraging her deep understanding of tribal and federal law to develop policies and legislation that empower tribal nations to protect Native American women from the pervasive and intractable problem of sexual and domestic violence. Native women living on reservations suffer one of the highest per capita rates of violent crime in the world, but because of limited jurisdictional powers, a lack of resources, and limitations on sentencing authority, tribal courts are often unable to prosecute these crimes, and federal prosecutors decline to take up more than half of the cases that fall under their authority. Sarah Deer received a B.A. (1995) and J.D. (1999) from the University of Kansas. She was a victim advocacy legal specialist and staff attorney at the Tribal Law and Policy Institute (2002–2008) prior to joining the faculty of William Mitchell College of Law in 2009, where she is currently a professor and co-director of the Indian Law Clinic.