Stacy Leeds serves as Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She holds law degrees from the University of Wisconsin (LL.M) and the University of Tulsa (J.D.). She also received an undergraduate degree (B.A.) from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree (M.B.A.) from the University of Tennessee.
Her law teaching career began at the University of Wisconsin where she was a William H. Hastie Fellow. She served as Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the Northern Plains Indian Law Center at the University of North Dakota School of Law from 2000-2003. She was a member of the law faculty at the University of Kansas School of Law from 2003-2011 where she served as Professor of Law and Director of the Tribal Law and Government Center. She was interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Kansas from 2010-2011.
She teaches, writes and consults in the areas American Indian law, property, energy and natural resources, economic development, judicial administration and higher education.
In November 2011, Dean Leeds was appointed to serve a two-year term on the National Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform within the U.S. Department of the Interior. The commission will undertake a forward-looking, comprehensive evaluation of Interior’s trust management of nearly $4 billion in Native American trust funds.
Leeds is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a former Justice on the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court. She divides her time between downtown Fayetteville and the Illinois River near Tahlequah, Oklahoma.