Samantha Wauls (Lakota/Lower Brule Sioux Tribe) is a graduate of The University of New Mexico School of Law and currently works as in-house counsel for the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians in Southern California. At Soboba, she focuses on transactional matters, represents the Tribe in state and tribal court on ICWA matters, and routinely advises the marketing and entertainment departments at Soboba Casino Resort. Previously, Samantha was an Entertainment Law Fellow at the Motion Picture Association (the "MPA") and NBCUniversal ("NBCU"). As an Entertainment Law Fellow, she worked on copyright and trademark enforcement; researched anticounterfeiting and anti piracy strategies to address large-scale copyright and trademark infringement in the entertainment industry; drafted above-the-line talent agreements; performed music rights analysis; and advised on IP clearance issues for scripted and unscripted television programs. Prior to law school, Samantha was a consultant for the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department to help implement the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women’s (MMIW) Task Force Act. She also worked as a Project Manager for the National Center for Victims of Crime, where she managed a DOJ-funded project to build a web-based resource tool to connect American Indians and Alaska Native survivors of crime and abuse to culturally responsive services, and was a teacher for her tribal community for two years.
