Jenny Y. Kim

Jenny Y. Kim has over 20 years of experience in federal Indian law advising clients in a wide range of areas including employment, business, and housing law, as well as, policy and law development. In 2006, attorney Jenny became a partner at Maier Pfeffer Kim Geary & Cohen LLP, representing California tribes and tribal entities in a wide range of government and business law areas including policy making, statutory drafting, and transactional law. She is also a trained mediator and regularly mediates in several court-approved programs in Alameda County.

Throughout her career, Jenny has been active in the areas of tribal governance and Indian housing, Indian Child Welfare Act, and federal recognition at the local, state, and federal levels through both litigation and legislative/policy advocacy. She has conducted numerous trainings and workshops throughout the state and nationally on a wide range of Indian law and other topics including tribal planning and development, Indian housing, ICWA, tribal court development, and nonprofit corporate boards. As a certified mediator , Jenny has mediated hundreds of hours in commercial and residential landlord tenant cases, civil harassment, and other civil disputes. Jenny serves as a co-chair of the ADR Executive Committee of the Alameda County Bar Association and was recently appointed to serve on the Board of The Mediation Society. Jenny is also a volunteer mediator for the Superior Court of Alameda County and mediates regularly with and serves as a trainer for SEEDS Community Resolution Center.

Jenny obtained her B.A. in International Relations from Rhodes College and is a 1997 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In 1996, she clerked on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where she helped launch the Oglala Lakota CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) Program for the Oglala Sioux Tribal Court, one of the first tribal CASA programs in the country. In 1997, she became a staff attorney in the Bishop Office of California Indian Legal Services, serving the Paiute-Shoshone communities and Indian tribes of the Owens Valley and Eastern Sierras. After transferring to the CILS headquarters office in Oakland, California in 1999, she served as the Chair of the Indian Housing Practice Group and as the Lead Attorney of the Tribal Courts and Governance Project, which focused on developing tribal courts and strengthening tribal legal systems.

Education

• University of Pennsylvania Law School, J.D., 1997
• Rhodes College, B.A., 1993

Bar Admissions

• California
• New York