Hilary Tompkins

Hilary Chandler Tompkins is an American lawyer who served as the solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior from 2009 to 2017. A citizen of the Navajo Nation, she was the first Native American woman to hold the position of solicitor. Prior to her federal service, she served as chief legal counsel to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Tompkins became a partner at Hogan Lovells in 2017.

Early life and education Tompkins was born in Zuni, Ramah Chapter of the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. Her birth mother made the decision to give her up at birth, and she was adopted a few months later by Nancy and Kenneth Tompkins, a Quaker family. Her father, Kenneth, was a professor of medieval literature at a liberal arts college, and her mother, Nancy, operated a preschool. She did not meet another Native American person until she was 15 years old, when she attended a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania for one year.

Tompkins attended Dartmouth College, where she initially considered a career in the foreign service. She subsequently earned a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1996, where she served as an associate editor of the Stanford Law Review and met her future husband, Michael Prindle. She served as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, New York.

U.S. Department of Interior In June 2009, the U.S. Senate confirmed Tompkins as the solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior. As solicitor, she led over 300 attorneys. Additionally, she authored a legal opinion supporting treaty rights regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Tompkins serves as a trustee for Dartmouth College, having been elected as an alumni trustee in 2019. She is the first Native American member of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees. She also sits on the boards of the Environmental Law Institute and the Conservation Lands Foundation.

Personal life Tompkins is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and identifies with the Salt Clan. She reunited with her birth parents as an adult, and they helped organize her wedding to Michael Prindle in 2000, which was held as a traditional Navajo ceremony in Ramah, New Mexico. On August 20, 2009, Navajo Nation president Joe Shirley Jr. proclaimed the date "Hilary C. Tompkins Day."