Pilar Maria Thomas

Pilar Thomas (Pascua Yaqui) is an adjunct professor in the University of Arizona School of Law and Arizona State University College of Law, where she teaches Indian Energy Law. She is retired from the active practice of law in 2025 from Quarles & Brady, where she served as a partner in the Energy, Environment & Natural Resources Practice Group and provided strategic legal advice to tribes, tribal enterprises, and renewable energy companies related to clean energy development, finance and transactions and economic development on Indian lands. Ms. Thomas also previously served as the Deputy Director for the Office of Indian Energy in the US Department of Energy, Deputy Solicitor of Indian Affairs for the US Department of the Interior, Interim Attorney General and Chief of Staff for Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and a trial attorney in the US Department of Justice, Environmental and Natural Resources Division, Indian Resources Section. She is a board member for Western Resources Advocates and is the Vice-Chair at large for the ABA Section on Energy Environment and Resources Indigenous Resources Committee. She received her J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law, magna cum laude, with a certificate in Indian law, and her B.A. in Economics from Stanford University.