Paul Bender (jurist)

Bender has been the Chief Judge of the court of appeals of the San Carlos Apache Tribe since 2005, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation since 1998.

Bender was part of the team that drafted Arizona's Proposition 106, which created the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission in 2000. Bender subsequently sought one of the five seats on the commission. His nomination was opposed by Republicans in the state legislature and was the subject of an Arizona Supreme Court case: Adams v. Commission on Appellate Court Appointment. The court held that members of tribal courts are not "public officials" for the purpose of the redistricting commission.

After his clerkships Bender was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School before becoming dean of the Arizona State University college of law in 1984. In 1965 Bender served as Assistant to U.S. Solicitors General Archibald Cox where he defended the United States in Brenner v. Manson. He later worked as General Counsel to the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography from 1968 until 1970. Bender served as dean of the ASU law school until 1989. In 1993, during the Bill Clinton administration, Bender was appointed Deputy Solicitor General by Drew Days. Bender continues to teach courses in constitutional law at ASU.

Bender attended James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York, where he was a high school classmate with future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Bender received both his bachelors and J.D. degrees from Harvard University. After law school Bender clerked for Judge Learned Hand of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Felix Frankfurter of the U.S. Supreme Court during the 1959 Term.