Paul Spruhan was born in Chicago, Illinois and has lived in the Southwest since 1997. He received his A.B., and A.M. from the University of Chicago (1995, 1996); and his J.D., from the University of New Mexico (2000). He is Assistant Attorney General for the Litigation Unit of the Navajo Department of Justice. He has been a licensed attorney for close to 20 years. He has worked for DOJ for 14 years, and was the law clerk of the Navajo Supreme Court for 5 years. Before that, he was a staff attorney for New Mexico Legal Aid for a year and half, and started his legal career as an associate at the Santa Fe office Rothstein, Donatelli, Hughes, and Schoenberg. He has licensed in the courts of New Mexico, Navajo Nation, the Federal District Courts of Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia, New Mexico, the Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeal, United States, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He lives with his wife and two children in Fort Defiance on the Navajo Nation.