Nāpali Souza

Education

• BS, Pepperdine University, 2004
• JD, summa cum laude, William S. Richardson School of Law, 2009

Biography

Nāpali Souza earned his JD from the William S. Richardson School of Law in 2009 with highest honors. In 2006, he was a Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law Summer Fellow and helped draft the Advisory Commission on Bioprospecting’s report on regulating the extraction of biological material from Hawai‘i’s lands and ocean. Nāpali focused on bioprospecting’s cultural implications and the need to guarantee full participation of the Native Hawaiian community.

In 2007, Nāpali was a Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship Summer Fellow and prepared an intellectual property strategy and business plan for the launch of a local medical technology firm’s cancer detection device. During law school, Nāpali contributed to a chapter on education for the second edition of the Native Hawaiian Rights Handbook. The topic coincided with his findings in an award-winning seminar paper, One Step Back, Two Steps Forward: Reclaiming Native Hawaiian Education, Leaving No Keiki Behind, which examined the Hawaiian charter school movement under current federal legislation. He is a 2009-2010 Post-Juris Doctor Research Fellow for Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law. He is also completing his final year of MBA coursework at Shidler College of Business.