Sunshine Sykes is a member of the Navajo Nation, and was born to the Coyote Pass Clan. She attended undergraduate studies at Stanford University majoring in English with a Creative Writing Emphasis and graduated with honors in 1997. After taking a year off and working as an intern at California Indian Legal Services in Oakland, CA, she began Stanford Law School. During law school, she clerked at California Indian Legal Services in Oakland, CA and DNA People’s Legal Services in Tuba City, AZ focusing on issues concerning Federal Indian Law. 

Subsequent to her graduation from law school in 2001, she began a two-year Equal Justice Works Fellowship “formally known as NAPIL” at California Indian Legal Services. Her fellowship concentrated on domestic violence issues in American Indian communities in California. Specifically, her work focused on developing culturally appropriate services, bridging the gap between Indian and non-Indian service providers and providing representation to American Indian women in domestic violence relationships. While at California Indian Legal Services, she also worked with Tribes on issues related to tribal jurisdiction, sovereignty, repatriation, and child welfare. Equally important, she worked with individual tribal members on issues concerning trust lands, wills, and estates. 

In 2003, Sunshine began working in Riverside County on the Juvenile Defense Panel representing parents and children in Juvenile Dependency and Delinquency hearings. In December of 2005, she began work at her current position as a Deputy County Counsel for Riverside County. In that position, she is a trial attorney representing the Department of Social Services in juvenile dependency matters and has developed an expertise in the Indian Child Welfare Act.