Antoinette Sedillo Lopez

Antoinette is a longtime community leader focused on the critical social, economic, environmental, and civil rights issues affecting the lives of all New Mexicans. After serving as Law Professor at UNM for more than twenty-seven years—including eight years as Associate Dean—she became the executive director of a non-profit serving victims of domestic violence in the Latino immigrant community of Central New Mexico.

A native New Mexican with deep roots in the area, Antoinette grew up in the small New Mexico farming village of Los Chavez. She went to UNM and then UCLA School of Law. In 1986, she found her passion for teaching when she became a law professor at UNM School of Law. She soon became the first Latina to earn tenure at the School of Law. She later went on to become the Director and Associate Dean of UNM’s legal clinic, where law students practiced law in a pro-bono clinic, helping people in our community with their legal needs. Throughout her career as a law professor, she published books, articles, and poems; she organized and presented at many important legal education conferences; and, she earned several awards for excellence, service, and leadership.

After a 27 year career of teaching, legal service and scholarship, Antoinette left the UNM School of Law in 2014 to head up Enlace Communitario, an anti-domestic violence advocacy and service non-profit organization. In 2017, she was recruited to run for Congress in New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District. Although she did not win her first race, In 2019, an opportunity opened when Senator Cisco McSorely resigned to join the Lujan Grisham administration. She applied for the vacancy and was selected by the Bernalillo County Commission and appointed by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. She won her race to keep the senate seat in the general election, November 3, 2020, with 78% of the vote, becoming the first woman, and the first Hispanic to represent District 16.

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