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University of Washingtons Native American Law Center Teaches Students and Assists Tribes
[by Erica Winter] Founded ve years ago and located at the University of Washington in Seattle, the Native American Law Centers mission is to provide legal education in Indian law and to have a practical impact on the lives of tribal members.

The center provides educational opportunities for University of Washington law students and the greater university and holds conferences for legal education in Indian law, says Director Robert Anderson, who is an Assistant Professor at the law school and a member of the Boise Forte Band of Minnesota Chippewa. The centers Tribal Court Criminal Defense Clinic involves students acting as the public defenders office for the local Tulalip Tribes. The clinics goal is to train law students in trial work and to expose them to the tribal justice system, says Ron Whitener, director of the clinic program. Whitener is also Assistant Director of the Native American Law Center, an Assistant Professor at the law school, and a member of the Squaxin Island Tribe of Indians. In the clinic, Whitener supervises third-year and a few second-year law students who represent indigent Tulalip tribal members charged with crimes. Students work in pairs on cases of common misdemeanors, such as theft, reckless or drunk driving, assault, drug possession, and some drug sales. The clinic only handles cases that are heard in tribal court. Tribal judicial systems are generally more holistic than you would find off the reservation, says Whitener. The clinics cases are most often resolved through plea agreements focusing on the rehabilitation of the defendant. The Indian Civil Rights Act says that tribes

can only exact fines of no more than $5,000 and imprison those convicted of crimes for one year, says Whitener, so some violations of state law go to state courts, and more serious crimes--such as murder, rape, or kidnapping--go to federal court. The centers clinical program will expand next year to include representation of indigent parents in child custody and other social services issues, says Anderson.

spotlight as well, says Whitener. Over the last 20 years, the United States Supreme Court has eroded tribes authority to regulate non-Indian activity on the reservations, he says. Reservation land can be classified in different ways, and some of it can be owned by non-Indians. The Supreme Court has been applying stricter scrutiny to jurisdictional issues concerning this non-Indian-owned reservation land. Financing issues are also a large area of

Working within the tribal courts is a great opportunity for students here to get a feel for another country, says Anderson. There are currently eight students working at the clinic. About five students work on other projects with an Indian law focus at the center, says Anderson. There is high interest in the field at the law school. Of a total 160 students at the law school, Anderson had 38 in his Basic Indian Law class last fall.

this specialty, both for tribal governments and businesses. Other tribal legal work includes government relations, repatriation of artifacts, water rights, hunting and fishing rights, land use planning, and also healthcare law, with some large tribes, such as the Navajo nation, forming their own HMOs. Indian law is all areas of law, seen through the filter of tribes, says Whitener. There are Indian law programs at other law

In addition to taking classes on Indian law, students concentrating on the field can find externships as tribal court judge clerks, at law firms that work on tribal issues, or with tribal prosecutors or public defenders. Most tribes that are large enough have their own prosecutors and public defender offices. Legal issues for tribes are many and varied. Employment law issues are now a big area of the law for tribes these days, says Anderson, with questions arising on whether unions can organize on reservations. Questions of tribal jurisdiction are in the

schools, the strength of which currently seems to depend on geography, with a greater focus on the field in the western United States. Of the seven authors and editors of Cohens Handbook of Federal Indian Law, the Bible of Indian law, says Anderson, five are based at western schools, including Anderson himself. Washington was the first state to put Indian law on the bar exam; New Mexico, Oregon, and Idaho are considering doing the same, says Anderson. The other western authors for the journal are

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professors at UCLA, the University of New Mexico, the University of Oregon, and the University of Tulsa. These schools have more of an institutional commitment to the study of Indian law, says Anderson, than law schools in other parts of the country, which might offer only a few classes each in the specialty. The other two authors for the journal are from the University of Connecticut, and Harvard, which may develop its Indian law program further, says Anderson, with a recent endowment of $5 million. As it is, the academic field for this complex specialty is represented at many schools, yet remains highly concentrated at just a few schools.

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