Tell us about your community growing up. Looking back, how did it shape who you are now?

I grew up in Fairbanks, in interior Alaska in the 60s and 70s. My Dena’Ina Athabascan mother passed away when I was very young. My father remarried a non-native woman who raised me and my siblings. She looked down on native people and invented a family narrative that was false. But my memory of my mother kept alive a desire to find my true identity. I found that identity as a young adult through friendship and mentorship from other native people.

Describe your journey to law school. What motivated you to enroll?

While at University I took a class on federal Indian law.  I also studied the genesis of the Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA). I realized that the study of Indian law and ANCSCA  was critical information that was not generally taught in schools and yet defined the relationship between native peoples and the federal government.  It addressed issues such as how Native people could be dispossessed of their lands by European colonial conquerors by the sword and justified by Christianity.  It explained how the “Doctrine of Discovery” became a legal doctrine used to vest absolute power in the federal government over Indians which power could be used to protect or destroy at whim. 

With this historical understanding I elected to go to law school to contribute and change how federal law was applied to Indian people.

What was your law school experience like?

I liked law school and I liked learning but there was a huge lack of instructors that understood or taught Indian law.  Out of an incoming class of 500 students, only five were Native American.  We had nothing in common with the trust fund babies that frequented our law school.  So we created our own community; we shared food and stories and marveled that we were there at all.  Then we organized.  We demanded that the school give us opportunity to study what was relevant to us.  We demanded funding to convene an Indian Law conference where we could bring in practitioners that were engaged in cases before the Supreme Court.  We demanded that admissions admit more Native Americans and we demanded the ability to review applications to ensure that those those chosen for admission were in fact Native.  Through this process I learned early on in my career that you have to demand to be invited to the table. Otherwise, your voice and your presence will remain invisible.

Did you know about appellate work in law school? If not, when and how did it first get on your radar and why were you drawn to it?

I knew very little about appellate work in law school other than the fact that the Supreme Court was making decisions that impacted the lives of our entire national community. I also learned about the work of the most prominent nonprofit in the country that was advocating for on behalf of tribes, The Native American Rights Fund (NARF). I set my site on becoming a NARF attorney.

Tell us about one of your appellate cases that you found particularly meaningful.

I represented the traditional elder, Katie John, in a very important subsistence rights case.  Her law suit became synonymous with the fight to protect traditional and customary fishing rights.  It epitomized the cultural class between two world views, two paradigms, one that revered and was connected to the land through generational knowledge and another that was only familiar with power.

How often do you encounter Indigenous people in the appellate field? Why do you think that representation is important?

Rarely. It’s demanding and stressful.

What advice would you give to a law student of color who aspires to be where you are now?

Know where you come from and don’t accept the world or the law as it is.  We all have power to change things.

What’s one thing law schools and/or the appellate bar can do to ensure our highest courts are representative of all our communities?

Train and educate judges.