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

I’m a member of the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians, a federally recognized Indian tribe. My tribe has around 900 members and a small reservation in northern California. I didn’t grow up on the reservation, but my dad worked for our tribe part time, and we regularly visited my extended family who did live on the rez.

Even as a child, I was exposed to the major role that federal law plays in daily lives in Indian country. The federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed the year that I was born, and my tribe’s casino opened eight years after that. The casino created new economic opportunity and enabled many who had left the reservation to return. So I saw how the law can change life in Indian country.

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

Growing up, I always considered going to law school. That interest solidified when I was elected to serve on my tribe’s governing body, the tribal council. The scope of tribal authority is determined by federal law, so as a tribal leader, federal law was often at the forefront of my mind. By the end of my time as a council member, I was certain that law was the right path for me.

What was your law school experience like?

Law review was the defining aspect of my law school experience. I was the only Native American editor on the law review at the time. In fact, as far as I am aware, I was the first member of a federally recognized tribe to ever serve as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Despite that, I found the law review to be a collaborative and supportive community. Four of my co-editors joined me in writing a series of student notes on Indian law—the most sustained attention the law review had ever paid to the subject at that time. (Also, the law review is where my wife and I met!)

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 actually knew about appellate work before law school. As I’ve touched on, federal law has an outsized impact in Indian country. And frequently, the rules that apply in Indian country are determined by the U.S. Supreme Court. As a result, I was interested in appellate work even before I was a law student.

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

I’ve been lucky enough to represent parties before the U.S. Supreme Court in a number of cases, but perhaps the most meaningful was Haaland v. Brackeen, the case from two terms ago about the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (“ICWA”). ICWA is a critical law that has stemmed the tide of unwarranted removal of Indian children from their families. I witnessed its importance firsthand when I was a tribal council member, as I was the chair of my tribe’s ICWA committee and served as one of our lay child welfare advocates. So, for that reason alone, I knew the case was incredibly significant. But even more than that, those who challenged ICWA’s validity advanced theories that, had they been adopted, would have upended the very foundations of federal Indian law and empowered states to diminish or even extinguish tribal sovereignty. The stakes could not have been higher, and I am immensely proud of my and my former Jenner & Block colleagues’ victory in the case.

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

The answer to the first part of this question depends on how one defines the appellate field. Native American attorneys—including my talented Native American colleagues at NARF—argue and win cases in federal, state, and tribal appellate courts throughout the country every day. But in the “Supreme Court Bar”—the group of lawyers who regularly represent parties at the U.S. Supreme Court—Native American representation is almost nonexistent. Indeed, by the count of Professor Matthew Fletcher of the University of Michigan, no Native American has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court since 2001.

I believe representation in the appellate field is important in part because I think it is consequential when groups advocate on their own behalf. I think it mattered, for instance, that Justice Thurgood Marshall argued Brown v. Board of Education, and that Justice Ginsburg argued many of the landmark sex-discrimination cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. So too, I think it is meaningful when a Native American attorney argues for Native American rights.

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

My advice is to find mentors who do the type of work you hope to do. Mentorship has been critical to my own success. A great mentor is often a great teacher, plus mentors can open doors to the right opportunities.

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

There is a lot more work to be done to increase representation in judicial clerkships. Clerkships are frequently a steppingstone toward many of the biggest jobs in the law, and clerks themselves play an important role in the judicial decision-making process. Yet clerks, in the aggregate, are not representative of the United States population as a whole. For instance, it is believed that there has only been one U.S. Supreme Court clerk who was a member of a federally recognized tribe. That’s an especially frustrating statistic given that Supreme Court decisions disproportionately impact Native Americans.