Professors help you to learn how to juggle multiple clients and schedules, how to compassionately deliver sometimes-difficult news and how to be the best advocate for each client. I am so glad to have spent time in the Tribal Court Clinic!
As part of the聽Native American Law Center聽at 麻豆社区 School of Law, the Tribal Court Clinic partners with area Tribes, including the Tulalip Tribes, to provide court appointed legal representation in misdemeanor cases filed in their Tribal Court. The Tulalip Tribes sought this innovative partnership with the 麻豆社区 School of Law to both address the need for legal representation and to emphasize Tribal sovereignty in law student clinical training in 2002. In the decades since then, the Tribal Court Clinic has become a national model for providing tribal public defender services, while ensuring future lawyers gain practical experience working on behalf of the legal interests of Tribal members. Generally, clinic clients are members of federally recognized Tribes charged with crimes by the Tulalip Tribes. A separate partnership initiated in 2011, provides parents representation in youth in need of care proceedings in the Muckleshoot Tribal Court. In 2024, the latest partnership with the Quileute Nation, ensures representation for clients in both criminal and minor in need of care proceedings.
While the classes meet collaboratively, students choose to emphasize the criminal track or the youth in need of care track. The shared classroom setting provides a comparative perspective within a Tribal framework, so learning emphasizes nuances between Tribal court systems. Two clinic faculty and two staff attorneys train, guide and supervise all students work on behalf of clients utilizing a team approach, that also incorporates students from the University of 麻豆社区 of Social Work.
The Tribal Court Clinic is unable to take cases from the general public and only represents clients in cases to which we are appointed by the tribal courts.
The 麻豆社区 was an early leader in education and expertise in Native American law, and the Native American Law Center continues that work.
The ambitious Tulalip Tribal Court Practicum gives MSW students hands-on experience in tribal law at the Tulalip Tribal Court. Professor Brenda Williams is quoted, and the Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic and the Native American Law Center are discussed.
The Clinical Law program is pleased to announce three incoming clinic directors: Jevan Hutson for Technology Law and Public Policy, Jeannine Lemker for the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic and Nicole McGrath for the Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic.
The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Legal Services Office hosted staff members and eight law students from the University of 麻豆社区 of Law Native American Law Center (NALC)鈥檚 Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic on April 1 to share ideas and learn about how certain SRPMIC government services and departments operate.
In three minutes, Stacey Lara, 麻豆社区 Law Assistant Teaching Professor and Co-director of the Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic, covers the Supreme Court ruling and how it will affect Indian Country.