Turtle Talk

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I first heard about Mike Taylor from John Petoskey, who had known him a long time and marveled at his audacity (Indigenacity(?), with apologies to the Dead Pioneers) in the Stock West cases and in masterminding the Quil Cede economic development project at Tulalip). If the Tribal In-House Counsel Association existed back in those days, he would be far better known.

In recent years, after his retirement, Mike started emailing me with hot tips to post on Turtle Talk. Later on, Mike explained to me that he repped Quinault in the US v. Washington trial that led to the Boldt decision. For whatever reason, Q was unwilling to intervene in the case at first, but when they did (Mike likely carried the laboring oar on that issue), they arrived as kind of a deus ex machina, being the only tribe with experience in regulating treaty fishing rights exercise at a time in the trial when Judge Boldt was asking if tribes could do so.

Mike was writing an autobiography. I sincerely hope that someone will be able to find those documents and put them together for publication. He shared a few snippets with me and all I can say is . . . LEGEND.