Matthew L.M. Fletcher

UDub Tribal Code Drafting Workshop

July 3, 2025Matthew L.M. Fletcher

1st Annual Tribal Code Drafting Workshop

Aug. 7–8, 2025

This August, the Native American Law Center (NALC) will hold its first CLE dedicated to drafting, revising and/or amending tribal codes.

The workshop — led by Professor Eric Eberhard, Associate Director of the NALC, alongside NALC Fellow Avey Menard — will provide focused instruction on legislative drafting techniques that focus on the specifics of tribal codes, including their intersection with federal laws, such as the Indian Civil Rights Act, VAWA and federal environmental statutes and their relationship to tribal courts and other governmental forums.

This two-day intensive workshop will provide you with opportunities to draft an amendment to existing law as well as a standalone piece of legislation of your own choosing within a workshop environment. Professor Eberhard and Fellow Menard will be available to review, comment on and discuss all drafts.

The program will only be offered live, and we anticipate 11.75 MCLE credit hours for those who attend the program. Registration costs $275 and attendance is limited to 15 participants. Make sure to reserve your seat now at the link below!

Register Today

UDub Tribal Code Drafting Workshop

July 3, 2025Matthew L.M. Fletcher

1st Annual Tribal Code Drafting Workshop

Aug. 7–8, 2025

This August, the Native American Law Center (NALC) will hold its first CLE dedicated to drafting, revising and/or amending tribal codes.

Register Today

Blast from the Past: Felix Cohen’s “Bill of Particulars”

July 3, 2025July 3, 2025Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The early 1950s featured truly awful federal leadership in Indian affairs, with Dillon Myer serving as Commissioner and Oscar Chapman as Interior Secretary. The leadership of the American Association on Indian Affairs wanted to produce a high-profile “bill of particulars” that would condemn the government’s terminationist actions. Other national activists resisted, worrying that direct political attacks on Interior Department leaders would backfire. While they debated, Felix Cohen wrote a 34 page memorandum detailing federal abuses, a paper he would shape into his classic Yale Law Journal article, The Erosion of Indian Rights, 1950-1953: A Case Study in Bureaucracy.

Here is the bill of particulars:

Cohen’s Bill of Particulars.pdf Download

D.C. Circuit Briefs in Narragansett Indian Tribe v. White

July 2, 2025Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

Opening Brief.pdf Download

USET Amicus.pdf Download

Federal Brief.pdf Download

Reply.pdf Download

Oklahoma SCT Rejects Tribal Citizen Income Tax Immunity in Indian Country

July 1, 2025Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the opinions in Stroble v. Oklahoma Tax Commission:

Per Curiam Order.pdf Download

Kane Concurrence.pdf Download

Rowe Concurrence.pdf Download

Kuehn Concurrence.pdf Download

Winchester Concurrence.pdf Download

Darby Concurrence.pdf Download

Dissent.pdf Download

Briefs here.

*City of Sherrill is the epitome of fascism.*

ABA Webinar on the 50th Anniversary of the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act

July 1, 2025Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

Since 1975, or for 50 years, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDA) has provided a unique legal framework for tribes to assume the responsibility, and associated funding, to carry out programs and services that the United States government would otherwise be obligated to provide to American Indians and Alaska Natives. Today, the tribal self-determination and self-governance policies, and other legislative initiatives designed along the lines of the Act, have proven to be some of the most successful policies that the United States has ever enacted impacting American Indians and tribal communities. These unique policies have fostered an extraordinary renaissance in tribal communities by empowering tribes to promote their tribal economies, build governmental infrastructures, provide law and order, manage tribal natural and cultural resources, meet the healthcare and educational needs of their members, and perform a myriad of other governmental functions. This webinar will include distinguished presenters that have been deeply involved in shaping and implementing the self-determination policy in tribal communities and nationally.

Speakers:

Mary L. Smith – Immediate Past President, American Bar Association; Former CEO, Indian Health Service; Vice Chair, VENG Group; Chair, Caroline and Ora Smith Foundation
Deb Haaland – Former Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior
Bobbie Greene Kilberg – Former White House Fellow, President Nixon’s Domestic Policy Council
Bryan T. Newland – Former Tribal Chairman, Bay Mills Indian Community; Former Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior
W. Ron Allen – Chair/CEO, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal
Natasha Singh – President and Chief Executive Officer, Alaska Tribal Native Health Consortium

Moderator:

Geoffrey D. Strommer – Partner, Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker LLP

If you are unable to attend the webinar live, you can view the program on our YouTube Channel immediately after the program. Once complete, we will send an email notifying all registrants when the program webpage is finalized, including both the recording and resources from the panelists.

The content of this program does not meet the requirements for continuing legal education (CLE) accreditation. You will not receive CLE credit for participating.