No resource is more important to tribes than their children. The health of a tribe is directly dependent on the health and welfare of its children. When tribal children face challenges, it is crucial that tribes work to ensure that tribal families remain intact and that tribal children maintain close ties to their community and their culture. The Firm has worked for years with tribes to ensure that tribal children and their families are afforded the full protections of tribal, state and federal laws, so that they have the best opportunity to heal and to move forward together.
The Firm's attorneys have extensive experience working with tribal social services agencies to represent the interests of tribes, tribal families and tribal children in tribal, state and federal courts. In addition, the Firm's attorneys have worked with their clients to ensure that, where possible, tribal forums handle matters involving tribal children, have assisted their clients in encouraging extended family involvement solving challenges faced by their family members, and have encouraged and assisted in developing culturally-based approaches to these challenges.
Where necessary, the Firm has represented tribal clients in tribal state and federal judicial forums at trial and appellate levels and has assisted those clients in securing significant victories for tribal children and their families. Examples of the Firm's recent experience in this area includes the following:
- Represented tribal clients on all cases involving tribal children in State court proceedings in the Twin Cities metro area, out-state Minnesota and in the state courts of other states from South Dakota to New York.
- Represented tribal clients in tribal court proceedings from drafting and initiating hundreds of child in need of protection petitions, to adjudicating those petitions and vindicating them on appeal.
- Represented tribal clients in federal court proceedings involving tribal children, including assisting in securing a federal court ruling confirming the extraterritorial jurisdiction of a tribal client over its minor children, wherever located, if they are in need of assistance.
- Secured intervenor status of a Canadian First Nation under the federal Indian Child Welfare in a child welfare proceeding in New York state court, based on the tribe's its historical ancestral relationship with a federally-recognized Indian tribe in the state of Minnesota.
- Prepared and filed scores of appellate briefs as amici curiae on behalf of tribal clients in important cases involving Indian children from other tribes.
The Firm has also assisted its clients in developing department policies and procedures for implementing social services responsibilities to tribal children, and in creating tribal law to assist in addressing the needs of adult members in tribal forums, including guardianship proceedings, civil commitment proceedings, tribal drug court procedures.
