Professor Williams and Professor Lara 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 Native American Law Center at UW School of Law, the Tribal Court Clinic partners with the Tulalip Tribes to serve as the primary public defender in criminal misdemeanor cases filed in their Tribal Court. The Tulalip Tribes sought this innovative partnership to address the need for legal representation in 2002 and in the decades since then, the Tribal Court Clinic has become a national model for providing tribal public defender services. The clinic's clients are generally members of federally recognized Tribes who have been charged with crimes by the Tulalip Tribes or parents and/or juveniles with youth in need of care proceedings in the Muckleshoot Tribal Court. While the classes meet collaboratively, students choose to follow either the criminal track at Tulalip or the youth in need of care track at Muckleshoot. The shared classroom setting provides a comparative perspective within a Tribal framework. All students work under the direct supervision of clinic faculty.
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 UW 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.
In three minutes, Stacey Lara, UW 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.
Tribal appellate ruling in favor of Williams v. the Tulalip Tribes strengthens local court system.