This session will provide an overview of a model for collaboration on a new Tribal Appellate Clerk Project at Michigan State University College of Law (“MSU”) in their Indian Law Clinic (“Clinic”). The goal of the session is to educate participants generally on the Project and more specifically on some of the legal needs of Tribal communities, particularly Tribal Courts.
The Indian Law Clinic has been operating as a formal clinic since 2016, and as an experiential class since 2006. The Clinic enrolls both Native and non-Native students and represents Indian tribes and tribal organizations, as opposed to direct client services for individual Tribal members. The Clinic has partnered with the Blackfeet Tribe’s Court of Appeals. The students, under the supervision of the Clinic Director and a fellow/attorney, work as law clerks for the Blackfeet Tribe’s appellate justices. The students are given a trial court record and are responsible for identifying issues, researching, and writing briefs. Tribal justices receive much needed research and bench memorandums to help draft their opinions, and students learn the importance of written and unwritten tribal law and custom. These opinions are an important vehicle for the dissemination and preservation of tribal knowledge, customs, and laws for the communities they affect. In addition, other projects are assigned needed, such as the development of a Clerk’s Manual.
The Project flips the extractive model of University/Tribal relations on its head, as the professors and students use University resources to advance, promote, and strengthen the Tribe’s own justice system through collaboration and service, and at the Tribal Court’s direction. Students are taught cultural humility and client-centered lawyering that is vital to systems change and subverting hierarchies pervasive in law school curriculum.