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Little Fawn Boland, who recently joined the
Academy of Tribal & Local Government, says getting
a black belt in martial arts helped her get ahead
by gale courey toensing
W
hen Little Fawn Boland was
a child growing up in Nevada, she earned a black belt
in tae kwon do, and she believes that
providing her with martial
arts training was one of the
best things her parents ever
did for her. “I think being in
martial arts as a kid is such
a good thing. It teaches discipline and respect for your
elders, and never to miss
your training or your tests.
I think it was a very good
foundation for my studies.” Boland knows plenty
about discipline and training and taking tests: Just
six years ago she earned her
law degree from the University of California’s Hastings
College of the Law, in San
Francisco, one of the top
law schools in the country.
Boland, 35, already has
her own law firm in San
Francisco, and she has just
joined the Academy of
Tribal & Local Government (ATLG) as an educator. Although she is not
recommending tae kwon do
for everyone, she does hope
that more Native Americans will follow her academic path and study law.
“I really hope that we have
more Native American attorneys,”
said Boland, who is a member of the
Piro-Manso-Tiwa Tribe of Guadalupe
Pueblo in Las Cruces, New Mexico. “I
think it’s really important that Native
people get more education so we can be
our own attorneys. A lot of outsiders
have come in to help tribes and while
that’s really wonderful, it can also lead
to disastrous results, and I hope we can
have more Natives on every level going
back and helping our communities.”
Her appointment to ATLG is the
latest in a string of impressive accomplishments. Straight out of law school,
she served with Rosette & Associates,
PC, a Native American–owned and
-operated law firm representing tribal
governments and tribal entities nationwide, where she ultimately became
a partner. Her work there focused on
protecting tribal rights and interests,
including tribal civil and criminal jurisdiction, federal trust obligations,
tribal-state gaming compacts, tribal
sovereign immunity, and the protection of cultural, environmental and
resource rights. She provided general
and special counsel services including
litigation, administrative
law, contract negotiation
and project finance, advocacy and negotiation
with outside governments,
National Environmental
Policy Act compliance, and
Indian land decisions and
fee-to-trust applications as
related to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. She also
crafted comprehensive employment law handbooks
for tribal governments.
From 2006–2007, Boland served as general counsel of the Washoe Tribe,
working with the tribal
government, departments
and boards. She advocated
for the interests and trust
assets of the tribe, negotiated intergovernmental
agreements, and drafted
tribal codes, policies and
ordinances, always with the
fundamental goal of protecting tribal sovereignty.
Boland said she was honored to have been selected in
January to join the ATLG
faculty. The academy is a
Native American–owned
and -operated institute co-founded by
Deron Marquez, the former chairman
of the San Manuel Band of Serrano
Mission Indians, whose reservation is
located in Highland, California. Marquez faced some of the most daunting legal battles in Indian country
Courtesy Little Fawn Boland
A Lawyer With Quite a Kick
IndianCountryTodayMediaNetwork.com February 16, 2011
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Courtesy Little Fawn Boland
feature 35
during his time as chairman, including
a precedent-setting court ruling that
supported the National Labor Relations Board assertion of jurisdiction
in Indian country. (The case has not
yet been tested in the U.S. Supreme
Court. Tribal nations are reluctant to
take cases to the current high court,
which is considered unfriendly toward
Indian country.)
Marquez’s experiences in the confrontational aspect of tribal relationships with non-tribal entities led him
to conclude that it would be better
(and cheaper) to resolve the issues facing the nations and other governments
through communication and education rather than through litigation,
so he co-founded the academy with
Rod Wilson to pursue those ends. The
academy provides education and training for Native American and Alaska
Native tribal governments, members
and tribal employees and for local,
county and parish governments. It also
issues certification and evaluation of
tribal vendors and business partners.
The academy has a top-notch faculty
of academics and other experts in law,
finance, government, political science,
economics and other disciplines.
Boland will provide workshops and
training to tribal governments on a
range of topics. “I’ve given a lot of
workshops on ‘Sovereignty 101’ and
how a tribal government may waive
sovereignty in tribal contracts,” she
said. “I’ve done workshops to help tribal council members understand their
fiduciary duties as tribal leaders. Also,
a lot of tribes now encounter complex
financial transactions in which they’re
introduced to financial terms that may
be unfamiliar. So we take the big concepts and break them down into laymen’s terms so that tribal leaders can
really learn from these workshops.”
ATLG co-founder Wilson says of
Boland, “She is one of the very few
Native American female tribal attorneys that I am aware of who has risen
up and represented tribal nations with
pride, honor and respect. She knows
the law and knows how to work with
tribal leaders to maintain and protect
sovereignty while being sure that indi-
After working in other law offices for five years, Boland recently opened her own firm.
vidual pride and self-respect are maintained. She truly is a woman who has
limitless talents and is able to ensure
confidence in a legal process which
has been turbulent to say the least for
tribal nations in their struggle for selfreliance and tribal preservation.”
Boland has shown plenty of selfreliance. After working in other law offices for five years, she opened her own
firm. “It was slow at first and then all of
a sudden, in late December, out of the
blue—I haven’t done any marketing or
even a website—I started getting calls
from different people saying, ‘We’re
looking for counsel for this or that.’ I
found six clients about two weeks ago;
and none of them are huge, but for one
person it’s plenty of work for now.”
But Boland anticipates that her
workload will increase soon because
it’s not an easy time for tribal nations
in terms of the legal landscape. “I think
the most difficult thing is the ball is always moving on what the law is that
we’re supposed to be working under.
So it’s difficult to prepare your strategy for, let’s say, a restored land application or a fee-to-trust application
because the rules keep changing. Also,
one single politician can change the
rules if they want to.”
She cited a “guidance memorandum”
issued during the George W. Bush administration limiting off-reservation
casinos by distance, the Supreme
Court’s Carcieri v. Salazar ruling,
which undermined the Interior secretary’s authority to take land into trust
for tribes not “under federal jurisdiction” in 1934, and recent under-theradar efforts by Sen. Dianne Feinstein,
D-California, to introduce legislation
that would limit or eliminate offreservation casinos. “I think it’s vital
for my clients and all of Indian country
to maintain the networks, so they have
the most accurate information on the
ground of what’s happening in D.C.
So working together with other attorneys, with our national organizations
is important,” Boland said, adding that
navigating all the issues involving Indian law right now is like a chess game.
“You have to think 10 steps ahead
about all the potential contingencies.
You can’t just stay focused on your one
little thing because everything we’re
doing now fits into such a larger paradigm that has to do with Indian gaming. And the whole view right now on
Indian gaming is shifting and a lot of
changes seem to be coming fast.”
With all the issues facing Indian
country and an anticipated increase in
the number of clients in her practice,
Boland said that those hoped-for Native American attorneys specializing
in Indian law would be more than welcome right now. 0
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