Indian Lawyers Gaining Foothold Shaping Policy In Wheeler-Dealer World Of Washington

During the week, Wilson Pipestem cuts deals, does power lunches and dispenses legal advice as one of the tight-knit group of Native American lawyers who are shaping Indian politics.

But it’s on Saturdays when he and his buddies head to the local basketball court that Pipestem puts in some of his most taxing hours. Besides shooting hoops, they trade legal tales, trash politicians and catch up on tribal gossip. Basketball, they say, is their golf.

“We play hard, and we have a lot of fun,” said Pipestem, 28, an Otoe and Osage Indian from Oklahoma. “But what the game is really about is helping each other, helping the cause of native people. That’s why we’re all here.”

Around Washington, Pipestem and his friends are viewed as the new generation of legal eagles - the group that will define Indian policy for the next century.

“They’re a bunch of kids who heeded their forefathers’ call,” said Ron Allen, president of the National Congress of American Indians. “They got their education. Now, they’re giving back to tribes.”

There are several dozen of these young Indian lawyers in Washington. Some work in private law firms. Pipestem, for example, is at Swidler & Berlin. Others work for congressional committees and in government agencies like the Justice Department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They prefer to describe what they’re doing as a mission, not a job.

They think hostility toward Indians is increasing, particularly in the three years since Republicans took control of the House and Senate. They point to congressional proposals to tax Indian gambling revenues and attempts to restrict tribes’ water, fishing and timber rights.

“The last few years have been really hard on Indians,” said Chris Stearns, 32, a Navajo who works as a general counsel for the Democrats on the House Resources Committee. “If you look at the legislative record, most of what’s been proposed for us has been negative.”

But the lawyers say the greatest threat Indians face is to tribal sovereignty, and they think many politicians do not recognize that tribes are exempt from many of the federal laws that govern other Americans.

“A lot of people don’t understand that tribes run their own governments apart from the U.S. government,” said Jessica Kachur, 27, a Sault Sainte Marie Chippewa, who is working for Hobbs, Strauss, Dean & Walker while she awaits the results of her bar exam. “That’s what sovereignty means: the right to govern yourself.”

The new lawyers’ contributions appear to be making a difference.

While they may have not been on the front lines, many played key roles in defeating recent congressional proposals that Indians considered harmful to their people. There have also been battles to preserve funding for such reservation programs as education, housing, and drug and alcohol prevention.

But the battles have come with a price.

The lawyers, most of them from nurturing families who stressed education as the key to individual and tribal success, often feel torn between two worlds. While many Indians applaud them, others think they are forsaking their heritage.

Vine DeLoria Jr., a professor of law, history and political science at the University of Colorado in Boulder, is a critic of what the new lawyers represent.

In his book, “Red Earth: White Lies,” DeLoria wrote that the push to educate Indians “has done more to erode the sense of Indian identity than any integration program” the government has put forth.

College educations, DeLoria said, have “created a generation of technicians and professionals who also happen to have Indian blood.”

Not so, said Richard Monette, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison.

“I think that lawyers are doing the best job that they can,” said Monette. “Frankly, they’re a bunch of heroes, given that they are terribly conflicted.”

The young Indians concede that their work here can be isolating, but they nonetheless call it rewarding.

“I’m here for my community,” said Raho Ortiz, 29, a Navajo and an attorney for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. “In this town, nobody is going to look after brown people except for brown people.”