The Tribal Law and Policy Institute (TLPI) along with our training and technical assistance partners – the National American Indian Court Judges Association (NAICJA) present two upcoming webinars: Innovating Access to Justice in Tribal Courts: Emergent Supports for Pro Se Litigants and Judges and Empowering Tribal Courts through Self Help Resource Development as part of our Empowering Justice Webinar Series focused on providing resources for Pro-Se Litigants and Tribal Court judges.
Innovating Access to Justice in Tribal Courts: Emergent Supports for Pro Se Litigants and Judges
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
10am AK/11am PT/12pm MT/1pm CT/2pm ET
The growing access to justice (A2J) crisis is well-documented in the United States: Recent data show that 74% of low-income U.S. households experience at least one civil legal need per year, with individuals not receiving any or enough legal help for 92% of their civil legal problems. While there are limited data on the civil legal needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives, we know that the crisis is likely exacerbated in Indian Country owing to the legacies of settler colonialism, sustained disinvestment in Tribal and rural communities, ongoing challenges to sovereignty, and the complex interplay of Tribal, state and federal law. It is perhaps unsurprising that many Native Americans often struggle to access adequate housing, education, safe communities, quality health care and nutrition, and secure employment—all issues with clear civil legal implications.
In this presentation, Michele Statz will discuss the access to justice crisis in Indian Country and how it affects both Native litigants and Tribal court judges. She will next overview relatively well-established models of Indigenous access to justice from the settler colonial nations of Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand. Finally, in conversation with Stephanie Hudson, she will discuss an emergent A2J support in the U.S., the Community Justice Worker model, as a uniquely responsive and culturally, spatially and linguistically representative form of advocacy. Time will be built in for audience members to ask questions and evaluate the relevance of these models in their own courts. This presentation will underscore the need for systematic, structural change as well as the importance of everyday practices that help tribal court judges elicit good facts, build trust in the courts, and retain the energy needed to administer justice.
Who Should Attend:
FY 2023 Coordinated Tribal Assistance (CTAS) Purpose Area #3 Grantees and legal professionals, Tribal leaders, and anyone interested in learning more about support for pro se litigants and judges in Tribal courts.
Presenters:
Michele Statz, Phd.
Associate Professor
University of Minnesota
Michele Statz is an anthropologist of law. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth and affiliated faculty with the University of Minnesota Law School. She is also a 2021-22 Access to Justice Faculty Scholar at the American Bar Foundation.
Michele’s current research examines how socio-spatial dimensions of rurality influence legal advocacy, rights mobilization, and the work of tribal and state court judges in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. This project stretches the usual bounds of analysis by underscoring rural individuals’ own expertise and experiences of the “rural lawscape.” It likewise identifies necessary opportunities for these perspectives to inform and innovate policy, practice, and applied research methodologies. Statz’s research has been published in Harvard Law and Policy Review, Law & Society Review, American Journal of Public Health, Georgetown Journal of Poverty Law & Policy, The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, and Health and Place.
Stephanie Hudson
Executive Director
Oklahoma Indian Legal Services
Stephanie Hudson is a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma. She is a fourth generation descendent of Chief Lone Wolf, and a descendent of Maun-kee(Kiowa Bill). She is the Executive Director of Oklahoma Indian Legal Services (OILS).
Stephanie received her Juris Doctor from the School of Law at Oklahoma City University (OCU), and before becoming Executive Director, Stephanie was a staff attorney with OILS for 15 years and provided legal assistance to tribal members in Oklahoma tribal courts as well as Oklahoma state district courts. Before OILS, she worked with the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s Alternative Dispute Resolution System.
She is a member of the Oklahoma Bar Association (OBA), the Oklahoma Indian Bar Association (OIBA), and numerous Tribal Court Bar Associations. She is Vice-President of the OIBA and has served as the chair of the OBA’s Indian Law Section. She has taught Tribal Law, American Indian Wills and Tribal Peacemaking at the OCU School of Law. She is currently the clinical professor of the American Indian Estates Clinic at the University of Oklahoma College of Law.
She was recently awarded the National Indian Education Association’s Indian Parent of the Year. She has also been the Guardian Ad Litem of the Year by the Family Law Section of the OBA. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the United Urban Indian Council and has served on the Board of Directors of the Jacobson House. She has served as the Chairperson of the Oklahoma Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and has served on the Parent Committee of the OKCPS Native American Student Services.
Her spouse, Randy Burghart is a teacher with Oklahoma City Public Schools and her son, Jackson is college student in Colorado.
Empowering Tribal Courts through Self Help Resource Development
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
9am AK/10am PT/11am MT/12pm CT/1pm ET
A shared goal of tribal justice systems is to provide access to justice for their tribal community and many are working to develop pro se or self-help resources. This webinar will provide a working roadmap for the development of self-help resources in both the civil and criminal arenas. This session will highlight holistic defense and holistic justice, resource mapping, and how to create pro se resources for individuals coming into the civil or criminal systems. The focus of this session is to empower tribal communities via their courts to provide access to justice for the community when there are limited or no local or tribal resources available. Attendees will learn how to resource map for a tribal community through examples. After learning the skill, attendees will have a chance to flex their knowledge by working in small groups to practice resource mapping. To conclude the session, attendees will learn about creating pro se resources such charts for the life of a criminal case and response forms for an Order to Show Cause. All attendees will be given access to these resources after the session for their own Tribe’s use.
Who Should Attend:
FY 2023 Coordinated Tribal Assistance (CTAS) Purpose Area #3 Grantees and legal professionals, Tribal leaders, and anyone interested in learning more about support for pro se litigants and judges in Tribal courts.
Presenters:
Ilse Turner
Staff Attorney
Nevada Legal Services
Ms. Turner is a Staff Attorney with Nevada Legal Services in the Indian Law Project. Ms. Turner is a proud graduate of Suffolk University Law School, J.D. ’22, and West Virginia University, B.A. ’19. She is admitted to practice in the Reno- Sparks Tribal Court, Shoshone- Paiute Tribal Court, and Yerington Paiute Tribal Court. Ms. Turner is also barred in the state of Nevada. In addition to her role as a Staff Attorney, Ms. Turner is also a published academic author. Her writings include “Education Law- Applying the High Standard of Actual Knowledge Under Title IX – M.S. v. Susquehana Twp. Sch. Dist., 969 F.3d 120 (3d Cir. 2020)” and ” Praying for a Healthy Birth, Black Mothers Fighting Racism Even in the Delivery Room” as well as various academic blog posts. Ms. Turner has previously presented on holistic defense at the April 2024 ABA Center on Children and the Law- Access to Justice Conference. In her free time, Ms. Turner can be found in community with her favorite mutual aid organizations around Reno or working on another hobby craft.
Mary Rodriguez
Program Attorney
Native American Indian Court Judges Association (NAICJA)
Mary Rodriguez began her law career training as a public defender at the University of Washington Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic and worked as a tribal public defender for several Washington State tribes. Mary became the Director of Advocacy at the Center of Indigenous Research and Justice, and continued practicing tribal public defense. In her current role, as a Program Attorney at the National American Indian Court Judges Association (NAICJA), Mary works on the policy side of tribal courts and programming related to traditional justice and holistic defense. Mary is a former resident of Seattle, having received both her B.A. and J.D. from the University of Washington. Mary currently works remotely for NAICJA and her home base is Los Angeles, CA.
For assistance with registration or for more information, please email Mytia@TLPI.org.
