Congressional Powers Post-Brackeen

Matthew L M Fletcher Related Seminars and Products

Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at Michigan Law

Michigan State University College of Law

Matthew L.M. Fletcher, '97, is the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at Michigan Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of federal Indian law, American Indian tribal law, Anishinaabe legal and political philosophy, constitutional law, federal courts, and legal ethics, and he sits as the Chief Justice of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
Professor Fletcher also sits as an appellate judge for the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians, the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians, the Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska, and the Tulalip Tribes. He is a member of the Grand Traverse Band.
He previously taught at the Michigan State University College of Law (2006 to 2022) and the University of North Dakota School of Law (2004 to 2006). He has been a visiting professor at the law schools at the University of Arizona; the University of California, Hastings; the University of Michigan; the University of Montana; and Stanford University. He is a frequent instructor at the Pre-Law Summer Institute for American Indian students.
He was lead reporter for the American Law Institute's Restatement of the Law of American Indians, completed in 2022. He has published articles in the California Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, and many others. His hornbook, Federal Indian Law (West Academic Publishing), was published in 2016 and his concise hornbook, Principles of Federal Indian Law (West Academic Publishing), in 2017. Professor Fletcher co-authored the sixth and seventh editions of Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law (West Publishing, 2011 and 2017) and both editions of American Indian Tribal Law (Aspen, 2011 and 2020), the only casebook for law students on tribal law. He also authored Ghost Road: Anishinaabe Responses to Indian-Hating (Fulcrum Publishing, 2020); The Return of the Eagle: The Legal History of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (Michigan State University Press, 2012); and American Indian Education: Counternarratives in Racism, Struggle, and the Law (Routledge, 2008). He co-edited The Indian Civil Rights Act at Forty with Kristen A. Carpenter and Angela R. Riley (UCLA American Indian Studies Press, 2012) and Facing the Future: The Indian Child Welfare Act at 30 with Wenona T. Singel and Kathryn E. Fort (Michigan State University Press, 2009). Professor Fletcher's scholarship and advocacy has been cited several times by the United States Supreme Court. Finally, Professor Fletcher is the primary editor and author of the leading law blog on American Indian law and policy, Turtle Talk, http://turtletalk.wordpress.com/.
Professor Fletcher worked as a staff attorney for four Indian Tribes: the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, the Suquamish Tribe, and the Grand Traverse Band. He previously sat on the judiciaries of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians; he also served as a consultant to the Seneca Nation of Indians Court of Appeals.
He is married to Wenona Singel, a member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, and they have two sons, Owen and Emmett.

Doreen Nanibaa McPaul Related Seminars and Products

Doreen Nanibaa McPaul is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. She is Kinyaa'áanii, born for Bilagáana, her maternal grandfathers are Honaghaahnii, and her paternal grandfathers are Irish. She was born and raised in Chinle, Arizona on the Navajo Reservation. She is a 1995 graduate of Princeton University and earned her Juris Doctorate in 2001 from the Arizona State University College of Law, where she also received a Certificate in Federal Indian Law and served as a staff writer for the ASU Law Journal. After law school, Ms. McPaul clerked at the Arizona Court of Appeals for the Honorable Jefferson L. Lankford (retired). She has diverse experience serving as a tribal court staff attorney, as an associate attorney at the Nordhaus Law Firm in Albuquerque, and as a visiting clinical law professor and Interim Director of the Indian Legal Clinic at ASU. Since 2008, Ms. McPaul has worked as an in-house tribal attorney for several Arizona tribes, including a 4-year appointment as the Navajo Nation Attorney General. Ms. McPaul has nearly 25 years of experience practicing Indian law, and is admitted to practice law in Arizona and New Mexico, as well as before several tribal and federal courts.

Ms. McPaul is a 2013 graduate of the State Bar’s Bar Leadership Institute and remains active in the State Bar and Indian legal community. She currently serves as the President-Elect of the State Bar of Arizona after becoming one of the first American Indians appointed to serve on the State Bar’s Board of Governors in 2018. The Supreme Court of Arizona re-appointed her to the Board in 2019 and again in 2020 and 2023. Ms. McPaul is also a founding board member and current Executive Director of the Tribal In-House Counsel Association, a national organization that provides informational networking and support measures and programming to in-house tribal attorneys and federal Indian law practitioners. She also serves on the Board to the American Indian Law Center and serves on the PLSI Judicial Clerkship Committee. Finally, Ms. McPaul serves as a Trustee for the Irish Cultural Center in Arizona.

Ms. McPaul has received several honors for her work. In 2021, she received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad from Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins at a ceremony at the Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin. She was also elected to membership in The American Law Institute in 2021. Ms. McPaul received the 2020 Alumnus of the Year Award from the National Native American Law Student Association in recognition of her work, passion, dedication to serving Indian Country, and empowering native law students to dedicate their careers to serve their tribal communities. She is also the recipient of the State Bar of Arizona Indian Law Section’s 2020 Rodney B. Lewis Award of Excellence for exemplifying the honesty, integrity, courage, grace, dignity and respect of the award’s namesake. And finally, Ms. McPaul received the 2020 Cushing Academy Leadership Award for outstanding leadership, commitment to public service, and invaluable contributions to the Navajo Nation and the legal profession.

Most importantly, Ms. McPaul is a proud military spouse and mom. She is married to SFC Mark McPaul (retired) and they have three sons, two Rez dogs, and a cat.

Harrison William Rice Related Seminars and Products