LAWYERING FOR GROUPS: THE CASE OF AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBAL ATTORNEYS Kristen A. Carpenter* & Eli Wald** Lawyering for groups, broadly defined as the legal representation of a client who is not an individual, is a significant and booming phenomenon. Encompassing the representation of governments, corporations, institutions, peoples, classes, communities, and causes, lawyering for groups is what many, if not most, lawyers do. And yet, the dominant theory of law practice—the Standard Conception, with its principles of zealous advocacy, nonaccountability, and professional role-based morality—and the rules of professional conduct that codify it, continue to be premised on the basic antiquated assumption that the paradigmatic client-attorney relationship is between an individual client and an individual attorney. The result is a set of rules and a theory of law practice that often ill fit the practice of group lawyers. This Article explores the theoretical and practical challenges of group lawyering through the study of lawyers for American Indian tribes. We believe that a focus on tribal lawyers furthers two important goals. First, the individualistic impulse of the dominant theory of law practice is so ingrained that it forecloses the possibility of challenging and imagining genuine group-based alternatives. In order to truly see the shortcomings of the Standard Conception and conceive of alternatives to it, one must start not with an abstract theory of group representation, but with a detailed study of the meaning, needs, interests, and realities of actual groups and build a corresponding theory from the ground up. Second, the story of tribal lawyers, an important narrative of both the legal profession and of tribes, is still largely untold. This Article thus aims to challenge the homogeneity of the Standard Conception of law practice and to begin the process of imagining group-based alternatives to it, while at the same time telling part of the story of tribal lawyers. * Associate Dean for Faculty Development, Associate Professor of Law, and Director, American Indian Law Program, University of Colorado Law School. ** Charles W. Delaney Jr. Professor of Law, University of Denver Sturm College of Law. The authors would like to thank Deborah Cantrell, Rick Collins, Howie Erichson, Matthew Fletcher, Bruce Green, Peter Huang, Alexi Lahav, Nancy Moore, Sarah Krakoff, Russ Pearce, Wenona Singel, Teddy Rave, Angela Riley, David Wilkins, Charles Wilkinson, and Ben Zipurski for helpful comments and conversations about this Article. 3085 3086 FORDHAM LAW REVIEW [Vol. 81 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 3086 I. LAWYERING FOR GROUPS: A PRACTICE IN SEARCH OF A THEORY ... 3089 II. A SHORT HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBAL LAWYERING ....... 3096 A. Origins .................................................................................... 3096 B. Power and the Legal System ................................................... 3097 C. Loyalty and Conflicts .............................................................. 3100 D. Legal and Political Empowerment ......................................... 3104 E. The Contemporary Tribal Lawyer .......................................... 3109 III. PROFESSIONAL IDEOLOGY, ROLE, AND RULES MEET TRIBAL LAWYERING .......................................................... 3113 A. The Dominant Professional Ideology and Role of American Lawyers ................................................................................. 3113 B. The Dominant Ideology and Tribal Lawyering ...................... 3115 C. From Ideology to Role and Rules ........................................... 3121 1. Competence ..................................................................... 3122 2. Allocation of Authority Between Client and Attorney .... 3131 3. Conflicts of Interest .......................................................... 3135 4. Organization As Client .................................................... 3140 IV. THE EXPERIENCE OF AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBAL LAWYERS AS A MEANS OF QUESTIONING LAWYERING FOR GROUPS ................... 3143 A. From “Zealous Advocacy” to “Effective Representation” .... 3145 B. From “Nonaccountability” to “Client Empowerment” ......... 3149 C. Challenging the Primacy of Professional Identity over Nonprofessional Identity ....................................................... 3152 D. Some Models from Indian Country ........................................ 3157 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................... 3162 INTRODUCTION Today’s scholars of the legal profession are asking profound questions about what changes in the practice of law mean for global governance, including issues of corporate power, state sovereignty, and human rights.1 This conversation necessarily entails consideration of the many forms of client organization, and indeed human association, comprising our profession and society. And, yet, the conversation is stymied by the absence of theoretical and descriptive accounts capturing the phenomenon of lawyering for groups. Instead, the professional obligations of lawyers remain largely conscripted to a model of individual lawyering, envisioning a lawyer representing a singular person or entity in litigation, that fails to 1. See, e.g., David B. Wilkins & Mihaela Papa, The Rise of the Corporate Legal Elite in the BRICS: Implications for Global Governance 36 B.C. INT’L & COMP. L. REV. (forthcoming 2013) (manuscript at 1–3). 2013] THE CASE OF AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBAL ATTORNEYS 3087 account for developments in the practice of law.2 This gap in the scholarship, in turn, reflects insufficient treatment of group lawyering in the rules regulating the profession. In this Article, we explore the challenges of group lawyering through the study of lawyers for American Indian tribes—groups that have, for hundreds of years, engaged lawyers in their multifaceted, intergenerational struggles to survive the forces of conquest and colonization. Today, there are 566 federally recognized Indian tribes, most of which engage lawyers as advocates in their quest for political self-determination, cultural and religious freedom, and socioeconomic well-being.3 Indian tribes share some common characteristics with other groups and entities, namely that they are collective associations of individuals often united by history, kinship, language, and culture, and bound together by social, economic, and political concerns. On the other hand, as we describe below, tribes are also different from many groups in the United States in that they are recognized as sovereigns, with reserved rights of governance over their territories and citizens.4 Despite the extensive and rich experiences of the lawyers who represent tribes, these stories have for the most part escaped notice in the professional responsibility literature. We believe that a focus on tribal lawyers furthers two important goals. First, the individualistic impulse of the basic model of law practice and its emerging alternatives is so ingrained that it forecloses the possibility of challenging and imagining genuine group-based alternatives. In order to truly see the shortcomings of the basic model and conceive of alternatives to it, one must start not with an abstract theory of group representation, but with a detailed study of the meaning, needs, interests, and realities of actual groups and build a corresponding theory from the ground up. Second, the story of tribal lawyers, an important narrative of both the legal profession and of tribes, is still largely untold. This Article thus aims to challenge the homogeneity of the standard conception of law practice and to begin the 2. See Abram Chayes, The Role of the Judge in Public Law Litigation, 89 HARV. L. REV. 1281 (1976) (describing the (then) relatively new phenomenon of lawyering for groups). 3. For background on American Indian tribes and their contemporary situations, see ROBERT T. ANDERSON, BETHANY BERGER, PHILIP P. FRICKEY & SARAH KRAKOFF, AMERICAN INDIAN LAW: CASES AND COMMENTARY, 1–13 (2008). Like this and other sources, our Article uses the terms “American Indian” and “Native American” interchangeably. 4. See COHEN’S HANDBOOK OF FEDERAL INDIAN LAW 4.01 (Nell Jessup Newton ed., 2005). Beyond the foundational concept of Indian tribes as political sovereigns within the U.S. legal system, there is a great deal of scholarship considering various legal, political, sociological, racial, cultural, and religious aspects of Indian tribes vis-à-vis other groups. While we cannot replicate these arguments here, we refer the reader to the following articles and sources cited therein. See Kristen A. Carpenter, Real Property and Peoplehood, 27 STAN. ENVTL. L.J. 313, 344–63 (2008) (drawing from political, sociological, and legal theory on groups, associations, and political entities to describe American Indian tribes as “peoples” entitled to treatment as such in litigation about property and religion); Angela R. Riley, (Tribal) Sovereignty and Illiberalism, 95 CAL. L. REV. 799, 807–38 (2007) (situating the “sovereign” status of tribes within domestic and international literature on minority groups and human rights). 3088 FORDHAM LAW REVIEW [Vol. 81 process of imagining group-based alternatives to it, while at the same time telling part of the story of tribal lawyers. We should be clear at the outset that the story we tell is neither exhaustive nor general; each of the several