Through a collaboration between the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians and the Tribal State Federal Judicial Forum, there is now a Tribal Law Handbook to prepare Michigan legal practitioners for work with the state's Indigenous communities. The resource aims demarginalize tribal communities in legal education.
Taylor Mills, an attorney who recently graduated from Michigan State University with a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Law, edited the handbook. Michigan Supreme Court Justice Megan Cavanagh serves as a liaison for the Tribal State Federal Judicial Program. Both shared how new resource came to be, what the Tribal State Federal Judicial Forum is and how the project started.
"Part of the goal of this handbook was to familiarize folks with some of those key concepts because there's a high likelihood that they will encounter them," Mills said. "I think another aspect of what we're hoping to do with this handbook is to challenge that historicizing narrative that happens a lot of times, where tribes are this thing of the past, or this kind of dying-off community, which is very problematic and not accurate at all."
Hear Taylor Mills' and Justice Megan Cavanagh's full conversations with April Baer on the Stateside podcast.
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GUESTS ON TODAY’S SHOW:
- Taylor Mills, editor of the Tribal Law Handbook
- Megan Cavanagh, Justice for the Michigan Supreme Court; liaison for the Tribal State Federal Judicial Program
