NAHM Feature: Katie Brossy on her life in law

When did you decide you wanted to be a lawyer?

I didn’t have anyone in my family who was a lawyer. In fact, as far as I know, I was the first member of my entire Tribe to go to law school. I did know at a very young age that I wanted to do work on behalf of Native people. I originally wanted to pursue social work, but my senior year of college, I took a constitutional law class, and that really opened up my eyes to what the law could do for Native people.

Following college graduation, I went to a program for Native American students down in New Mexico; it’s called the Pre-Law Summer Institute, or PLSI. Professors come in and teach what it would be like during your first year of law school—property, torts, legal writing. It’s a really wonderful pipeline to help Native students get into law school and then also succeed in law school. Going to the Pre-Law Summer Institute changed the entire trajectory of my life and my career in a very positive and powerful way.

While I was at PLSI, I was recruited by a number of different law schools, including Columbia Law. Columbia offered one Indian law class that was taught by a partner at a law firm here in D.C., and I summered at that Indian law boutique after my 1L and 2L years, then got an offer to go to that firm upon graduation. As we often say, all roads in Indian Country lead to Washington, D.C., just because of the federal presence here. I then lateralled over to Akin into our American Indian law and policy practice in 2007 because of Akin’s reputation for cutting-edge and innovative Indian law matters.

Could you discuss the nature of your practice and work at Akin?

As a young associate, I was very fortunate to work on a number of very large Indian water settlements when I came over to Akin. Akin has a wonderful reputation and experience in negotiating Indian water rights settlements on behalf of our tribal clients. The first one was the Gila River Indian Community’s water settlement in 2004. When I came over, they were working on its implementation, but we were also doing work for the Crow Nation in Montana and then the Pechanga Band of Indians in Southern California, so I worked on both of those settlements as well.

The wonderful thing about Indian water settlements, as a young attorney, is that you are exposed to a variety of practice areas, including litigation, work before the federal agencies, and advocacy work to get legislation passed. It’s the type of project that you dream about because you are getting exposed to so many different areas of the law. I’m still very actively involved in the implementation work on the Pechanga water settlement and still work on a number of Gila water issues as well. I would say a big part of my portfolio is my experience and expertise in Indian water settlements.

Another big piece of my portfolio involves negotiating leases between our tribal clients and the United States government. ?The Gila River Indian Community, the firm’s longest-standing tribal client, is very innovative in how they look at priorities and projects within their Community. The problem that existed was—and this is common across Indian Country—their tribal infrastructure was very outdated. The Community had three schools within the Reservation, and they were over 100 years old. The condition of the schools you wouldn’t believe unless you saw them in person. There are construction replacement lists with Interior, and it takes decades to even get on the priority list and receive funding. So, we looked at existing federal law and looked at the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act and saw that there is a mandatory provision in there, section 105(l), that tribes can, for any facilities that they own and where they’re providing services pursuant to their federal contracts and grants, lease those facilities and receive annual lease compensation.

So, the Community took out a commercial loan to design and build the new school, and we simultaneously negotiated with the Department of the Interior and went to Congress to find federal funding for the program, so that, upon completion of the school, any of the Community’s debt service would be recouped through the 105(l) lease payment. It was a wonderful result where the Community had a brand-new school that they had built themselves. It has so many cultural components within it—their language and art, things that really make their Community members and their youth feel at home in that school and want to learn and succeed.

We replicated that model with a second school, and they are in the process of building a new police department that is scheduled to open in March that will also receive 105(l) lease compensation to cover their debt service, plus they are having a groundbreaking ceremony next month for a new public safety facility. The opportunity that this 105(l) lease program presents is just incredible not only for the Gila River Community, but for tribes across the country.

Another big thread in my work involves Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. Each U.S. state gets to pick two statues to represent them in the Capitol, and they need to pass state legislation if they want to replace their existing statues. My mom, who has worked to raise awareness about Chief Standing Bear, a Chief from my Tribe, the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, [learn more about Chief Standing Bear here] worked with the Nebraska Unicameral, and they passed a bill to replace their existing statues with one of him and one of the author Willa Cather. Once the state legislation is done, then there is a whole federal approval process to navigate, and that’s where Akin came in.

I’m very thankful that Akin is so supportive of pro bono work because I was able to serve as pro bono counsel to the state of Nebraska to help them navigate that federal process of getting all the approvals needed so that we could replace the existing statue at Statuary Hall with Chief Standing Bear. We had the unveiling for Chief Standing Bear in Statuary Hall in 2019, and it was an amazing experience, really one of the highlights of my legal career to be able to work on that and see a statue of a leader of my Tribe unveiled in the United States Capitol, and in a very prominent location in Statuary Hall. Thousands of people tour the Capitol every year, so for them to see Native people, someone from our Tribe, that’s really incredible.

That started my expertise in this very specialized area and led to me working pro bono for Nebraska on their second statue, the Willa Cather statue, which I successfully led through that whole approval process; we had that unveiling in June. Then, most recently, Arkansas retained me to help them navigate the process. Their two new statues are Daisy Bates, a civil rights leader who became known with the Little Rock Nine, the first Black students to enter Central High School, and then Johnny Cash, who will be the first musician in the Statuary Hall collection. Both of them will be going in next year.

What do you see as the big issues on the horizon for Indian Country?

I think the thing that Native people struggle the most with is that we are often invisible, and we don’t necessarily have a seat at the table when big decisions are made, when larger legislation comes together. At Akin, we are very fortunate to work for a number of tribal clients who are really good at advocating for Indian Country and for tribal issues to make sure that they have a seat at the table.

Before, if you would’ve said that we were going to see billions of dollars set aside for tribal communities, it would have been hard to imagine. But with the COVID legislation and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this legislation is investing more than $13 billion directly into tribal communities. And there have been some very large federal bills that have come through that have specifically addressed the needs in Indian Country.

I think Indian Country did a great job of rallying together and advocating for the need to be heard and to be included, and I think that is not going to stop any time in the future. Importantly, I think we will continue to have to advocate to make sure that tribal positions are considered, whether on climate issues or water issues, to make sure that there is water available for tribal communities for generations to come.

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