FULL-TIME STAFF ATTORNEY POSITION – OPENING

The Lakota Peoples’ Law Project, based in Hot Springs, South Dakota near the famous Lakota town of Wounded Knee, is opening a new “High Impact Litigation” Office in Rapid City, South Dakota – and is seeking applications from qualified Native American attorneys and qualified Native American Law-trained attorneys for the position of FULL-TIME STAFF ATTORNEY in its new Rapid City Office. Bar membership is required. However, while preferred, membership in the South Dakota State & Federal Bars is not required. This can be accomplished after being hired.Starting salary: Public Interest attorney rates.with health & retirement benefits.Our initial federal litigation will be a Rule 23(a) Federal Class Action civil lawsuit to be filed in the Western Division of the United States District of South Dakota against the South Dakota State Department of Social Services’ Children’s Protection Services seeking Declaratory and Injunctive Relief for the agency’s 10-year refusal to comply with the state and federal legal requirements of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act ( ICWA ] and the violation, by the officers, agents, employees and assignees of the DSS, of important state and federal Constitutional and Statutory Rights of the Lakota children; Lakota parents; Lakota grandparents; Lakota Tioshpaye (extended family) members and Lakota Tribes in connection with the State of South Dakota’s unlawful seizure and involuntary subjection of literally thousands of young Lakota children, over the past ten years to: a.) unlawful seizure and involuntary state detention; b.) subjection to the involuntary state administration of psychiatric drugs; c.) unlawful state termination of parental, filial and familial rights andd.) the involuntary “placement” of these Lakota children with Non-Lakota families and the state termination of all communications between these Lakota children and their rightful Lakota parents, families, Tioshpayes and Tribe.This first case will be Co-Counseled by Washington, D.C. Harvard College and Harvard Law School-trained attorney Daniel Sheehan (former National Legal Counsel to the Native American Rights Committee of ACLU National and former Christic Institute Chief Counsel in The Three-Mile Island Case; The Karen Silkwood Case [with Wyoming Attorney Gerry Spence]; The American Sanctuary Movement Case in Texas and The Iran/Contra Case);as well as by accomplished South Dakota Civil Rights & Criminal Defense Attorney Patrick Duffy; noted New York City attorney and Senior Partner in the Arent-Fox Law Firm, Eugene Scheiman and attorney Ira Lustbader, Chief Counsel of Children’s Rights, Inc. of New Jersey.Future cases which are presently being contemplated include: b.) a federal litigation to secure the return, to the traditional Seven Council Fires (Oceti Sakowin Oyate) of the Lakota People, all of the aboriginal Lakota Territory that was unlawfully seized by the United States Government, in incremental portions, in 1851; in 1868; in 1871 and in 1887 and c.) other legal actions (including federal litigation) to bring about the eventual dis-establishment of the present Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) tribal council system of government and the “Reservation” system that was unlawfully imposed upon the Lakota People by the United States Government and the replacement of these governing structures by a genuinely self-governing and self-sustaining traditional Seven Council Fires Government in Lakota Territory.Applicants for this Full-Time Staff Attorney position must have: a.) excellent legal training in the fields of American Indian Law and American Constitutional Law and b.) some federal and/or state litigation experience in the first of these legal fields.

Please contact directly:
Attorney Daniel Sheehan at: (831) 459-6136 Or ParadigmProject@aol.com