Supreme Court Bulletin Updated

On January 17, 2007, a petition for writ of certiorari was filed in the following case: Burgess v. Watters. Read about it at the library's Supreme Court Indian Law Bulletin.

How to Build a Tribal Legal History

The library hosts a new web site tool: "How to Build a Tribal Legal History"

"Every American Indian tribe and Alaska Native village has a unique legal history. As self-governing sovereigns, these entities are empowered to develop and implement their own internal laws and legal systems."

Created by Nancy Carol Carter -- Professor of Law and Director of the Pardee Legal Research Center, University of San Diego School of Law -- this new web resource tool describes a step-by-step process for finding the documents needed to build a tribal legal history. At each of the five steps, researchers are guided to the most authoritative electronic and print sources, offering alternative sources when available. The project was supported by an American Association of Law Libraries, Lexis/Nexis Research Grant. Professor Carter has written extensively on on Native American law. Comments, corrections, and suggestions are invited. ncc@sandiego.edu

Tribal Law Gateway

The library improves access to hard-to-find tribal law documents through its improved Tribal Law Gateway: The National Indian Law Library's Tribal Law Gateway has a new look. Re-designed -- as an improved portal to the laws of the federally-recognized tribes, Alaska Native villages, and pueblos in the United States -- this area of our web site now brings together all of our research tips and tools in one place. Access has been improved to the hundreds of copies of codes, constitutions and other tribal law documents held by the library and found elsewhere.

From one web page, library researchers can access our:

• research tips and guides,
• A-Z directory for finding tribal laws and web sites,
• print and online collections,
• and more.

For tribal leaders, we have developed an informational web page about the library's efforts to collect tribal codes, constitutions, and compacts.

To use the Tribal Law Gateway today, go to http://www.narf.org/nill/triballaw/index.htm, or click on "Tribal Law Gateway" from our home page.