About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 NARF Legal Rev. 1 (1972)

handle is hein.journals/narf1 and id is 1 raw text is: Volume 1, No. 1 Development Of The National Indian Law Library ... Indian law is a vast hodgepodge of treaties, judicial and administrative rulings, and unrecorded practices in which the intricacies, the perplexities, the confusions and injustices of the law governing Indians lay concealed- Felix Frankfurter On May 23, 1972 the Carnegie Corpor- ation of New York announced that it had made a $119,000 grant to the Na- tive American Rights Fund for the development of the National Indian Law Library. Alan Pifer, President of Carnegie Corporation, in announcing the grant, said: The National Indian Law Library is already well on its way to being the best source of documents on Indian law in the country. We are pleased to help it develop into a re- search and information center with a nation-wide reach. We hope its ex- panded services will encourage more lawyers to represent Indian clients and thereby secure justice for Native Americans now inadequately served. In the fall of 1971, the Fund began to develop the concept of a central clear- inghouse for Indian legal materials. The formation of the first national Indian legal program, combined with already existing OEO Indian legal ser- vices and the resulting three-fold in- crease in Indian litigation, brought into sharp focus the need for such a project. In the past, no single person or in- stitution has been aware of all of the lawsuits affecting Indians which have been filed, and there has been no con- certed effort at communicating the existence of such suits or other sig- nificant developments in Indian law. This has been particularly detrimental to the restoration of Indian rights because the efforts of those few at- torneys who have been involved have been uncoordinated and the results (often even the existence) of Indian related litigation has not been gene- rally known to others working in the field. Many attorneys have been unable to represent Indians at all due to the dif- ficulty of researching Indian law and keeping track of current developments and because of the specialized nature of the problems. Either the task has proven too great for the attorney or firm, or the cost has been prohibitive to the Indian client. In all areas of Indian law, it is highly desirable to present the courts with issues in an orderly, carefully calcu- lated manner so that the law in this difficult and complex field of work de- velops favorably. Bad law can be made by having the wrong case decided too soon, and much work and many costly mistakes will now be avoided by attorneys and their preparations for litigation made more complete because of the compilation and ready access to the files of the National Indian Law Library. As one of the first steps towards set- ting up the Library, Fund staff mem- bers, with encouragement from the Office of Economic Opportunity, visited the National Clearinghouse for Legal Services in Chicago and dis- cussed with them all of the implica- tions of the development of the Library project. The Clearinghouse is widely known for providing comprehensive services to lawyers practicing poverty law, and in this capacity has developed a col- lection of Indian related cases. This month the Library, with the assistance and support of OEO, officially assumed the Indian law functions of the Clear- inghouse with the transference to Boulder of all Indian law documents in the Clearinghouse collection. The development of workable in- dices has proved to be the most dif- ficult problem facing the Library. The Fund's staff represents the largest body of Indian law expertise in the country and all of the attorneys have been assisting with the refinement of the index in order that it might be a truly effective research and litigation tool. Consultants from across the country including law librarians, bibliographers and professors of Indian law have also been working with Melody Mac- Kenzie, Librarian, and other staff to ascertain what improvements and changes should be made at this early stage of operation. Digitized from Best Copy Available June, 1972

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most