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Curtis Berkey specializes in the area of tribal environmental protection, cultural resource protection, water rights and land claims. He has worked in the field of Indian law his entire legal career, from 1979 to the present. He was a staff attorney at the Indian Law Resource Center in Washington, D.C. from 1979 to 1990, where he litigated many significant Indian land claims cases in New York State. He authored one of the briefs on behalf of the Oneida Tribes in the landmark case of Oneida County v. Oneida Indian Nation, in which the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right of Indian tribes to recover for land taken illegally by the State of New York in the 19th century. In 1990, Mr. Berkey became the Washington Director of the Indian Law Resource Center, a position he held for five years.
In 1995, Mr. Berkey joined the U.S. Justice Department as a senior trial lawyer in the Indian Resources Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division. In that capacity, he litigated a number of environmental cases on behalf of Indian tribes, and also worked on land title actions, treaty cases and complex water rights cases for tribes. In 1997, he received the Department of Justice's Meritorious Award for his efforts as lead attorney in litigating and settling a multi-million dollar groundwater contamination case on behalf of the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma. In 1997, Mr. Berkey entered private practice with an exclusive focus on Indian law. He represented the Pueblo of Santa Clara in reacquiring a significant portion of its ancestral lands from private owners, which for the first time in 140 years gave the Pueblo complete control and ownership of its watershed and traditional use areas in the Baca Ranch. Additionally, Mr. Berkey represented the Yurok Tribe in several significant victories in federal court establishing their fishing and water rights in the Klamath River. Mr. Berkey has published widely in professional journals, and is co-author of the critically acclaimed book Exiled in the Land of the Free: Democracy, Indian Nations and the U.S. Constitution, (1992) (Clear Light Publishers, Santa Fe, New Mexico). |
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