![]() |
Barbara Karshmer
Stephen V. Quesenberry
Melissa A. Schlichting
David A. Clifford
Mark St. Angelo
Sara Dutschke
Barbara Karshmer
Barbara Karshmer received her law degree from the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law in 1973. She has been practicing exclusively in the field of federal Indian law since 1975. For nearly thirty years, her work has been totally devoted to representing Indian tribes and tribal organizations, in court, before Congress, and before administrative agencies, as well as assisting tribes with internal self-government issues and economic development opportunities. The majority of Ms. Karshmer's work has been in the subject areas of tribal self-determination, tribal self-government (preparing Tribal constitutions, ordinances and policies), P.L. 93-638 contracting and compacting, employment law, Indian health law, water law, and economic development projects (recently including a water bottling plant and a $250 million casino and hotel).
Ms. Karshmer has litigated and won many important cases for tribes, including the following: She served as the winning counsel in the landmark case of Rincon Band v. Califano in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the IHS method of allocating funds for health care nationwide was illegal because it created substantial underfunding for California Indians. She also represented the Morongo Tribe in the historic U.S. Supreme Court case of California v. Cabazon and Morongo Bands of Mission Indians in which the Supreme Court held that under P.L. 280, the State of California could not prohibit gaming on the Indian Reservations, which case cleared the way for tribal gaming nationwide. She also represented an Alaska Native Regional Corporation in Cook Inlet Treaty Tribes v. Shalala, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in which she confirmed the right of the Cook Inlet Region, Inc. to contract and compact under Public Law 93-638 in Alaska.
Ms. Karshmer has also had extensive experience representing Tribes in the legislative arena. One of the three primary authors of the substantial revisions to the Indian Self-Determination Act (P.L. 93-638) in 1994, she then participated in the negotiated rule-making that followed and served as one of the main drafters of the P.L. 93-638 regulations and the BIA/IHS handbook on implementing P.L. 93-638 for federal employees. She subsequently worked on the drafting of Title V (Self-Governance) and the regulations to implement that title of the Indian Self-Determination Act. In the health law arena, Ms. Karshmer was responsible for drafting several of the seven Titles of the Tribal version of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act that remains under consideration by Congress. She has also been involved in a variety of other legislative matters for tribes and tribal organizations.
Ms. Karshmer's clients have ranged from small California Tribes to the Navajo Nation and currently include a variety of tribes and tribal organizations in the western states. Her clients' satisfaction with Ms. Karshmer's work is demonstrated by the fact that she has continued to successfully represent many of the same clients for more than twenty-five years.
Ms. Karshmer is a member of the California Bar and is admitted to practice in all of the federal district courts of California, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the United States Court of Federal Claims, and the United States Supreme Court.
Stephen V. Quesenberry
Mr. Quesenberry joined the firm in 2003, bringing almost three decades of experience working on behalf of tribal governments. From 1985 to 2003 Mr. Quesenberry served as the Senior Program Attorney and Director of Litigation for California Indian Legal Services (CILS), a statewide Indian legal services program; from 1982-1984 as a Senior Staff Attorney and Reginald Heber Smith Community Fellow at CILS; from 1980-1982 as Tribal Attorney for the Skokomish Indian Tribe in western Washington; from 1976-1980 as Directing Attorney of two CILS field offices in Bishop and Escondido, California; in 1976 as a Staff Attorney for the Small Tribes of Western Washington; and from 1974-1976 as a VISTA Attorney and Staff Attorney for the Seattle Legal Services Center.
Mr. Quesenberry has represented Indian tribal governments and individual Indians in federal agency proceedings and at federal and state trial and appellate levels, including briefing and arguing cases before the United States Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and California appellate courts. Mr. Quesenberry also has extensive administrative and legislative advocacy experience, including representation of tribes in land acquisition, tribal restoration and acknowledgment, tribal court development, Public Law 280, natural resources protection, and related funding issues. He has worked on tribal and individual Indian status issues for more than two decades and recently served as legal consultant and attorney to the Advisory Council on California Indian Policy in its preparation and submission of reports and recommendations to the United States Congress on the unique status problems of the California tribes. He has also represented indigenous interests at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and in 1995 completed the summer course in human rights law at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
Mr. Quesenberry is a member of the California and Washington Bars and is also admitted to practice in all of the federal district courts of California, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States Court of Federal Claims, and the United States Supreme Court. His current practice includes: tribal energy development; protection and development of tribal water rights; protection of tribal fishing rights (in the context of hydropower licensing); tribal taxation; tribal regulatory authority under the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts; and, more generally, tribal economic development. He is also a Lecturer in Law at Santa Clara University Law School where he teaches a course in Federal Indian Law.
Melissa A. Schlichting
Ms. Schlichting is a graduate of the University of Montana School of Law where she focused her legal studies on Indian law. Originally from Montana, Ms. Schlichting worked directly for Indian tribes and represented individual Indian clients in trial courts as part of the Indian law clinic at the University of Montana. Ms. Schlichting participated in the Native American Law Students Association Moot Court Competition representing that University in the national competition. She also worked with the Indian Law Research Center in Helena, Montana, providing research on key issues in cases before the United States Supreme Court.
As a practicing attorney in Montana, Ms. Schlichting represented Indian tribes and individual Indians in tribal, state and federal courts throughout Montana. She has also appeared on behalf of tribal clients in front of various administrative boards, including tribal appellate boards, BIA administrative panels, the Department of Interior's Office of Hearings and Appeals, and Interior Board of Indian Appeals (IBIA). Her clients have included both large and small tribes and she has worked on the full range of issues faced by tribes today. Since moving to California in January 2001, she has represented California tribes in various capacities.
Since joining the firm, Ms. Schlichting has been active in litigation and has worked on issues involving sovereign immunity, gaming, health law, employment law and Indian preference, insurance issues for tribes including defending tort claims against them, commercial transactions, tribal community college issues, preparation of tribal ordinances and policies, etc.
Ms. Schlichting is a member of the State Bars of Montana and California, and is admitted to practice in all of the federal courts in Montana and California.
David A. Clifford
Mr. Clifford, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is a 2002 graduate of Loyola Law School where he focused his studies on civil rights. Mr. Clifford was a member of the Saint Thomas More Honor Society as well as a member of the Native American Students Association. While at Loyola, Mr. Clifford worked with various with various civil rights organizations. As an extern, Mr. Clifford provided research regarding Native American reparations, performed outreach to prisoners and helped draft a living wage ordinance.
As a practicing attorney in California, Mr. Clifford represented Bing Crosby's beneficiaries in on going litigation against various record companies. Mr. Clifford also represented various other business and non-business interests. He has worked on a variety of issues including real estate litigation, intellectual property litigation and receiverships.
Since joining the firm Mr. Clifford has been working on self-governance issues, business transactions, preparation of Tribal ordinances and policies, issues related to the American Indian Probate Reform Act, and other projects for our tribal clients.
Mr. Clifford is a member of the State Bar of California.
Mark St. Angelo
Mr. St. Angelo joined the firm in 2006 after completing 20+ years with the U.S. Department of Justice, mostly in the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Northern and Eastern Districts of California. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, he represented the United States, its agencies and employees as trial and appellate counsel in a wide range of civil cases as well as some criminal cases, and was counsel of record in a number of published district court and Ninth Circuit decisions. Mr. St. Angelo also served in the United States Trustee Program, and for two years was the Acting U.S. Trustee for Region 17, with responsibility for 7 offices in California and Nevada. While with the Department of Justice, Mr. St. Angelo was selected to be a Mike Mansfield Fellow, and during his fellowship he spent a year in Japan studying the Japanese government’s enforcement of intellectual property laws. He also served as an instructor at the Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute and the U.S. Trustee Program Advocacy Institute, providing training to other Department of Justice attorneys in litigation strategy, tactics and techniques.
Mr. St. Angelo also was in private practice in Arizona, where he represented clients in commercial litigation and commercial transactions such as real estate purchase and development loans and leasing transactions, and in California, where he represented high-tech companies in a variety of matters such as equity funding and issuance of securities, technology licensing and transfers, purchase and sale contracts, employee matters and other matters related to corporate formation and operation. During this time he also chaired and spoke at seminars regarding the topic of protecting corporate intellectual property.
Mr. St. Angelo graduated from the School of Law (Boalt Hall) at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1976. He currently is an active member of the California bar, and an inactive member of the Arizona bar.
Sara Dutschke
Ms. Dutschke graduated from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in May of 2006. A member of the Ione Band of Miwok Indians, Ms. Dutschke is committed to serving Native communities in California. She received her Masters Degree in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis, focusing her research there on issues affecting Indian communities in the state including the California Indian Jurisdiction Act and land claims in California, the Federal Recognition Process, and tribal economic development opportunities. As a law student, Ms. Dutschke researched the debate over tribal disenrollment, arguing that both the state and federal courts lack jurisdiction to hear tribal disenrollment disputes. She also participated in the Geneva Institute on Indigenous Peoples Law and Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, taking classes on international social, cultural and political rights, and attending the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations Office at Geneva.
While pursuing her masters and law degrees, Ms. Dutschke worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Pacific Regional Office in Sacramento. Her work there involved a myriad of issues including fire protection for reservation communities, research regarding tribal basketmaking materials in California and the need for controlled burning, processing of tribal and individual fee-to-trust applications, and providing general assistance to tribes with various contracting and compacting issues. Ms. Dutschke spent two years working as a liaison between the Pacific Regional Office and the California Tribal Trust Reform Consortium. She assisted the Consortium Tribes with various tribal matters pending at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Ms. Dutschke also assisted in the execution of an operating agreement between the parties which took a progressive approach toward implementing the federal trust responsibility by integrating Tribal standards, values and philosophies into the Bureau’s daily activities.
Ms. Dutschke joined the firm in September of 2006 in the hopes of more directly serving the needs of Indian Tribes in California, and across the nation.
Ms. Dutschke is a member of the California State Bar.
|
![]() |
