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Land Claims Throughout the entire history of the firm we have been active in pursuing land claims for tribal clients. This began with cases brought against the United States under the Indian Claims Commission Act, and later under specific legislation. In early Indian Claims Commission cases we recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for clients, in litigation that sometimes went through the Supreme Court. Only two years ago, we were able to settle a claim for one pueblo for loss of their aboriginal land at a sum considerably higher than awarded to any other pueblo. We are currently handling a second part of that litigation for damage to the pueblo's reservation land.
In recent years much of our emphasis has been on recovering land for clients, either through settlement of claims cases or cases brought solely to recover land. Litigation on behalf of one tribe resulted in a return of part of a port area, resulting in major economic opportunities to that tribe. Litigation for another tribal client resulted in its ownership of a local township, and a settlement for a third tribe returned to it control over a large portion of a sacred mountain site.
We have also handled cases that resulted in large and innovative monetary settlements. For one tribe, we engineered a settlement that gave them a share of the revenues from a major dam for as long as electricity is produced from that dam. This is the first and only settlement that gives a tribe a direct share of the revenues from a federal dam. We were also successful in establishing a perpetual federal trust fund that pays another tribal client for land taken for a similar dam without adequate payment to the tribe.
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