A Lawyer in Indian Country: A Memoir
Product Type: Book
Product Price: $27.95
Manufacturer: University of Washington Press
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Description
In his memoir, Alvin Ziontz reflects on his more than thirty years representing Indian tribes, from a time when Indian law was little known through landmark battles that upheld tribal sovereignty. He discusses the growth and maturation of tribal government and the underlying tensions between Indian society and the non-Indian world. A Lawyer in Indian Country presents vignettes of reservation life and recounts some of the memorable legal cases that illustrate the challenges faced by individual Indians and tribes.
As the senior attorney arguing U.S. v. Washington, Ziontz was a party to the historic 1974 Boldt decision that affirmed the Pacific Northwest tribes' treaty fishing rights, with ramifications for tribal rights nationwide. His work took him to reservations in Montana, Wyoming, and Minnesota, as well as Washington and Alaska, and he describes not only the work of a tribal attorney but also his personal entry into the life of Indian country.
Ziontz continued to fight for tribal rights into the late 1990s, as the Makah tribe of Washington sought to resume its traditional whale hunts. Throughout his book, Ziontz traces his own path through this public history - one man's pursuit of a life built around the principles of integrity and justice.
Reviews
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-05-20
Summary: "This book is revelatory!"
A Lawyer in Indian Country - A Memoir, by Alvin J Ziontz, is much more than a memoir. This book is revelatory. The author, as a young attorney entering the life of a lawyer in Seattle in the mid `50's, found himself drawn into a David and Goliath battle that ultimately changed the status of Native Americans in the United States, and made critical law in the United States Supreme Court. While a similar battle was being waged at the same time on behalf of African Americans in the South, this fight for Native American rights had little notice, little to no funding, and involved in opposition the almost insurmountable efforts and resources of the Attorney General of the State of Washington who had demonstrated, to quote Justice Stevens, " the most concerted official and private efforts to frustrate a decree of a federal court witnessed in the century."
In a most engaging fashion, Ziontz describes his decision to move to the Pacific Northwest to establish a law practice, his early years of apprenticeship, how he found law partners, and his unusual meeting with the Makah tribe - out on the furthest tip of Continental America. Part of the fascination of this story is how a person would possibly find himself in such a situation, why he would remain, and what he would have to do, step by step to wage this lonely and Herculean battle with so little.
Beyond the heroic legal battles, however, this is a story full of human interest, conflict, and humor. His Russian-Jewish background, early years in Chicago, romance with his future wife and his time as a family man, his Army stint, and attendance at the University of Chicago Law School are recounted with humor and charm. The momentous matters he encounters later are so compellingly explained that even a layperson can understand their significance. This book provides insight into the legal relationship between the United States government and the tribes of Native Americans and why we should even care in the first place. It is full of local color and amusing detail. It is, in every sense, a Story.
By the book's conclusion, I felt breathless. What a close call for the United States - for who we believe we are and what we represent! What a victory for the individual spirit! This is a story of one man, without money and only his wits, determination, and sense of fairness to fall back on. His fortune was his unfailingly supportive wife, the brilliant partners whom he had found to join him, and his own willingness to learn and work tirelessly for small reward. His immigrant background must have sealed Ziontz's commitment to this battle for the soul of this country.
A Lawyer in Indian Country is the most significant and timely book I have read in a long time. It is skillfully crafted and a pleasure to read. This is an important book. This is a story you will not forget.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-03-18
Summary: "Great Book!"
This is a fascinating and important book. During the past 40 years, more lawsuits seeking to enforce the rights of Indian tribes were filed than in the previous 200 years, and Al Ziontz was at the forefront of that effort. It's great to have access to his personal account, which explains many of the strategies, trials, and tribulations of those who began the modern era of defending tribal rights. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, both the personal insights and the overall content.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-02-01
Summary: "memoir of a life well-lived"
This memoir is a real knock-out. Ziontz's career as a lawyer for Indian nations was improbable at the outset but both principled and successful. Ziontz writes from the vantage of a long lifetime, beginning with early life in Chicago, law school at the University of Chicago, and a law practice and life in Seattle. Ziontz writes engagingly, with superior insight into himself, his colleagues and clients, and broader cultural, political and philosophical issues. And he has a sense of humor! I really recommend it, a very engrossing read.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-01-21
Summary: "A book you will refer to again and again: "A Lawyer In Indian Country""
If you think "A Lawyer In Indian Country" A Memoir written by Alvin J. Ziontz, will join those not-read books on your bedside table, think again. You will become immersed in Al's dual stories; that of his own development as a tribal lawyer and those of the legal battles he and his firm fought to preserve not only tribal treaty rights but the very existence of these peoples. The page-turning stories can take you from the banks of the Columbia River to state courts and the Supreme Court.
Because the book is based on research and recollection, many readers from the Northwest will recognize names and incidents that were sometimes reported in the news at the time.
I have not yet put this well-written book down for the last time. It provides a great pattern for anyone wishing to write a memoir, which in my view is where one finds "real" history. The "taste in my mouth" that remains from having read this book is a great respect for those who seek to mesh compassion and the "truth of others" within the boundaries of what we call law. This was the lifetime effort of Al Ziontz. It couldn't have been easy. However, Al's exuberance for his life, that included his love of learning and his family, also makes the taste sweet.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-01-12
Summary: "Ethics leads the way"
A Lawyer in Indian Country, the memoirs of Alvin Ziontz, reads like a storyboard for a great documentary film and provides the ordinary reader, not knowledgeable about the laws which governed water and hunting and fishing rights as they concerned the native American peoples, a true insight into who, both in and our of the state and federal governments, fought for, and/or against, the rights of the sovereign Indian nations. There are heroes and villains aplenty and the author makes it very clear who, in those companies and governments concerned, play these roles for greed and power and who, in those same agencies, represent this country, The United States of America, as a bulwark of fairness and ethical treatment before the law.
A reading of this book makes you more greatly aware of the continuing legal actions which involve the rights of sovereign Indian Peoples whose lands and tribal rights were often abused in the past history of the USA and which are still involved in legal actions to this date where water, fishing and hunting rights are contested by private companies and/or the states.
Personal integrity and a sense of what was an ethical position were the professional benchmarks in the career of Alvin zionty as the lawyer for the American Indian tribes that he and his assocaites represented in Civil actions for the past forty some years.
I sincerely recommend this book to any reader that seeks to understand why and how ethical positions can lead the way to victory in legal battles.