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Content provided by the American Bar Association Division for Public Education. Visit the Division for Public Education's website to learn more about the law and its role in society (www.abanet.org/publiced). For more profiles of pioneers in the legal profession, visit the Division for Public Education's Raising the Bar: Pioneers in the Legal Profession website at www.abanet.org/publiced/raisingthebar.html.

Arlinda Locklear

Arlinda Locklear is a veteran of Indian law, having practiced in the field for over twenty-five years. She has represented tribes across the United States in federal and state courts on treaty claims to water and land, taxation disputes, reservation boundary issues and federal recognition of tribes. In the course of her career, she became the first Native American woman to appear in the Supreme Court. Locklear is an enrolled member of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina, the largest non-federally recognized tribe in the United States.

Locklear was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina in September 1951. She attended high school in Charleston, South Carolina and decided to become a lawyer at the age of twelve. "I saw what was happening in my Indian community" she explained, "and I wanted to make things better, and I thought becoming a lawyer was a way to achieve that." Locklear received her undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston in 1973 and then attended Duke University School of Law, receiving her J.D. in 1976.

After law school, Locklear began her career as an attorney at the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado. She went on to become directing attorney in the group's Washington D.C. office, a position she held for seven years. In that position, Locklear supervised significant litigation of Indian issues, as well as the legislative work of the office.

In 1983, Locklear appeared in the Supreme Court in the case of Solem v. Bartlett. She successfully challenged the state of South Dakota's authority to prosecute a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe for on-reservation conduct. "It was a very exciting experience to appear in the Supreme Court," she said, "I was thrilled and pleased to litigate such an important issue, and heartened by the outcome." In 1985, Locklear appeared as lead counsel in the Supreme Court again when she represented the Oneidas in Oneida Indian Nation v. County of Oneida. In that case, she formulated and argued the theory that tribes have a federal common law right to sue for possession of tribal land taken in violation of federal law. The Supreme Court adopted the argument, and the case became the seminal case in land claim litigation, upon which all subsequent claims have been based.

After eleven years as an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, Locklear started a private practice in Jefferson, Maryland in 1987, specializing in federal Indian law. "I had just had a second child, and the plan was to stay close to home and work part time. But then my husband died, and I needed to have a full-time income. So I built a full time practice, continuing to specialize in federal Indian law."

Locklear maintain her private practice in Washington, D.C. She is tribal attorney for the Lumbees, and is working on renewed efforts to get the tribe recognized by Congress, a step that would deliver important benefits to the tribe. After a successful hearing in the Senate Committee in October 2003, momentum for the Lumbee Acknowledgment Bill is building in both houses, and Locklear is hopeful that she will see a favorable outcome. And when that battle has been fought and won, she says she will continue to work on behalf of other tribes seeking land rights, including the Oneida and the Seneca tribes.

Locklear has served on the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Institute for the Development of Indian Law and is a member of the board of advisors for the Encyclopedia of Native Americans in the 20th Century. She is also a member of the board of trustees of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Locklear received an honorary doctorate in 1990 from the State University of New York. She was also awarded the Outstanding Woman of Color Award by the National Institute of Women of Color in 1987, the Julien T. Pierce Award given by Pembroke State University in 1994, and the 1995 Carpathian Award for Speaking Out given by North Carolina Equity.

Source: ABA Interview with Arlinda Locklear, November 3, 2003

(Originally published in 2003)