Nebraska MCLE #252737. 1.0 CLE Hours. (OnDemand credit)

In this session, a panel of three Tribal Court administrators will provide education to lawyers on the ins and outs of the most important policies and procedures relating to Tribal Court. Tribal Court procedure differs from non-tribal court, and education on these procedural variations is crucial for practitioners.

Gregory D. Smith, J.D., Cumberland School of Law 1988, is an attorney and part-time judge from Clarksville, TN. He is a member of six (6) tribal appellate courts (AZ, CA, NY, NE, OK, & WI). He is a Justice on the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska Court of Appeals. Mr. Smith is Chief Justice of both the Pawnee Nation Supreme Court in Oklahoma and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Court of Appeals in New York. Mr. Smith also serves as the Chief Judge of the U.S. Department of the Interior's Court of Indian Appeals. He teaches Federal Indian Law at the Lincoln Memorial University School of Law in Knoxville, TN and was named the Tennessee Municipal Judges Conference Judge of the Year in 2017. Judge Smith authored the Tennessee Municipal Judges Bench book which was cited by the Harvard Law Review in 2021 and he was the feature of an ABA Journal article in 2020 regarding his unique practice that juggles both judicial and attorney duties. Smith teaches for the National Judicial College in the areas of Ethics and Evidence. Mr. Smith has spoken at numerous law schools as well as at the United Nations.

Ruthanne Gallup is the Ponca Tribal Court Administrator. The Ponca Tribal Court was established in 1996 and Ruthanne started in 1998 as the Clerk of Court. She worked part time as the Clerk for many years. For many years she was the only person in the Court except for a contracted Judge who would hold Court once a month. She then became Court Administrator and now oversees a Clerk of Court and a grant funded Court Services Specialist. Court is now held on a weekly basis. The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska established the Ponca Appellate Court, and Ruthanne also serves as the Clerk for the Ponca Appellate Court. She is a trained mediator who will work with litigants on developing parenting plans for the Ponca Tribal Court. She provides administrative support for the Ponca Law and Order Committee, a committee that is reviewing the Ponca Tribal Code. She also organizes the Law and Justice Committee which acts as a liaison between the Tribal Council and the Tribal Court. Prior to joining the Ponca Tribal Court Ruthanne worked as a deputy Clerk of Court for the Logan County District Court in the State of Kansas.

Jamie James (enrolled member of the Santee Sioux Nation of Nebraska) is the court administrator for the Santee Sioux Nation of Nebraska Tribal Court.  Jamie has been working with the tribe since 2006.  Jamie is a 2000 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (BS Construction Management w/Minor in Business) and a 2006 graduate of the University of South Dakota School of Law (now the Knudson School of Law). 

If you have any questions for the presenter(s) of this webinar, please send your question via email to Allyson Felt at afelt@nebar.com. She will forward your question to the presenter(s), who will provide an answer promptly.

Active Nebraska attorneys are required to complete 10 hours of continuing legal education (CLE) each year. Two of those 10 hours must be in the field of professional responsibility (ethics). Nebraska attorneys may claim only 5 hours of distance-learning CLE per year. Webinars viewed on this portal are considered distance-learning. After completing a viewing of a webinar on this portal, you must self-report your CLE credit on the Nebraska Supreme Court’s Attorney Services Division’s website at https://mcle.wcc.ne.gov.

For more information about Nebraska CLE requirements, see the MCLE Commission’s website at https://supremecourt.nebraska.gov/13449/mandatory-continuing-legal-education-mcle. For questions about CLE requirements, your own CLE transcript, or about reporting CLE credit online, contact the Nebraska Supreme Court’s Attorney Services Division at (531) 510-3641. For questions about this portal, contact the Nebraska State Bar Association at (402) 475-7091.