WASHINGTON, DC, November 5, 2004 — The National Legal Aid & Defender Association is pleased to announce this year’s winner of the Pierce-Hickerson Award is John Sledd, senior attorney in the Native American Unit of the Northwest Justice Project. Sledd will be honored during the NLADA Annual Award Luncheon on Friday, December 3, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Honoring outstanding contributions to the advancement and/or preservation of Native American rights, the Pierce-Hickerson Award was created by advocates in civil legal assistance programs to pay homage to the legacies of Julian Pierce and Robert Hickerson for their outstanding advocacy in pursuit of justice for Native Americans. Pierce was a Lumbee Indian who served as executive director of Lumbee River Legal Services in Pembroke, North Carolina. Hickerson served as director of Alaska Legal Services Corporation for 20 years and prior to that was director of Oklahoma Legal Services Center.

After graduating in 1982, Sledd was hired as an attorney at DNA-People’s Legal Services on the Navajo Indian Reservation. His caseload ranged from “bad truck” and disability cases with a variety of Indian land claims and simple probate and trespass matters to a mass tort claim against the uranium industry. He was co-counsel on a class action suit, which many years later established the title of 14,000 Navajo people to billions of dollars in coal and other minerals beneath their land.

A year out of law school, Sledd became managing attorney of Indian Legal Services. After four years, he was litigation director and general counsel overseeing 20 attorneys in eight offices, and serving on the advisory board of the national Indian Legal Services Support Center. Despite his relative youth, Sledd quickly became a source of strength and wise counsel to the staff at DNA.

In 1989, Sledd accepted a job with Evergreen Legal Services in the state of Washington. As an Evergreen Reservation attorney, he took up another classic role of an Indian legal services advocate and became the sole lawyer for the Suquamish Tribe, handling everything from tribal court criminal prosecutions to complex federal cases. He helped negotiate a $20 million dollar settlement for pollution of tribal fishing grounds; represented the Suquamish Tribe in a state Supreme Court case upholding tribal power to arrest non-Indians; obtained a million dollar judgment against the Bureau of Indian Affairs for mishandling tribal funds; helped procure a rule requiring state courts to enforce tribal court judgments; and, co-authored an agreement under which tribes with treaty fishing rights took over the regulatory system that protects consumers from seafood-borne diseases. He was also elected during this time to serve as chair of the State Bar’s Indian Law Section, a member of the Central Committee of his county political party and a commissioner of his local Port District. He was also appointed by his county commissioners to serve on the County Citizens’ Council.

In 1999, Sledd returned to his favorite work, representing low-income tribal members, as director of the Native American Project at Columbia Legal Services in Seattle. Under his direction, the Project pursued successful litigation and rulemaking to reform federal supervision of trust funds held for Indian youth, challenged state seizure of trust funds from Indian prisoners, and developed a statewide pro bono program providing estate planning to Indian landowners. As part of a task force organized by California Indian Legal Services, Sledd played a significant role in 2004 legislation that rewrote the Indian Land Consolidation Act and greatly enhanced the ability of Indian people to pass land to their descendants. He has been a frequent speaker on Indian and tribal law, and a mentor to many lawyers struggling to master the complexities of the field.

Since 2004, Sledd has been the senior attorney in the Native American Unit of Northwest Justice Project. To his credit, Sledd helped lead a successful effort to require testing of Indian law on the state bar exam. His latest major effort is to facilitate development of a coordinated, statewide legal attack on the disproportionately high drop out rates and low academic achievement of Indian students in Washington public schools.

For more information, visit the Web site at www.nlada.org.

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The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) champions effective legal assistance for people who cannot afford counsel, serves as a collective voice for both civil legal services and public defense services throughout the nation and provides a wide range of services and benefits to its individual and organizational members. Founded in 1911, NLADA is the oldest and largest national, nonprofit membership organization devoting all of its resources to advocating equal access to justice for all Americans.