Practice Areas & Industries: Fennemore Craig, P.C.

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Fennemore Craig’s interaction with the American Indian Tribes of the Southwest covers a wide range of practice areas related to business and development both on and off Indian lands.  As one of the Southwest’s oldest and largest firms, Fennemore Craig’s experience with business intersecting tribal lands extends to the early 1900s.  Then, as now, federal law, tribal governments, state law, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the U.S. Department of Interior frequently intersect on transactions or litigation involving tribes and entities doing business on Indian lands and with tribal governments. 

Representation of client interests in the area of Indian Law often draws upon the diverse and substantial specialized resources within the firm ranging from government relations to taxation.   This includes drawing upon knowledge of the challenges of commercial transactions in Indian Country, which the firm’s managing partner, Tim Berg, helped address through a new national model secured transactions law for America’s tribes.  Released in 2005, the Model Tribal Secured Transactions Act was drafted by a committee of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, chaired by Mr. Berg.  The model act provides a secured transactions law for American Indian tribes modeled after the Uniform Commercial Code Article 9, which is the basis for commercial transactions across the country and is designed to assist the country’s tribes, tribal entities and members to secure financing for commercial ventures.