Wisconsin Law Review’s 2021 Symposium

About the Symposium

The Restatement of the Law of American Indians (“the Restatement”) is the product of the largest collection of experts in federal Indian law ever assembled, working collaboratively over 10 years. The Restatement experts came from a diversity of experiences, from both public and private law backgrounds, as well as from tribal, state, and federal backgrounds. Lawyers who tended to represent tribal interests engaged with those that tended to represent federal, state, and private interests in opposition to tribes.  In a field where disparate groups have rarely met to hash out the governing principles in the field outside of litigation or arms-length negotiations, the Restatement project was a historic grouping.

The goal of the Indian law Restatement, like all restatements, is to clarify, modernize, and assist in the improvement of the law.  The Restatement project reporters and advisers sought to focus on default interpretive rules that limited judicial discretion to select policy preferences over law, instead leaving those policy consequences to tribal, state, and federal policymakers. For the American Law Institute to restate Indian law, which is known more for its ambiguities and complexities than for its cohesion, was an intensely difficult task.

On Friday, November 5th, and Saturday, November 6th, the Wisconsin Law Review will gather the nation’s top experts, judges, practitioners, and tribal leaders in the Indian law practice to discuss the topics analyzed, clarified, and critiqued, in the Restatement, the development of the Restatement project, and the future of Indian law practice.

The Symposium is headlined by Keynote Speaker, Professor Stacy Leeds of Arizona State University Law School, and will feature five panels structured around the chapters of the Restatement: the Federal-Tribal Relations Panel, the State Powers & Indian Gaming Regulatory Act Panel, the Tribal Powers Panel, the Indian Country Criminal Jurisdiction Panel, and the Reservation Resources & Economies Panel.

The Symposium will also feature presentations by the Restatement’s Lead Reporter, and WLR Symposium Chair, Professor Matthew Fletcher of Michigan State University College of Law, its Associate Reporters, Professor Wenona Singel of Michigan State University College of Law, and Kaighn Smith of Drummond Woodsum LLP.