Patterson Earnhart Real Bird & Wilson LLP is pleased to announce the addition of a new partner and a new Great Plains office. Attorney Erin Shanley officially joined the firm on Oct. 4, 2021, and she will manage Native Law Group’s new North Dakota-based office.
With offices in Louisville, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and Fort Yates, North Dakota, the growing, majority native-owned firm provides a broad range of legal services to Indian tribes, tribal entities, and individual Indians across the United States.
“All of us at Native Law Group are thrilled to welcome Erin to our team this month,” said partner Jeremy Patterson. “She and the Great Plains office are important additions to our firm as we continue our work in advancing and defending the sovereignty, jurisdiction, self-sufficiency, and self-governance of the tribal clients we serve.”
Erin Shanley is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and descendant of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes. She received her law degree from the University of Montana School of Law and her Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University. She has extensive experience working on federal Indian law matters, and recently served as in-house counsel for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Most of her prior work has been focused on tribal criminal justice issues.
Erin is licensed to practice law in Montana, North Dakota, and numerous tribal courts. She also is an educator, having taught classes on criminal justice at United Tribes Technical College and Sitting Bull College. Erin currently lives in Fort Yates, North Dakota on the Standing Rock Reservation with her husband, Lawrence, and two children, Elias and Esmé.