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Inside the New Office of Conflict Counsel · Asked & Answered - your community podcast for all things legal

• 0:01
  Kierstin: So this is where our stories diverge because so it's so crazy because I kinda have some similar story, and we've never
• 0:08
  Kierstin: shared this.
• 0:09
  Alane: We've never talked about this at all.
• 0:10
  Kierstin: Yeah. So the thing is here,
• 0:12
  Kierstin: what I've learned today is if you want advice about this, you send them to Elaine. You don't send them to me.
• 0:24
  Alane: Hi, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of asked and answered. I'm Alane. Kierstin's here with me. And this week, we are joined by a special guest, Lesa Engel.
• 0:33
  She is the director of the new Office of Conflict Counsel that was just formed here in the community. So welcome, Lesa.
• 0:40
  Lesa: Thank you for having me.
• 0:41
  Alane: She is not brand new to the community, though, even though she is brand new to this position. So Lisa, as we start off, maybe tell us a little bit about how you got here.
• 0:50
  Lesa: Sure. Thanks for having me. To kind of sum up my career and how I got here, I started out of law school as a public defender. So I had some experience doing criminal defense. And then I came to the community to work at legal services.
• 1:05
  And I did a little bit of civil work, and then I moved into the Guardian at Lytum program.
• 1:08
  Kierstin: And you've been here for how many years?
• 1:11
  Lesa: I think I'm coming up on fifteen. Fifteen years with the community.
• 1:14
  Alane: We actually started around the same time at Legal Services and shared an office. And then you were later promoted to one of the assistant director positions there, right? RH: That's correct. Tell us a little bit about sort of your new gig and what you're excited about and about your office a
• 1:30
  Lesa: little bit. Sure. It's really exciting to have this new office and the investment that the community has put into not only making sure that all community members have quality representation, but also focusing on training up tribal court advocates. The Conflict Office will have kind of dual duties.
• 1:49
  Kierstin: So real quick on the Conflict Office, how does one get a conflict attorney or advocate if they're needing representation?
• 1:58
  Alane: Maybe we should even back up a little bit more. What is a legal conflict?
• 2:01
  Kierstin: Yeah, that's true.
• 2:02
  Lesa: Okay. Case comes in to legal services or defense advocate or in the rare case it might come to the prosecutor's office. And if they determine that they have a legal or ethical conflict. Easy example of that is if legal services is representing a wife in a divorce, they can't also represent the husband. So the husband will be able to get legal services from the Conflict Counsel office.
• 2:28
  Kierstin: And just as far as clarification, they would reach out to your office directly or would they reach out to Legal Services?
• 2:38
  Lesa: They would go to Legal Services first. Once the Director of Legal Services determines that there's a conflict, then they would send that case to the Conflict Counsel office to see if I'm able to accept that case.
• 2:51
  Kierstin: It's kind of hard not to say that's me, I think. Then I would do a referral to your office and then your office would then at that point provide the representation to the individual that legal services couldn't provide representation to.
• 3:08
  Lesa: That's correct. Community members won't be able to come directly to the Conflict Counsel and request legal services. Yeah.
• 3:15
  Alane: So that same process would apply if someone needed help in a criminal case. They would first go to the Defense Advocate's Office. And then if they couldn't help them, they would make that referral to your office.
• 3:25
  Lesa: Correct. And just an example of that would be two individuals are charged with a crime and they're codefendants in the case. And defense advocate would represent one of those individuals and I would represent the other, so long as I'm able.
• 3:40
  Alane: That makes sense.
• 3:41
  Kierstin: Yeah. Is there anything else that we should know that we didn't talk about, about the Conflict Office?
• 3:46
  Lesa: One question that comes up a lot is what are we doing now or before the existence of the Conflict Counsel Office?
• 3:54
  Alane: I will say we've already started to get some NOAs from you, so I know that you're busy already.
• 3:57
  Lesa: Yes. I've started taking some cases myself. I have an attorney starting at the end of August to take some additional cases. Oh, that right now, the way that it works is if defense advocate has a conflict or the Legal Services Office has a conflict, they currently hire outside counsel to represent community members. So it will be nice to have a separate office in the community that can handle those.
• 4:25
  Kierstin: So then there wouldn't be necessarily contract those individuals for that representation? Or is that something that your office will also handle? What does that look like, I guess?
• 4:38
  Lesa: I think that there will still be situations where there is a conflict even for me. And in those cases, I will conflict the case out and hire an advocate or an attorney to represent that person to ensure that they have the representation that they need.
• 4:52
  Kierstin: And I think we've kind of covered this, specifically, but you're handling conflicts for civil cases, you're handling conflicts for criminal cases, and civil covers a whole area or whatever, family law, probate, all of those areas. Is there anything you're not covering?
• 5:17
  Lesa: That's going to be the crux of what we're going to be handling. Given that it's just myself and one other attorney, some more complex type cases, personal injury, employment situations, wrongful death, medical malpractice. Those would probably be outside of our expertise. And so we probably won't be handling those cases at this time.
• 5:38
  Alane: So defense advocates office handles criminal defense, but they also handle child dependency parent advocates as well. So would you be taking those cases as well as the criminal defense cases?
• 5:50
  Lesa: Yes. So similar in nature. If a defense advocate is representing a mom in a child dependency case, they can't also represent the dad. And so I would be able to step in and represent the other parent.
• 6:03
  Alane: I think this is such an important step, just ensuring that You know, obviously, the legal offices as we operate now, we all employ attorneys who are very familiar with the community, who work here day in, day out. A lot of them have been here for ten, fifteen. Kierstin and I are coming up on twenty years. And I think that certainly the Conflict Counsel that people are using, some of them have the same ties, but some of them don't. And so I think it's a meaningful step that now most people will be getting an advocate or attorney who is very familiar with the community, who works here in a government office, is very familiar with the court, I think that's a big step.
• 6:39
  Lesa: Yeah, I agree. And it just allows some additional oversight and mentoring and just the ability to maintain those relationships and professional working relationships with others. And I think it's going to be a great thing.
• 6:53
  Alane: So talking about mentoring, let's pivot a little bit and talk about the advocate training program that you mentioned earlier. Yes, the Conflict Counsel Office is going to
• 7:03
  Lesa: be housing a tribal court advocate program. The official name that we've given it is the Tribal Court Advocate Pathway Program, or TCAP. And this is going to be a year long training program. It's going to be a paid training program where community members can study the law and advocacy skills to build up their practice so that they can also start taking cases and represent community members in tribal court.
• 7:31
  Kierstin: So will they work for your office?
• 7:33
  Lesa: Initially, the training program will be a building temp program. So they'll start as a temp employee and work their way through the program. And then once they've successfully completed the program, there is three full time positions available for the Conflict Counsel office.
• 7:49
  Alane: Lisa, do you picture it as being a year long classroom learning program? Or will come there a point during the training program where they will actually be taking cases of their own that they work alongside a mentor? Or how will
• 8:03
  Lesa: that work? Yeah, exactly that. The beginning part of the program is definitely going to be education heavy. And then kind of the mid part of the program will be a lot of courtroom observation and direct advocacy skills. The other legal departments will come in and teach specific subject matter.
• 8:21
  And then I see it operating kind of like a clinic so that advocates can take cases and have a mentor working with them and being in the courtroom and kind of providing feedback as they work through these cases.
• 8:34
  Kierstin: I know I mentioned as far as if they're going to be employees of your department and then you talked about how they're going to go through this training program. Then at the end of the training program, then they'll become employees of the department.
• 8:48
  Lesa: Yes. As you're aware, and I'm not sure if your listeners are, but there's a process to get admitted to practice in tribal court. So they'll need to complete that process, take the admissions exam, and get admitted into tribal court so that they can practice and take cases on their own.
• 9:03
  Alane: So since you just built in that beautiful segue, we can remind our listeners that Kierstin and I did a previous episode of the podcast on the process of becoming admitted to practice law. So if you have an interest, go back in our prior episodes and you'll find kind of a how to.
• 9:20
  Kierstin: Thanks for that plug, Alane.
• 9:22
  Alane: You're welcome. How do I think in cap?
• 9:24
  Kierstin: But yeah, and with respect to taking that exam, there's a lot of things that you have to know for that exam. And I'm imagining that within that program, that's one of the things that you're going to be walking through and teaching them through that information.
• 9:42
  Lesa: Yes, we're going to cover legal writing and research. We're going to cover specific practice areas like family law, criminal law, probate, etc. And then, you know, ethical responsibilities that you have as an advocate, client management, case management, and just hopefully provide all the skills necessary to develop a successful and strong practice.
• 10:08
  Alane: I think that it benefits I know that this is built for advocates, as it well should be. But I think that this is a process that actually could be super beneficial to every attorney even. Because law school teaches us a lot, but it doesn't teach you how to manage your calendar. It doesn't teach you how to really speak to, in my case, victims and witnesses, or in your cases, clients. It doesn't teach you all those pragmatic things.
• 10:31
  It doesn't teach you talking to the court even. And so I think that this is such a lucky group of people, I think, who are going to get this experience and get this training. And we're excited to work with you. We hope we get to work with you a little bit anyway.
• 10:45
  Lesa: Yes. I'm planning on all of the departments coming in and providing their expertise. I've got some other guest speakers and instructors lined up from outside the community and other tribal jurisdictions. I think it's going to be a great opportunity for these candidates to not only learn what we do in Salt River, but expose themselves to the practice of law so that they can develop their practice with a little bit of pieces from here and there.
• 11:09
  Kierstin: So I know Alane is saying this would be great for some of the skill sets that you're teaching the advocates like the calendaring and working with clients, which I totally agree. But who would be someone that would benefit for going through this advocate program? What type of candidate is
• 11:32
  Lesa: Who are you hoping to recruit? Well, me answer that in a couple different ways. So in terms of minimum requirements, you need to be an enrolled community member and you need to be 18 years of age and you need to have a high school diploma or a GED. That's the minimum requirements. I will say that somebody that is interested in practicing law and advocating for other community members and being in court and speaking to judges and negotiating cases, if you have an interest in that, I definitely think this would be the program for you.
• 12:10
  Alane: I remember when this was just a conversation. It hadn't come to fruition yet. And we were all talking about, you know, this is a huge time investment. It's also a huge financial investment that the community is making in this program. So I'm assuming that you want people who want to be successful and who then want to practice.
• 12:30
  Lesa: Yes, 100%. People that are interested in this program should want to commit to the length of the program and want to pursue a career in practicing in tribal court as a tribal court advocate afterwards.
• 12:43
  Kierstin: And as you mentioned, it is a year long program. So it is a year commitment as well. I believe in sort of the recruitment process, you're going to have them write letters or
• 12:55
  Lesa: Yes. In addition to like a standard job application, there's going to be a requirement for a personal statement where you can lay out why you want advocate. And then in addition to that, there's going to be like an analytical essay for people to write and kind of lay out some of the skills that they may already have. And it is going to be a competitive application process. And we are only hiring three.
• 13:20
  So those type of additions to the standard job application will help us in determining the best and most interested candidates.
• 13:29
  Alane: So if there is someone who's listening or someone who finds out about the program who feels like they might be a good match for it, would they apply? How would they become involved?
• 13:39
  Lesa: Sure. Some of that is still being figured out. I'm hoping to get them some information in an information night here at the end of August. In the meantime, they can call me or they can email me, and I think we can include that in the notes of the podcast. They can contact me directly, and I'm happy to answer any questions they have.
• 13:57
  Alane: Or if you email us at askedandansweredsrpmic nsn dot gov, we will forward your email right along to Ms. Ingle.
• 14:04
  Kierstin: And answer any questions as far as like I think one of the questions that always comes to mind when I think of individuals that approach of what is it to be an advocate? And is that information that is going to be provided at the preview night? What do you envision at preview night?
• 14:25
  Lesa: Sure. Really preview night is to share some of these details about the program and talk about generally what an advocate does, what the role of an advocate is. And then if you want to apply for the program, then you'll have that opportunity to do that.
• 14:41
  Kierstin: I guess the reason I asked the question is I was just thinking for someone that I'm not really sure, know, because they could say, Oh, that sounds very interesting and maybe I might be interested. They might have some additional query on like, What does this look like? And what does this involve? And how much time will I spend in court? And what will I have to do?
• 15:01
  All those things. Because I do know in talking with individuals, they didn't know how much was involved, how much writing, how much client contact, you know, and all those things. So I just think that that was kind of the point of question, basically.
• 15:17
  Lesa: Yeah, I would definitely encourage them to reach out to me. I also plan on, you know, making them in contact with all the advocates and practitioners in the community. So those would also be great resources to talk to about what the day to day looks like of the advocate practice. Yeah.
• 15:32
  Kierstin: Even think about that. That's probably someone or individuals that should go to your preview nights to kind of be as guests to sort of have those conversations with individuals to say, because my experience might be different from Elaine's experience to your experience and or individuals in our office as well.
• 15:52
  Alane: And all of our jobs have different We don't have clients per se. You guys have only clients. We are in court a lot. Maybe some of your positions are in court a little bit less. So yeah, those are for sure sure conversations we'd be willing to have if folks want to come talk to us too.
• 16:09
  Kierstin: I think I don't know. Do we have any other questions that we want to ask or that we're queried about?
• 16:14
  Alane: I guess we'll ask Lisa one more final. Is there anything else that you want to share with us? Anything that we've forgotten that you think is important that we should mention?
• 16:22
  Lesa: I think we've covered it all. A lot still to be figured out and built up. It's part of this program, but it's a really exciting opportunity. And I hope that we get a lot of interest.
• 16:33
  Alane: I agree. I'm really excited to see what becomes of it. And with that, I'll say thank you so much, Lisa, for joining us. And thank you to our listeners for joining us for this episode of Asked and Answered. We hope to see you soon.
• 16:47
  And just another reminder that if you have questions for us or topics that you would like for us to discuss, we hope that you will share them with us at askedandansweredsrpmic nsn dot gov.
• 16:59
  Kierstin: The only thing that Alane didn't mention that I want to mention is that we'll have the date of preview night in the show notes.
• 17:08
  Alane: And Lisa's contact info. Call. You. Thanks everybody. Bye.