Shenan R. Atcitty is a Partner in the firm's federal Indian Law Practice Group and serves as a leader in the firm's Native American legal and lobbying practice based in Washington, D.C. Ms. Atcitty's practice involves congressional and federal representation, as well as general legal counsel work for Indian tribes and tribal organizations.
Ms. Atcitty is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and has over 17 years of experience representing and working with Indian tribal governments in the areas of litigation, business and economic development, energy, federal governmental relations and congressional lobbying and appropriations issues. Ms. Atcitty joined Holland & Knight in October 2000.
Ms. Atcitty began her legal career clerking and later serving as a contract attorney for the United States Attorney's Office, District of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she focused on Indian water rights adjudications and settlements, as well as protection of Indian lands in the Southwest. Following her work with the U.S. Attorney's Office, she joined a small firm in Albuquerque which handled all of the Navajo Nation's complex litigation. While working there, she second-chaired the successful litigation and settlement of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of all Navajo allottees against the Federal Government for beneficial title to the minerals underlying their allotments. When the federal government broke apart the Eastern portion of the Navajo Reservation in the early 1900's under the allotment policy, the Department of the Interior wrongfully reserved the minerals under the authority of general public lands laws, which had no legal application to Indian trust lands. Sixty years later, the class action (Mescal litigation) was filed on behalf of the severely impoverished allottees who had experienced years of federal neglect and abuse of their land rights, while watching burgeoning energy development on their lands without any financial return or benefit to them. After more than 13 years in federal court and a year of settlement negotiations, Ms. Atcitty and lead attorney Paul Frye, successfully settled the case resulting in the allottees sharing in the revenue stream of existing leases and providing a mechanism for the Federal Government to provide the allottees title to the minerals that had been wrongfully reserved.
Also on behalf of the Navajo Nation, Ms. Atcitty conducted the trial work in the longstanding Navajo Nation v. United States breach of trust case involving the Department of the Interior's wrongful collusion with Peabody Coal Company to undervalue the coal leases on the Navajo Nation. Her work provided the foundation for the successful reconsideration by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in ruling the Federal Government liable for money damages to the Navajo Nation for breach of trust in colluding with the energy company.
Building on her litigation work, Ms. Atcitty moved to Washington, D.C. to expand her practice on behalf of Indian tribes and tribal organizations. Since establishing her practice in Washington over a decade ago, Ms. Atcitty has successfully worked on behalf of her tribal clients to secure numerous tribe-specific bills in the areas of, among others, land into trust, energy development, infrastructure and roads projects, health care and housing. On a broader level for Indian country, Ms. Atcitty has been part of the core Indian legal community in Washington that has successfully secured enactment of the FUTA Tribal Amendments, Indian Energy Title in the first ever national energy legislation, Tribal Homeland Security provisions authorizing direct homeland security funding for Indian Tribal Governments, Tribal Forest Protection Act, Violence Against Native Women Act, Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act, and protecting the integrity and viability of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
She is currently working on legislation that will reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, the Native Amercian Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act, Indian Head Start, Tribal Government Tax-Exempt Bond Parity Act, Native American Methamphetimine Enforcement and Treatment Act, and Native American Heritage Day.
Ms. Atcitty also handles a variety of economic development, infrastructure, housing, land-into-trust, gaming, sovereignty, tax incentives, trust reform and general counsel legal work for her tribal clients.