Douglas Kemp Mertz
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Law Offices of Douglas Kemp Mertz |
Alaska's Native peoples, like their counterparts in the rest of the United States, have a long and complex history of relationships with federal and state governments. Indian law is far from a settled area, and in Alaska, it is particularly in flux. Vital topics, such as the right of Alaskan Natives to tribal sovereignty over lands and persons, and Native rights to subsistence harvests of fish, game, and other resources, are now being litigated. Douglas Mertz is one of only a few attorneys in the state who have dealt with these issues intensively over the last fifteen years.
In 1982, the Attorney General of Alaska assigned Mr. Mertz, then an assistant attorney general, to take on the role of the state's principal expert on Alaskan Native law. Previously, he had dealt with Native rights issues in connection with subsistence claims under state law and under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, P.L. 96-487 (ANILCA). He litigated the first subsistence case before the Alaska Supreme Court, and won a decision affirming the right of the State to allocate wild game on the basis of the subsistence needs of user groups (State of Alaska v. Tanana Valley Sportsmen's Association, 583 P.2d 854 [Alaska 1978]). As the main legal advisor to the state's governors on Indian law matters from 1982 to 1990, Mr. Mertz became familiar with the legal issues affecting Alaskan Natives under ANILCA and under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, 43 USC Sec. 1601 et seq. ( ANCSA). He did the initial legal work for the state in identifying the state's interests and legal positions on the growing demands of Native villages for tribal recognition and for sovereign rights similar to those of tribes in the rest of the United States, and represented the state in a number of sovereignty and Native rights cases in the federal and state courts. He represented the state in the lower federal courts and was the primary author of the state's successful brief in the United States Supreme Court in Native Village of Noatak v. Blatchford, 111 U.S. 2578 (1991), regarding federal jurisdiction over suits by tribes under the Eleventh Amendment. (See The Noatak Decision: Why Everyone Lost.) He also served as a contributing editor for the American Indian Law Deskbook of the Conference of Western Attorneys General (University Press of Colorado, 1993).
Since entering private practice, Mr. Mertz has continued his interest in Alaskan Native legal matters, and has advised a number of parties on aspects of sovereignty claims. He has participated in legal education seminars on Native rights and written on the subject. (See A Primer on Alaska Native Sovereignty.) He has lectured before the Alaska Anthropological Association on the role of anthropologists as expert witnesses in litigation over Native rights and title to Native American artifacts. (See The Role of Anthropologists as Expert Witnesses.) Among his clients have been an Alaskan Native village interested in claiming tribal status and title to ancestral lands, individuals seeking adjudication of Native allotment claims dating back to the 1920s, and groups of shareholders seeking to influence Native corporation policies.
Natural Resource and Environmental Law - Native American Legal Issues - Employee Rights Law
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