CURRICULUM VITAE

Bruce Davies
2260 Division, N.W. # 16 B
Olympia, WA 98502
360-357-3495
bdavies@zhonka.net

Education

Phillips Academy							Graduated Cum Laude, 1969
Andover, MA

Wesleyan University						B.A., College of Letters, 1974
Middletown, CT

University of Denver College of Law			J.D., top 15% of class, 1979
Denver, CO

While I was in law school I spent a summer as a law clerk for James Wagenlander, former HUD staff counsel. He had received a grant to survey tribal housing authority to determine housing needs in the Northern Plains. He hired me to conduct the survey. As a result I visited every reservation and Indian housing authority in the Northern Plains that summer.

Legal Experience

Admitted to Colorado, Alaska and Washington State Bars.

1979-1981	Staff Attorney
			Native American Rights Fund
			Boulder, CO

	I was involved in  a range of Indian law issues, including work on implementation of the recently passed Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The ICWA was passed to address the impact of state welfare agency activities on tribal communities. Studies revealed that a disproportionate number of Indian children were being removed from their families, declared to be dependent children and then placed with wealthy white families for adoption. In many cases the only basis for removal was the poverty of the parents. The ICWA permitted tribes to intervene in state court proceedings and assume jurisdiction over these cases. After ICWA was fully implemented, the market in Indian babies dried up and the removal rate of Indian children from their communities was reduced.

1981-1989	Private Practice 
			Ketchikan, AK

	I handled a wide range of civil and criminal issues including ICWA cases, state Child in Need of Aid (CINA) cases, and felony criminal defense appointments. I also represented two village corporations that had been created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA): Cape Fox and Klawock Heenya.

1989-1991	Tribal Prosecutor
			Quinault Indian Nation
			Taholah, WA

	I prosecuted hunting and fishing and criminal offenses in tribal court and represented the tribe in state ICWA cases.

1991-1996	Public Defender/Deputy Prosecutor
			Pacific County, WA

I handled a wide range of criminal, juvenile and child welfare cases as both public defender and deputy prosecutor. I was the lead deputy prosecutor who worked with DSHS case workers on child welfare proceedings. During this period I conducted numerous jury trials. 

I also served a stint as civil deputy. I assisted the County Commissioners on a wide range of civil issues, including land use litigation and planning and zoning appeals. In this role I become involved in Washington State Shoreline Management Act (SMA) regulations and permit enforcement and litigated an appeal to the State Shoreline Hearing Appeals Board.

1997 - 2006		Policy Analyst
				Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
				Olympia, WA 

I was originally hired to represent tribal interests in federal agency review and approval of Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  In this role I participated in workgroups on several HCPs, including the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) HCP. These work groups typically involved U.S. Fish and Wildlife, NOAA Fisheries, Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and Tribal representatives. 

For the past eight years I also provided staff support for the tribal representative on the Interagency Advisory Committee for the Northwest Forest Plan. In this role I worked with a wider range of federal agencies, including EPA, Forest Service and BLM.

My job responsibilities expanded to cover a wide range of environmental and natural resource issues, including providing advice on NEPA issues relating  to the development of Environmental Impact Statements for the Puget Sound Harvest and Hatchery Management Plans, negotiation of ESA 4(d) permits for these Resource Plans, and drafting comments on  proposed federal regulatory decisions.

I served as reporter for the tribal/federal negotiations that led to the Joint Secretarial Order on Treaties, Trust Responsibilities and the Endangered Species Act that was adopted by the Departments of Commerce and Interior. I also participated in the interagency workgroup that developed the Washington State Department of Ecology's first version of ESA consistent Washington State Shoreline Management Act Guidelines.

In this job my primary role is to help preserve tribal treaty rights to fish.

Other Work Experience

During the period between college and law school (1974-1976) I held two relevant jobs.

Communications Director
National Congress of America Indians
Washington, D.C.

Researcher
American Indian Policy Review Commission
U.S. Congress
Washington, D.C.

Teaching Experience

1997- 2006 

I regularly gave legal and policy presentations to a wide range of audiences, including tribal policy makers, tribal technical staffs, college students, graduate students, and lawyers at Continuing Legal Education Seminars. I estimate that I gave one or two presentations a month to widely varying audiences.

I proposed and developed the Annual Tribal Habitat Conference. The annual conference was a two day meeting for tribal natural resources staff. The conferences presented sessions on technical and policy issues such as fish monitoring, habitat restoration techniques and salmon recovery strategies. There were usually 10 to 20 expert speakers. Between 50 and 90 tribal staff attended. The first two years I organized the conference on my own. The next three years I was able to encourage the formation of a workgroup to plan the conference. I organized one session for each of the last three conferences and made presentations at those sessions.

I gave a number of presentations to Continuing Legal Education Seminars (CLEs) for lawyers. Approximately once a year I was invited to present at one of these seminars. The seminars include written papers and an oral presentation to 100 to 250 attendees.  

2006- present.

Member of the Faculty, Tribal MPA Program, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA.

Publications/Writings

Since I served as a litigator for most of my career, most of my writings up until 1997 were legal pleadings. I have prepared appellate briefs that were submitted to the following courts:

	- one appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court,
	- one appeal to the Washington State Supreme Court,
	- numerous appeals to the Washington State Court of Appeals, and
	- one appeal to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The appellate briefs were mostly successful and resulted in published opinions that adopted my legal arguments.

Early in my career I had an article on the ICWA published in the Legal Services Law Review.

During the 1997-2006 period my writings could be classified more as grey literature than as formal publications. Approximately once a month I prepared a legal or policy analysis that was circulated to an audience of tribal policy makers, attorneys and others.