Keith Harper is a partner in the Litigation department and heads the Native American Affairs practice group. In 2008, the National Law Journal selected Mr. Harper as one of 50 “Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America” (5/26/08).

Throughout his career, Mr. Harper has represented tribes and individual Indians before Federal Courts, the United States Congress, administrative agencies and international forums in matters involving enforcement of the trust responsibility, expansion and protection of tribal sovereignty, enforcement of tribal treaty rights, protection of land and natural resources, ensuring religious freedom for Native practitioners and development of international instruments guaranteeing the rights of indigenous people. Among other matters, Mr. Harper has, since inception of the case, represented the plaintiff class of 500,000 individual Indians and continues to serve as class counsel in the landmark Indian trust funds lawsuit, Cobell v. Kempthorne.

Recenty Mr. Harper served as a principal advisor and Chair of the Native American Domestic Policy Committee for the Obama campaign and then as a member of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team in the Energy & Environment Cluster.

Prior to joining the Firm, Mr. Harper was a litigator at the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and head of the Washington, D.C. Office. Before that, Mr. Harper also clerked for the Honorable Lawrence W. Pierce, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. During his tenure at NARF, he also taught "Federal Indian Law" as Adjunct Professor at Catholic University Columbus School of Law and at American University Washington College of Law. In 2001, Mr. Harper was appointed Appellate Justice on the highest court of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, where he served until October 2007. More recently, he served on the Supreme Court of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.

Mr. Harper is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. While attending New York University School of Law, he served as Articles & Note Editor for the Journal of International Law & Politics. He is the recipient of numerous awards including:

• The Rockefeller Foundation NGL Fellowship
• Skadden Fellowship
• The University of Arizona Indigenous Peoples Law Program Senior Fellowship
• The American Bar Association Business Law Division Ambassadorship
• The Fowler Fellowship for Public Policy
• The Root-Tilden-Snow Scholarship
• The Center for International Studies Fellowship

Mr. Harper has been rated in Chambers and recently Diversity & The Bar Magazine selected him as one of the fourteen minority "Rainmakers."  He is past President of the Native American Bar Association of Washington, D.C. and presently serves as a Board Member for American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation, the World Organization for Human Rights and Americans for Democratic Action. In 2001, he was selected as a Leadership Conference on Civil Rights delegate to the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.

Publications, Articles and Speeches

• "Does the United Nations Security Council Have the Competence to Act as Court and Legislature?,” 27 N.Y.U. J. Int’l & Pol. 103 (1994).
• “Una Resena de los derechos religiosos indigenas en E.U.A.,” in Derechos Religiosos Y Pueblos Indigenas (1998).
• “United States v. Kagama Case Reconsideration Appellants’ Brief,” 10 Kansas J. L. & Pub. Pol. 419 (2001) (Counsel of Record) (co-authored with Tracy Labin).
• “Cobell v. Norton: Redressing a Century of Malfeasance,” 33 Human Rights Magazine 5 (Spring 2006).