2025 Annual Meeting Agenda

For a limited time, you can save $50 on your registration to NNABA’s Annual Justice is Medicine Awards Dinner by using the following discount code: FIFTYOFF. Register today!

Voting Rights Summit 2.0: Lessons Learned in 2024 and Looking Ahead

Description: With increasing attention paid to Native Voters in 2020, the question is where is the Native Vote now? This session will look at the recent Presidential Election and turnout in Indian Country to discuss where Native Communities are flexing their political power and where Native communities are hitting old and new obstacles in exercising the right to vote. We will discuss the Native Vote impact in non-Presidential Elections and how we can encourage Native American voter participation in all cycles. The conversation will also focus on changes to the democracy landscape for Native Americans since 2025. This will include conversations about the birthright citizenship executive order and the government’s reliance on Elk v. Wilkins, the executive order on voter registration and the Federal Elections Commission, and what’s going on with the right to vote and the SAVE Act? Each of these conversations will focus on the legal developments in the democracy space and its impact on Indian Country.

Session Leaders:

*additional speakers to be added

Celebrating the NNABA Two Spirit Relatives Lunch Program

Description: Lunch program celebrating Two Spirit LGBTQ+ members

Confirmed speakers include:

NNABA Business Meeting

Description: Presentation of NNABA’s New Strategic Plan and Officer and Board Elections

Justice is Medicine Dinner including Awardees and Keynote Speaker Jo Harjo

Description: We will present our Advocacy Warrior, Community Keeper, and Guardian of Justice Awards. There will also be a special presentation by celebrated author and former Poet Laureate of the United States Joy Harjo.

---

The Justice is Medicine Awards are divided into three categories:

• The Guardian of Justice Award recognizes those in the judiciary who have shown exemplary leadership, integrity, commitment to public services, and access to justice for Native Americans and all who are served by their court.
• The Advocacy Warrior Award celebrates legal practitioners who have demonstrated exceptional excellence in legal practice advocating for Native American justice, rights, and tribal sovereignty.
• The Community Keeper Award honors individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to promoting Native American equity, inclusion, and belonging within the legal profession.

---

NNABA honors the legacy and contributions of Native American legal professionals who inspire and lead by example. We celebrate their achievements and express our deepest gratitude for their dedication to justice and the well-being of Native communities.

Kirke Kickingbird, a member of the Kiowa Tribe and Kiowa Gourd Clan, has devoted his professional career to helping Indian people get interpretations of the law that will benefit their personal interests as well as the interests of tribal governments. His expertise has enabled him to work effectively in legal, political, academic, and business arenas in order to ensure that the Indian viewpoint is taken seriously. In his work, Kirke has provided training and technical assistance to more than 150 tribal governments within the United States and Canada, and has worked with the United States government and world experts on international treaty issues affecting indigenous people.

Kirke is currently of counsel at Hobbs Straus Dean & Walker, where he works on gaming issues for Oklahoma tribes and tribal government reform. From 1988-2000, Kirke directed the Native American Legal Resource Center at Oklahoma City University School of Law, where he served on the faculty. He served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and as Chairman of the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission from 1992-1995. He also led the legal and court management review of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Tribal Court System from 1992-1993. In March 1995, he was appointed Special Counsel on Indian Affairs to the Governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating, a post held for five years. He was appointed by Oklahoma Chief Justice Opala to serve on the Oklahoma Supreme Court Committee to Recommend Standards for Granting Full Faith and Credit to the Judicial Proceedings of Indian Tribes, Nations and Bands (1992-1994).

Kirke has written extensively on matters related to Indian law and tribal governance, including the books One Hundred Million Acres and Indians and the U.S. Constitution: A Forgotten Legacy. Kirke devotes his spare time to helping Indian youth by serving on the board of directors at both the Oaks Indian Mission, and Nation Building for Native Youth.

---

Rodina Cave Parnall (Quechua) is the Executive Director of the American Indian Law Center, Inc. Before serving in her current role, she was the Director of the Pre-Law Summer Institute for American Indians and Alaska Natives. 

Rodina served as Senior Policy Advisor to the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs in the U.S. Department of the Interior. Before that, she practiced law in New Mexico and Arizona representing Indian tribes and tribal entities in legal and administrative proceedings and on several large breach-of-trust cases in federal courts. In addition to her Indian law practice, she is experienced in complex litigation and appeals in federal and state courts.

Rodina has been an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law and an Associate Judge on the Southwest Intertribal Court of Appeals (SWITCA). In 2014, she received the New Mexico State Bar Indian Law Section Outstanding Achievement Award. She graduated from Arizona State University College of Law in 2001 with a Certificate in Indian Law and the Outstanding Law Graduate Award for 2001. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Rodina clerked for the Honorable William C. Canby, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

---

The Honorable Sarah I. Wheelock is a judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals. She previously worked as legal counsel for the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in Prior Lake, as an Adjunct Professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, as an Appellate Judge for the White Earth Band of Chippewa Court of Appeals, and in private practice with law firms. Her experience includes litigation in tribal, federal, and state courts, as well as economic development and finance work. Judge Wheelock is a member of the Meskwaki Nation (federally recognized as the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa) and is the first Indigenous person to sit on the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Judge Wheelock is a member and past Vice President of the Minnesota Native American Bar Association, member of the National Native American Bar Association, and member of the Federal Bar Association. She previously served as a member of the Minnesota Commission on Judicial Selection. Her community involvement includes serving as the Vice Chair and Director of the board for the Division of Indian Work, as an Assistant Director of Twin Cities Native Lacrosse, and as the past-Chair of the American Indian Parent Advisory Committee for the Prior Lake-Savage Area School District. Judge Wheelock earned her B.A. with honors and distinction and J.D. with distinction from the University of Iowa.