A member of the Quechan Tribe of California and Arizona will be the first person to graduate from UCLA’s joint degree program in law and American Indian studies. Padraic McCoy will receive a law degree during the UCLA School of Law commencement to take place at 2 p.m., Sunday, May 12, at Perloff Quad.

UCLA was the first university in the nation to approve a joint degree program in law and American Indian studies. McCoy also was the first student to enroll in the program in 1998.

Carole Goldberg, law professor and the program’s director, said the program is essential for attorneys who want to specialize in American Indian law.

“Students planning to pursue Indian law should have a broad understanding of Indian culture as well as legal sources that are important in this area,� Goldberg said. “It’s very difficult to understand what is at stake unless you can appreciate the historical, cultural and contemporary issues confronting the tribe.�

In the past, some attorneys developing tribal laws based their work on federal and state laws rather than the legal traditions of the Indian nations, Goldberg said. Law students in the program learn about other tribes as well as their own, she said. There are more than 500 tribes nationwide, and more than 100 of them are in California.

Students enrolled in the program take law classes their first year. During their second, third and fourth years, they take law and American Indian Studies classes, which cover such topics as cultural worldviews of Native America and contemporary issues. They also submit a research-based master’s thesis.

Students take part in the School of Law’s Tribal Legal Development Clinic. They work with tribal councils, administrators and elders on legal issues. Students have helped tribes create a court for the resolution of internal disputes, drafted constitutions and assisted with other legal matters. They have traveled around the nation to serve the tribes, which have included the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Mass.) and Alaska Native villages.

The clinic is an integral part of the joint degree program since tribes may experience a complete vacuum of legal authority on a reservation, Goldberg said.

“Although a few high-profile tribes have experienced major economic advances from gaming, most of the 106 Indian nations located in California, as well as hundreds of other tribes and Alaska Native villages, suffer from high unemployment, inadequate education and poor health,� Goldberg said. “Their inherent governmental powers and their federal status as ‘domestic dependent nations’ afford them the authority to make and enforce laws, but their legal systems have been undermined and compromised by more than a century of federal domination.�

McCoy is a member of the Quechan Tribe, which is trying to prevent a mining company from digging on sacred grounds. He lived on the Fort Yuma Reservation in Winterhaven, Calif., for a brief time as a child.

McCoy, 31, is the first in his family to go to college. He now works in Washington, D.C., for Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson and Perry, which is a leading American Indian law firm in the United States.

“I’ve seen the battles back and forth between the government and the tribes, and I wanted to help,� McCoy said. The joint degree program in Indian law and American Indian studies helped him achieve “the legal training you need to try to address Indians’ needs and the education to approach specific tasks from a larger perspective.�

As a student in the legal clinic, McCoy wrote a traffic ordinance for the Hoopa Valley Tribe of California.

There are now nine students enrolled in the UCLA program.