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M. Frances Ayer
Partner
Ms. Ayer focuses on advising Indian tribes on complicated
legal issues and on advocating select legislative matters.
She has worked in the field of Indian law since 1970, and
joined the Firm as partner in May 2002. Until then, she was
a partner at Morisset, Schlosser, Ayer & Jozwiak, whose
predecessor firm she joined in 1983.
Ms. Ayer represented the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians
to obtain legislation in 1994 which reaffirmed its status
as a federally recognized tribe and mandated trust and reservation
status for acquired lands. She continues to implement that
legislation. Since 1988, she has served as lead counsel on
the Mni Wiconi Rural Water Project, a monumental engineering
effort to deliver drinking water to three Indian reservations
in South Dakota. She was lead attorney in the legislative
establishment of the Self-Governance Demonstration Project,
working in the late 1980's with the House Subcommittee on
Interior Appropriations, and represented five of the ten
original pilot project tribes. She worked extensively in
drafting the IGRA and in drafting and advocating for tribal
rights during efforts to amend the IGRA. Ms. Ayer is an authority
on jurisdiction and recovery of tribal lands lost through
past federal wrongs.
From 1981-1983, Ms. Ayer was special assistant to the Assistant
Secretary – Indian Affairs. She worked with northwest
tribes to protect their treaty fishing rights and represented
the Department of the Interior in sockeye salmon treaty negotiations
between the United States and Canada. She worked to resolve
disputes between the Klamath and Trinity River Tribes and
the sports and ocean fisheries. She assisted in drafting the
Reagan Indian Policy Statement, the first since that of President
Nixon in 1970. During 1976-1978 she was counsel to the National
Tribal Chairman’s Association, where she worked closely
with Mescalero Chairman Wendell Chino and Red Lake Chairman
Roger Jordain.
Ms. Ayer worked in the Solicitor’s office from 1970-1975,
and from 1978-1981. She prepared for publication Volumes VI
and VII of Kappler, Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, the
Opinions of the Solicitor on Indians and the Model Code for
Use in Courts of Indian Offences and was Assistant Solicitor
for Jurisdiction, Taxation, Fishing and Civil Rights.
Ms. Ayer received her LL.B. and A.B. from Emory University.
She is a member of the bars of Georgia and the District of
Columbia.
E-mail: fayer@hsdwdc.com
Phone: (202) 822-8282
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