William R. Norman, Jr.
Partner

A partner since January 2000, Mr. Norman, of Muscogee (Creek) descent, joined the Firm in 1994, following a two-year clerkship with the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, PA. In 1996, he opened the Firm’s Oklahoma office.

Mr. Norman’s practice spans a wide array of subject matters including self-determination contracting/compacting, taxation, transportation, gaming, and education and is largely concentrated in administrative and federal litigation resulting from disputes in such matters. He was part of the team that assisted the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes of Oklahoma successfully negotiate a self-determination contract for road construction, the first such contract negotiated under the then new self-determination regulations, and is involved in the negotiated rulemaking effort to develop a new formula and regulations for the Indian Reservation Road program. He has also been a primary participant in the successful representation of the Rapid City Indian Health Board, the Alamo Navajo School Board, and other tribes and tribal organizations in administrative proceedings against the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to protect their right of self-determination.

Mr. Norman was a primary author of Chapter 2 of Empowerment of Tribal Governments: Final Workgroup Report, developed by the Tribal Workgroup on  Tribal Needs Assessments in May 1999. The chapter details the legal, historic, and moral obligations of the United States to tribes and the manner in which these responsibilities are fulfilled through today’s tribal priority allocation programs. He has also received the Salem Civil Rights Award for the note entitled “Native American Inmates and Prison Grooming Regulations: Today’s Justified Scalps,” 18 Am. Indian L. Rev. 191 (1993). Mr. Norman, with Mr. Hobbs, drafted chapter 2 of Empowerment of Tribal Governments, Final Workgroup Report, May 1999.

Mr. Norman received his J.D. degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1992, and his B.B.A. degree from the University of Central Oklahoma in 1989. He is a member of the Oklahoma, Pennsylvania (inactive), and District of Columbia bars, and the Oklahoma Indian Bar Association.

E-mail: william@hsdwok.com

Phone: (405) 602-9425

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