Brad Jolly has practiced Indian law exclusively representing Indian tribes for his entire career. He graduated from the Indian Legal Program cum laude from Arizona State University College of Law, where he received the Alan A. Matheson Service Award and was a Pedrich Scholar. He also served as President of the Native American Law Students Association and as a student member of the Indian Legal Program Faculty Committee. Brad graduated with honors from the University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Native American Studies. While attending law school, he published an article in the Arizona State University Law Journal entitled The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act: The Unwavering Policy of Termination Continues, which analyzed the IGRA as an invasion of tribal sovereignty and an extension of the Termination Era legislation, P.L. 280, to all tribes in the area of gaming. The article has been cited by federal courts and the Secretary of the Interior. In addition, Brad served as a law clerk for the Colorado River Indian Tribes and the Fort McDowell Mohave-Apache Indian Community. He also has drafted rules of court for the recognition and enforcement of tribal court judgments for the Arizona State, Tribal, and Federal Court Forum, which were finally adopted by the Arizona Supreme Court in May 2000.
After graduating from law school, Brad was given a fellowship at the Arizona State University College of Law where he worked toward establishing an Indian Law Clinic and supervised students in assisting various Indian tribes with legal issues. Brad also served as Assistant Attorney General for the Colorado River Indian Tribes of Arizona and California, where he directly advised the Tribal Council and individual tribal departments and his practice included a wide range of Indian law issues, including jurisdictional matters, gaming issues and arbitrations, trespass actions, quiet title actions, contracts and taxation issues. Before returning to the West and establishing his own practice, Brad worked for several years as an associate at a small law firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he solely represented Indian tribes as general and special counsel and practiced Federal Indian law and Tribal law, conducting both transactional work and litigating on behalf of tribe's and tribal instrumentalities and agencies located in several states in a wide range of matters, including governmental, commercial, economic, gaming, Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, and employment matters.
Brad has represented Indian tribes throughout the United States, including Arizona, California, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska, as general and special counsel continuously throughout his career. He is admitted in the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, the U.S. District Court of Arizona, U.S. District Court of Nebraska, the U.S. District Court of Colorado, the U.S. Federal Court of Claims, the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska Tribal Court, the Hopi Tribal Court, the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa Tribal Court, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota) Community Tribal Court, and the States of Arizona and Nebraska.
