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Paul Spruhan
Assistant Attorney General
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Paul Spruhan was born in Chicago, Illinois and has lived in the Southwest since 1997. He went to A.B., A.M., University of Chicago (1995, 1996); J.D., University of New Mexico (2000). He is Assistant Attorney General for the Litigation Unit of the Navajo Department of Justice. He has been a licensed attorney for close to 20 years. He has worked for DOJ for 12 years, and was the law clerk of the Navajo Supreme Court for 5 years. Before that, he was a staff attorney for New Mexico Legal Aid for a year and half, and started his legal career as an associate at the Santa Fe office Rothstein, Donatelli, Hughes, and Schoenburg. He has licenses for New Mexico, Navajo Nation, Federal District Courts of Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia, New Mexico, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeal, United States, U.S. Supreme Court. He lives with his wife and two children in Fort Defiance on the Navajo Nation.
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Sage Metoxen,
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Sage Metoxen is a Senior Attorney for the Litigation Unit of the Navajo Nation Department of Justice. After graduating law school, she moved to the Navajo Nation to work as a staff attorney for DNA People’s Legal Services, Inc. She was then a natural resources attorney for the Navajo Nation Department of Justice. She has most recently served as Senior Assistant General Counsel for the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. She graduated from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 2013 with a certificate in American Indian Law from the Center for the Study of American Indian Law and Policy. She is admitted to practice law in the state of Arizona and the Navajo Nation.
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Michelle Brown Yazzie
Senior Attorney |
Michelle Brown-Yazzie is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and is of Salish and Kootenai and Oglala Lakota descent. She is of the Táchii’nii Clan and is originally from Na’Niilzhiin (Torreon), NM. She received her J.D. in 1999 from the University Of Iowa College Of Law and her B.A. in English and Political Science in 1995 from the University of New Mexico. She has practiced law for 21 years and for the past 10 years, she served in the judiciary and most recently was the Chief Judge for the Mescalero Apache Tribe. Her positions include as Staff Attorney and Senior Prosecutor for the Navajo Nation, Prosecutor for the Gila River Indian Community, Assistant District Attorney for McKinley County, and as partner at Smith & Brown-Yazzie LLP. She also served as Deputy Cabinet Secretary for the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department appointed by then NM Governor Bill Richardson, Executive Director of the Navajo Nation’s Washington Office appointed by then Navajo Nation President Kelsey Begaye and Legal Counsel to the Navajo Nation’s Office of the President and Vice-President also appointed by President Begaye. She is licensed to practice law on the Navajo Nation, in the State of New Mexico and the United States Supreme Court. She is a mother to four amazing children.
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Louis Mallette
Attorney
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Louis Mallette grew up in California and Alaska. He graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2001, and, after getting his JD from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 2017, started working as an Attorney for the Navajo Nation Department of Justice’s litigation unit. In this role, his only job since graduating from law school, he works on employment and labor issues, as well as federal litigation involving the Navajo Nation. He is licensed to practice law in New Mexico and the Navajo Nation. Louis is married to a Navajo tribal member, and they have one son. |
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Jason M. Searle
Attorney
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Jason Searle received his B.S. in Sociology, magna cum laude, from Brigham Young University in 2015, and his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 2018. Jason currently works as an attorney for the Litigation Unit of the Navajo Nation Department of Justice, and has worked on affirmative and defensive litigation covering a wide-range of practice areas in federal and Navajo administrative and judicial tribunals. During law school, Jason served as a law clerk for Judge Maldonado, Chief Judge of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians Tribal Court, and as a law clerk for the Native American Rights Fund. Jason also participated in the unemployment-insurance, civil mediation, and environmental law clinics during law school. Jason is licensed to practice law New Mexico and the Navajo Nation.
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Dana Martin
Senior Legal Secretary
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Gerrison Joe,
Legal Secretary
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Client Reminder. If you like to meet with one of the staff from this unit, please make an appointment with the unit secretary.
If you like to submit Request for Services please click links below for the forms.
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