Walter Echo-Hawk

Lawyer for the Native American Rights Fund for more than 35 years

Walter R. Echo-Hawk Jr. is a lawyer, tribal judge, scholar and activist whose legal experience includes cases involving Native American religious freedom, prisoner rights, water rights, treaty rights, and reburial/repatriation rights.

Mr. Echo-Hawk has worked as a lawyer for the Native American Rights Fund for more than 35 years. He was instrumental in securing passage of two federal laws that respect Indian and religious freedoms and also the repatriation of Native American remains to Indian tribes.

In 1989, he negotiated a national reburial agreement with the Smithsonian Institution which was enacted into law. In 1989-90, he helped lead a national campaign for passage of the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act - an important human rights law. In 1994, he represented the Native American Church of North America to secure passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments of 1994 to protect religious use of peyote by Indians. Presently he represents the Klamath Tribes of Oregon to quantify treaty-protected water rights in Southern Oregon in a highly publicized and controversial set of federal and state litigation.

A prolific writer, his publications include an award-winning book “Battlefields and Burial Grounds” His book, “In the Courts of the Conqueror: The Ten Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided,” will be published in spring 2009. He has received various awards, such as, the American Bar Association "Spirit of Excellence Award" for legal work in the face of adversity and the "Civil Liberties Award" from the ACLU of Oregon for significant contributions in the cause of individual freedom. He was recently awarded the Sarah T. Hughes Civil Rights Award, as well as the Oklahoma State Distinguished Native American Alumni Award. Since 1995, Walter has served as a member of the Carter Center's International Human Rights Council. Walter serves as Chairman of the Board for the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, a new foundation dedicated to tribal philanthropy to preserve Indian art and culture.

He is admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court, Colorado Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits, and a host of federal District Courts. Walter is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Pawnee Nation.

Walter is a member of the Pawnee Nation, belonging to the Kitkahaki Band, born on the Pawnee reservation in Oklahoma. He received a political science degree from Oklahoma State University (1970) and his law degree from the University of New Mexico (1973).