PRESS RELEASE – AWARD ANNOUNCEMENT

AndersonTuell, LLP is pleased to announce that our co-founder, Loretta A. Tuell has been chosen to receive the American Bar Association (ABA) - Margaret Brent Award for 2009. She is among five distinguished attorneys to be awarded: Sunday, August 2, 2009 at the Annual ABA Meeting to be held at the Fairmont Chicago (Imperial Ballroom) in Chicago, IL.

The Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award recognizes the accomplishment of women lawyers who excel in their field and have paved the way to success for other women lawyers. Previous winners of this award include Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno. Loretta is the first Native American woman to be recognized in the award’s almost 20-year history. Her award was based on her mentorship of Native American women attorneys, public service at the United States Senate and the Department of Interior, private law practice and leadership with non-profit entities. This is truly historic!

Loretta A. Tuell is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho and a descendant of the Chief Joseph Band of Wallowa, Oregon. She grew up on the Nez Perce reservation and graduated from Washington State University and UCLA School of Law. She attended the Senior Executive Program at the JFK School of Government. She has served as Adjunct Faculty at American University for the Washington Internships for Native Students (WINS) program. She is a partner at AndersonTuell, LLP which is a 100% Indian-owned law firm in Washington D.C. and among the first law firms in the nation’s capital with a Native American woman as a founding partner.

Ms. Tuell practices Federal Indian law and represents American Indian Tribal Government clients before the Congress, the court and regulatory agencies. She has experience in dealing with national legal and policy issues in Indian Country from three different perspectives: the Congress, the Administration and the private sector. She has eight years’ of experience with the Department of the Interior and the United States Senate serving as a senior advisor on legislative and administrative matters affecting Indian tribes. She has served as Counsel on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Counselor to the Assistant of Secretary of Indian Affairs, and Director of the Office of American Indian Trust. For the last eight years she has served as legal counsel to a nationwide base of American Indian Tribes.

She has served as co-chair of the Joint Federal-Tribal Task Force in the development of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Consultation Policy, appointee to the Federal Task Force for Native Hawaiians, Board Member for the National Native American Bar Association, and Board Member of National Native American Law Student’s Association. Since 1998, Ms. Tuell serves on the Board of Trustees of the United National Indian Tribal Youth (UNITY) where she mentors, among others, young Native American women. In 2008, she was featured in the ABA publication of Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters, Strategies for Success from Multicultural Woman Attorneys.