Professional Profile

Joel West Williams

Of Counsel

Joel West Williams is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and has represented tribal nations, individual Indians, and Indian organizations on a wide variety of issues, including lands, voting rights, sacred places, and religious liberty. Immediately before joining the firm, Joel was a presidential appointee in the Biden-Harris Administration, where he served as Deputy Solicitor for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior. In that role, he advised the Secretary of the Interior and Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs, and supervised the Division of Indian Affairs within the Solicitor’s Office.

Prior to that, Joel was an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, where he led the Tribal Supreme Court Project, which focuses on the strategy and coordination of Indian law cases before the United States Supreme Court. He also directed the Washington, D.C. office of the Cherokee Nation and was a trial and appellate attorney with the Pennsylvania Governor’s Office of General Counsel. Joel is also an adjunct professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School, and is the alternate federal commissioner on the Arkansas-Oklahoma Arkansas River Compact Commission. He is a past president of the National Native American Bar Association and Native American Bar Association of D.C.

Joel enjoys exploring the outdoors with his family. Together, they camp, hike, climb, swim, build hide-outs, collect rocks, dig holes, and explore new places in their camper.

Education

B.A. Religious Studies and Psychology, Naropa University (1999)
J.D., Widener University – Delaware Law School (2003)
LL.M. in Environmental Law, summa cum laude, Vermont Law School (2016)

Bar Admissions

Arkansas
District of Columbia
Pennsylvania

Selected Publications

Landmark Indian Law Cases (editor) (AALL Publications 2022)
Labor and Employment Law in Indian Country (Executive Editor) (2022)
An “Unfulfilled, Hollow Promise”: Lyng, Navajo Nation, and the Substantial Burden on Native American Religious Practice, 48 Ecology L.Q. 809 (2021) (with Emily deLisle).
The Far End of the Trail of Tears: McGirt v. Oklahoma, 68.1 Federal Lawyer 12 (January/February 2021)
The Five Civilized Tribes’ Treaty Rights to Water Quality and Mechanisms of Enforcement, 25 N.Y.U. Envtl. L.J. 269 (2017).
Walking the Red Road in the Iron House, 28.2 Am. Jails 8 (May/June 2014).