Founding partners of Big Fire Law and Policy Group, from left: Lance Morgan, Leonika Charging, Sheila Corbine, Nicole Ducheneaux, Danelle Smith and Burton Warrington.
Harold Big Fire was a fighter, a boxer.
But when a car accident stole his left arm, the Winnebago father had to find another way to support his family.
So he became a heavy equipment operator.
“I mean, who drives heavy equipment with one arm? He did,” said Lance Morgan, president and CEO of Ho-Chunk Inc., the Winnebago Tribe’s economic development corporation.
Recently, Morgan began searching for names for a new law firm he planned to launch, and he said he couldn’t think of a better one than his grandfather’s.
“He pretty much was the toughest guy I knew in my life, and I like the idea of honoring his name and his image and especially on something that hopefully creates some permanence in Indian Country.”
“He pretty much was the toughest guy I knew in my life," Lance Morgan says of his grandfather, Harold Big Fire, the namesake of the new Big Fire Law and Policy Group. Courtesy photo
On Monday, Morgan and seven other attorneys launched the Big Fire Law and Policy Group, a new law firm borne out of Morgan’s former legal partnership – Fredericks, Peebles and Morgan – which Morgan and several of Big Fire’s attorneys recently left.
Big Fire’s six partners are Morgan, Leonika Charging, Sheila Corbine, Nicole Ducheneaux, Burton Warrington and Danelle Smith. Two other attorneys, Joseph V. Messineo and Michael Novotny, join the firm as senior associate and associate, respectively.
With four of its six partners being women, Big Fire is one of the first law firms in the country owned by a majority of Native women.
“That makes us unique in Indian Country,” Morgan said.
Founding partners of Big Fire Law and Policy Group, from left: Lance Morgan, Leonika Charging, Sheila Corbine. Courtesy photos
Founding partners of Big Fire Law and Policy Group, from left: Nicole Ducheneaux, Danelle Smith and Burton Warrington. Courtesy photos
Charging, a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, said she’s hopeful Big Fire will serve as a shield for Indian Country, representing tribes, tribal organizations, Alaska Native corporations and tribal gaming enterprises, among others.
She said she decided to become a lawyer after seeing the impact of the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program on her tribe in North Dakota.
The federal flood control project flooded much of the productive land on the Fort Berthold Reservation, as well as the homes and lands of hundreds of tribal families. Charging said she understood then that her people, and all Native people, needed competent attorneys to protect their interests from public and private encroachment.
She said a Native-owned law firm brings expertise to Native law issues that non-Native-owned law firms can’t by being able to understand the challenges facing tribes.
Indianz.Com on YouTube: Lance Morgan #WiringTheRez
And Charging said she’s particularly gratified to be able to work for a law firm that appreciates the value of diversity within its ranks. She said many law firms simply aren’t concerned with understanding why so few women serve as partners or supervisors within their organizations.
“We’re beyond that,” she said of Big Fire. “We’re built on a foundation of diversity. We’re built on a foundation of gender equity, pay equity and providing opportunity for attorneys of color.”
Morgan said Big Fire plans to add three more attorneys, making it one of the larger law firms in the country practicing Indian law. And unlike many of those large law firms, which don’t usually focus on Native law, Big Fire’s primary mission will be to serve its Native clients.
He said an explosion of economic development in Indian Country has provided greater opportunity and need for Native attorneys to protect tribal interests. He said his goal is to create the largest Native-owned law firm in the country within the next five to 10 years.
“We want to create the 800-pound gorilla in our world, and we want it to be Native-controlled,” Morgan said.
He said the firm’s attorneys bring with them valuable life experiences, having served as tribal judges, tribal economic development executives and elected tribal leaders.
Among them is Warrington, a citizen of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, who served for five years as the CEO of his tribe’s economic development corporation.
Warrington said his experiences inform his approach to Native legal issues and inspire him to continue seeking to protect tribal interests.
“Because of our ancestors, we’re here now, and it’s on our shoulders to keep this fight up in a little different way,” he said.
“For us, it’s being attorneys and contributing to the preservation and advancement of our tribal rights.”
