#  Heather Kendall-Miller 

Athabaskan

 

 

 



 person 





 

 Heather Kendall-Miller is Denaina Athabaskan and is a tribal member of the Native Village of Dillingham. Since 1993 she has worked as a staff attorney of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), where she practices exclusively in the area of tribal rights and subsistence. In addition to her work for NARF, Ms. Kendall-Miller serves on the Board of Trustees of the Alaska Conservation Foundation.

 Together with fellow NARF staff attorney Lawrence Aschenbrenner, Ms. Kendall-Miller served as lead counsel for both appeals (to the U.S. Circuit Court and to the U.S. Supreme Court) of the landmark case *State of Alaska v. Native Village of Venetie* , which sought to determine the reach of Indian Country and, specifically, whether tribes in Alaska possessed the same broad powers as Indian tribes on reservations in the lower-48 states. While ultimately unsuccessful, the arguments forwarded by NARF laid important groundwork for new legislation, Native Alaskan government development and further juridical work.

 Ms. Kendall-Miller received her B.A. from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks in 1988 and her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1991. After law school, she worked as a Judicial Clerk for Chief Justice Ray Rabinowitz of the Alaska Supreme Court. She then received a two-year Skadden Fellowship to work for Alaska Legal Services and NARF in the area of Alaska Native Rights and was subsequently hired full time by NARF.



 

 

 





 

 

- ## Role
    
     [Honorary Board Members](/role/honorary-board-members)