Professional Life
Prior to his service as Principal Chief, Smith taught Indian law at Northeastern State University, Rogers State University, and for a semester at Dartmouth College while he was a visiting fellow.
From 1979 to 1980, Smith served a consultant in Indian Law and Tribal Management to the Cherokee Nation's Tribal Operations. He then served as Assistant District Attorney in Creek County, Oklahoma. On two separate occasions, Smith served as the Estate Tax Attorney of the United States Department of Treasury, from 1980 to 1982 and from 1987 to 1989.
From 1989 to 1995 and from 1997 to 1999, he operated a private law practice out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, representing clients in civil rights litigation and appeals, criminal defense, and general civil litigation, with a focus on Indian law. Smith served as an Assistant Public Defender and served as counsel to economically deprived defendants in the District Court of Tulsa County.
Read more about this topic: Chad "Corntassel" Smith
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or life:
“Virtue and vice suppose the freedom to choose between good and evil; but what can be the morals of a woman who is not even in possession of herself, who has nothing of her own, and who all her life has been trained to extricate herself from the arbitrary by ruse, from constraint by using her charms?... As long as she is subject to man’s yoke or to prejudice, as long as she receives no professional education, as long as she is deprived of her civil rights, there can be no moral law for her!”
—Flora Tristan (1803–1844)
“The imaginary audience for my life is growing small and silent.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)