Judge Joseph Thomas Flies-Away, a 2004 alumnus of the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, was featured recently in a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal.
     The Dec. 12 article by reporter Gary Fields, follows Judge Flies-Away as he sits as judge in the Hualapai Tribal Court, and details the challenges to the 275 tribal justice systems across the country -- lack of money, lack of trained personnel and limited jurisdiction, to name a few.
     Flies-Away attended Stanford, returned to the reservation to teach seventh grade, became involved in tribal government, went to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, then came to Arizona State University for law school. 
     He said a sense of obligation drew him back to the reservation, where he became the first chief judge of the tribal court with a law degree.  
     "These are my people, my relatives," Flies-Away says. "So despite the hardships and problems, there is also family, joy and possibility. I have to keep thinking that or I might go off the deep end."
     Read the story here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119740123316221341.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone