Lawrence M. Kasen

Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, I witnessed first hand the disparate treatment of individuals based on their country of origin, race and station in life. Even before becoming an attorney, I wanted to ensure that the civil rights afforded under the United States Constitution to individuals and business entities were equally and readily available. In furtherance of this objective, I went to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ and studied the history, religion, languages and culture of many Native American peoples throughout North America as well as cultural anthropology. Realizing that the study of law would further my objectives, in 1976 I enrolled at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., our nation's capital. While at Howard, I took a constitutional law course under the direction of Herbert Reid, a preeminent constitutional law professor and scholar, who was one of the junior lawyers in Brown v. Board of Education , the famous 1954 civil rights case that led to the nullification of the separate but equal doctrine that had precluded African Americans from attending desegregated schools. This course, together with other civil rights-related courses, prepared me for a 1978 summer clerkship with the Solicitor's Office - Division of Indian Affairs, at the United States Department of Interior in Washington, D.C. Following a recommendation of the Deputy Solicitor for Indian Affairs, for my third year in law school I embarked on a special fellowship in Indian Law and Natural Resources Law at the University of New Mexico's National Indian Law Center and Natural Resources Law Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. With this educational background and resources, for the next two and one-half years I secured employment representing Indian tribes and individual Native Americans in Nebraska and Arizona. See Website for remainder of biography.