Michelle C. Lee is a member of the Pit River Tribe and a mother of three. She is an Indian law attorney and has owned and operated an Indian law practice since 2006. She has been practicing Indian Law for nearly 25 years and has represented tribal governments in legal matters including cultural resource protection, Indian child welfare, tribal taxation, tribal gaming regulation, cannabis regulation, tribal governance, the fee-to-trust process and real estate transactions, and general civil litigation involving tribal governments. In addition, she has published a number of law review articles, essays and non-fiction articles on topics relative to her work with California Indian tribes.
Prior to entering private
practice, Michelle edited and contributed significantly to reports that were
submitted to Congress in August 1997 by the Advisory Council on California
Indian Policy. In 1999, she negotiated a tribal-state gaming compact with the
State of California and has successfully negotiated many amendments to other
gaming compacts since that time. In 2003, she was appointed to the Governor’s
Children’s Justice Act Task Force which allocates Title IV-E Child Abuse
Prevention Program funding to agencies in the state of California.
She has served as a trainer in
seminars with the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research regarding the
implementation of SB 18, a statewide general planning law that she drafted in
collaboration with Governor Gray Davis’s Legal Affairs Department in 2004. In
2006, she was featured on the cover of Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine with an
article she co-wrote, entitled, “Real Estate Transactions in California’s
“Indian Country”: How to Conduct Business with California Indian Tribal
Governments and Businesses”.
Michelle is extensively involved
in developing statewide policy in California regarding cultural resources
protection including drafting, negotiating, and ensuring the passage of
improved cultural preservation laws such as burial site protection and
consultation requirements for new projects. She was recently appointed to the
Executive Committee of the Real Property Section of the California Lawyers
Association. In July 2023, she was also appointed to the Board of Directors for
the Center for Natural Lands Management which protects and manages nature
preserves in the states of California and Washington. All the preserves provide
refuge for threatened or endangered species as well as protect rare and
sensitive habitats such as wetlands.
Michelle received her B.A. in
1993 and her J.D. in 1998, both from the University of California, Davis. She
is admitted to practice in California, all federal district courts in
California, the Ninth Circuit, the United States Supreme Court, the Hoopa
Valley Tribal Court and the San Manuel Tribal Court. She was a recipient of the
2015 Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship and earned her M.F.A. in
Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2017.