Charlie Baser, '16, Named February's Pro Bono Volunteer of the Month
Editor's note: The Pro Bono Board, a student group committed to expanding pro bono knowledge and opportunities to students, names a Pro Bono Volunteer of the Month. The February honoree is Charlie Baser, ’16. Stephanie Spiro,'16, a member of the board, wrote this story on her work. For more information on pro bono work, visit the Pro Bono Service Initiative website or contact Shehnaz Mansuri in the Office of Career Services.
Charlie Baser, ’16, February’s Pro Bono Volunteer of the Month, is currently applying her interest in American Indian law by clerking on the Hopi Appellate Court. Her passion for this area began when she was a photojournalism student at the University of Montana. As part of a school project, she went to Blackfeet Reservation in Montana and reported on health issues facing Native Americans on the reservation. Charlie said she “immediately saw how law affects people’s lives on the reservation and was struck by the complexities associated with the intersection of tribal, state, and federal law.” She “got hooked on law” through her experience there and has maintained and developed her interest in American Indian law while in law school.
She is clerking for three Hopi Appellate Court justices, including UChicago Anthropology Professor Justin Richland and Chief Justice Robert Clinton, ’71, the Foundation Professor at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. This quarter she spent several days visiting the Hopi Reservation in Arizona and hearing cases in the Hopi Appellate Court, and she plans to return later this year. As a clerk, Charlie reads case files, researches legal issues and questions that arise in cases, attends oral arguments on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona, meets with the justices to discuss cases, writes bench memos, and drafts orders and opinions.
Following graduation, Charlie will work as an associate in the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources practice group in the Santa Fe, New Mexico, office of Holland & Hart LLP. She hopes to additionally volunteer with public interest organizations that work with native tribes in the Southwest. She is particularly interested in environmental justice issues and the intersection between environmental and American Indian law. She also plans to continue working on reproductive health and reproductive rights issues, which she has focused on as 3L Representative of Law Students for Reproductive Justice. She recently studied about the high level of violence against women on reservations and the lack of access to abortion care.