Marlon Sherman
Marlon
Sherman, J.D. (Oglala Lakota) brings to any engagement a diverse
background consisting of legal education and service to Indians
and tribes, to poetry and literary expertise. He recently served
as Adult Program Manager for Indian Dispute Resolution Services,
Inc. (IDRS) based in Sacramento, California, where he acted as a
Mediator, Facilitator and Trainer. Mr. Sherman received formal
training in negotiation and mediation from IDRS and the University
of Colorado Law School in Boulder.
Mr.
Sherman has an extensive background working directly with tribes
and Native groups in tribal self-governance, economic development,
and government-to-government relations. His duties have included
teaching, training and facilitating. He served as Development
Director for Seventh Generation Fund, an intermediary granting
foundation serving grassroots indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Mr. Sherman also facilitated fundraising workshops for the
grantees.
Mr. Sherman also
served as the Self-Governance Director for the Yurok Tribe in
Eureka, CA. His primary responsibilities included negotiating
compacts and annual funding agreements between the Tribe and the
federal government. He drafted and negotiated legal contracts,
cooperative agreements and Memoranda of Understanding with
government agencies, political jurisdictions, and private entities
regarding a wide range of natural resource use and management
issues. He also conducted Indian law workshops for tribal
employees, and acted as the Tribe’s Public Hearing Officer, public
meetings.
Mr. Sherman served the Bear River Band of
Rohnerville Rancheria as the Program Director of the Tribe’s
Governance and Economic Development Project. He rewrote the
Tribe’s Constitution, drafted numerous new tribal ordinances, and
conducted tribal governance training workshops with the Tribal
Council and tribal membership.
Mr. Sherman has
also managed his private consulting business, specializing in
conducting focus groups; workplace diversity training; workshops
on Native American legal, social, and historical issues; and
writing government and private foundation grant proposals. He
taught courses in the Native American Studies and Indian Teacher
and Educational Personnel programs at Humboldt State University.
Mr. Sherman
serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Buffalo Gap
Land Rescue (Louisville, CO), an organization supporting the
purchase, restoration and repatriation of land to Indian tribes.
Mr. Sherman is an accomplished poet and a
published literary critic.
Mr. Sherman
received his law degree from the University of Colorado School of
Law in Boulder, CO (1997), and his BA Degree from the University
of California at Santa Cruz (1992) with a major in American
Studies. He also attended Utah State University (Logan, UT) where
he studied as an undergraduate in Wildlife Science. While in law
school he served for two years as legal intern for the Native
American Rights Fund/National Indian Law Library, and as a
research assistant to nationally renowned law professor, Charles
Wilkinson.
