Attorney Achievement Award

"Strive to do your very best because your tribal clients deserve nothing less." - Alan Taradash

Alan Taradash was selected for the Indian Law Section’s 2023 Attorney Achievement Award for his unparalleled achievements in the field of Indian Law, his distinguished service to pro bono Indian clients and his remarkable mentoring of Indian Law attorneys. Alan practiced law for over 50 years, all on the Navajo Nation and in New Mexico, and was a long-standing member of the Indian Law Section before he passed away in August 2023. A nomination letter from 15 of his former law firm colleagues’ details Alan’s many remarkable achievements including but not limited to, his work at DNA-Legal Services, Inc., as Director of Litigation, where he advanced the rights of individual native Americans, and for his work at the Nordhaus Law Firm in Albuquerque, where he spent three decades focused almost exclusively on Indian law for tribes and individual Indians, including enforcement of tribal trust and trust asset management claims against the United States due to trustee mismanagement of tribal trust funds, land, minerals and timber. He was awarded the Federal Bar Association’s Lawrence R. Baca Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Federal Indian Law in 2011.