By the time Lisa Garcia entered middle school, her career path was cemented. She knew exactly how she wanted her future to unfold.
“I’ve wanted to be an attorney for as long as I can remember,” she said.
Today, Garcia, a Chickasaw citizen and cofounder of Tribal Justice Advocacy & Law in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, puts her legal expertise to work, giving a voice to First Americans in desperate need of representation.
“When I first started my career in law, I focused on domestic violence victims and then became a guardian ad litem (GAL), an attorney for children that focuses on what is in the best interest of the child, not necessarily just what the child wants," Garcia said.
“GALs are often appointed in custody issues, adoptions and guardianships because the child does not have that voice and is not able to specifically speak to the judge. We act as their voice and let the judge know what we believe is in the best interest of that child,” she said.
Garcia said her heart is with youth, especially First American youth.
“They are the foundation of our future,” she said. “If we’re not helping them and they don’t have a strong voice and strong representation, then we’re not going to be able to help our families, community or youth.
“I have kids I’ve worked with 13 years ago, and they still reach out to me today. Having an impact on kids is something I always wanted to do, and I feel like I’ve definitely accomplished that so far in my career,” she said.
Jerry Sweet, Garcia’s father, the Chickasaw Nation’s child support enforcement director from May 1996 to June 2006, often took his daughter along with him when working at tribal court, which helped forge her career resolve.
“I would follow him around as a kid and go to all the tribal courts and meet the tribal judges, and I thought, ‘OK, this is what I want to do,’” she said.
Garcia graduated from East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, and earned her law degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law in 2009.
“I was in private practice for 13 years, and then I became a prosecutor with the Cherokee Nation for three years,” Garcia said.
Garcia also served for four years as a municipal judge in Wagoner, Oklahoma, where she currently resides.
“We know the trauma First Americans and all families have faced within the court system, and I feel we are able to help those families get through the court process,” she said.
Garcia’s two law firm partners, Catina R. Drywater and Amanda Bradley, are Cherokee citizens. The team said they believe they are the only all-female First American multi-partner firm in Oklahoma.
“The one thing that makes our firm unique is it was founded by Native women, and it’s something we haven’t seen elsewhere in Oklahoma. Our goal is to build our firm rooted on Native leadership, collaboration and community,” Garcia said.
She said the three partners decided to collaborate out of a desire to focus on offering better services and representation to First American families.
“We saw an opportunity to come together and build something that reflects both our experience and our responsibility to the communities we serve,” she said.
Garcia said the skill sets the three experienced attorneys offer add to the uniqueness of their mission of serving the First American community.
“The three of us being former prosecutors allows us to know the courts inside and out, which gives us an advantage. It allows us to anticipate issues and advocate more effectively for our clients. The fact that we have three Native founding partners who are all female and who come from the prosecution side gives us the ability to represent tribes and communities the way they should be represented,” Garcia said.
“We offer representation with guardianship cases, adoptions, any kind of family law, including divorce and custody. We also cover criminal felonies and misdemeanors, juvenile delinquents and juvenile deprived cases, which is my main field of expertise,” she said.
“Our First American clients deserve representation because we still have some of the state and municipal courts trying to bring cases knowing they belong in a tribal court. Our clients need an advocate. One of the things we do is make sure they are tried in the correct court.”
Garcia said she and her partners at Tribal Justice Advocacy & Law can be reached by calling (918) 410-9116 to schedule an appointment.