B.J. Jones

Director, Northern Plains Tribal Judicial Training Institute
jones@law.und.edu

Mr Jones graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1981 with a B.A. in history, Phi Beta Kappa, and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1984. Before becoming the Director of the Institute, he was Litigation Director for Dakota Plains Legal Services. Mr Jones has devoted his law practice to serving indigent residents of South and North Dakota Indian reservations and adjoining counties. He has represented clients in federal, state, and tribal courts as well as in administrative hearings. His areas of expertise include federal entitlements, Indian law, domestic relations and health law. Mr Jones is admitted to the state bars of Virginia, South Dakota and North Dakota; the federal bars of the US District Courts for North and South Dakota, the United States Court of Appeals for Eighth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court; and the Rosebud Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Oglala Sioux, Flandreau-Santee Sioux, Yankton Sioux, and Spirit Lake Nation tribal bars.

Mr Jones is also the Chief Justice of the Turtle Mountain Tribal Court of Appeals, a Special Magistrate of the Non-Removable Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court, and an alternate judge of the Three Affiliated Tribes Tribal Court. He is a member of the Diversity Committee at the School of Law and has acted as a clinical instructor for the Native American Law Program; he has also taught Indian Law. Mr Jones serves on the North Dakota Supreme Court Committee on Tribal-State Court Affairs, and the ABA Committee on the Unmet Needs of Children. He was an instructor at Sinte Gleska University and Sitting Bull College. Mr Jones publishes and presents in the area of Indian law.