News & Publications

Rothstein Donatelli Welcomes Summer Associate

This year's special legislative session has brought several new changes to New Mexico, including to the Criminal Record Expungement Act. These changes will provide, among other things, improvements to the way expungements are handled as well as providing for automatic expungement for certain cann...

The lawyers of Rothstein Donatelli stand shoulder to shoulder with survivors of childhood sexual abuse in New Mexico. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church unleashed untold number of predators into our communities, leading to generations of devastation and decades of secrecy and coverup. Each of us ...

Partner April Olson discusses how state court pro hac vice rules often deny tribes the ability to participate in state court child custody proceedings concerning Indian children, and suggests how state court rules could be revised to ensure that tribal nations have “a seat at the table,” as requi...

After the NMAG withheld more than 26,000 pages of public records documenting connections between credibly accused priests and New Mexico, Rothstein Donatelli filed a lawsuit on behalf of a priest sex abuse survivor to obtain those public records.  For decades, Catholic Church authorities se...

Partner April Olson, a graduate of Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Conner College of Law Indian Legal Program (ILP), was recently featured in a series published by ILP titled, “Progress, Power, and Purpose,” in celebration of Women's History Month and contributions made by ILP women legal p...

Rothstein Donatelli congratulates partner Richard W. Hughes, who has been named the 2020 recipient of the New Mexico State Bar Indian Law Section Attorney Achievement Award in recognition of his achievements in Indian law and his many contributions to the community.  Richard has practiced federal...

The Tempe, Arizona office of Rothstein Donatelli LLP is seeking a summer law clerk for its Indian law practice. Rothstein Donatelli has offices in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico, as well as in Tempe, Arizona where we specialize in federal Indian law, including gaming, economic development, ...

Given the nature of the COVID pandemic, this year's Legislature adopted unique rules for virtual proceedings to halt the continuing spread of the virus.  Displeased with the rules, members of the Republican leadership sued Speaker Egolf and the Legislative Council asserting that the rules were un...

Rothstein Donatelli continues to push to hold institutions that harbor child predators accountable. In October of 2020, a judge for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Mexico ruled that the committee representing almost 400 child sexual abuse survivors could pursue lawsuits challenging the legality ...

Rothstein Donatelli is proud to announce the appointment of three attorneys in their Criminal Practice Group to the New Mexico Federal District Court Criminal Justice Act attorney panel by Chief United States District Judge William P. Johnson. The Court appointed Alicia Lopez to represent defenda...

Almost a year has gone by since New Mexico’s Criminal Record Expungement Act went into effect on January 1, 2020. Since then, the courts have had to deal with a number of challenges on top of the influx the new expungement cases. Today we are providing an update as to how the expungement cases are going and answering questions that may be on your mind:

Associate Glennas'ba Augborne Arents participated in election protection services with the Arizona Native Vote Election Protection Project (AZNVEP) on Election Day this year. Glennas'ba has been a long-time volunteer of Native Vote Election Protection and has led the Indian Legal Clinic's Electio...

Lawyer Mark Donatelli shares decades of service in ending the death penalty in our country and working toward the ending of prison cruelty and solitary confinement in our nation's prisons. Mark is a Upaya sangha member and a true Bodhisattva. A must watch!  

Rothstein Partners Peter Schoenburg and April Olson provided pro bono representation of a water protector opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in a criminal trial in Mandan, South Dakota.  Peter and  April were able to get the demonstrator's conviction overturned by the North Dakota Supreme...

 Associate Glenna'sba Augborne Arents was part of a panel discussion at Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Conner College of Law on Black Perspectives in Indian Law.

Associate Glennas’ba Augborne Arents joins a panel discussion at UC Berkley School of Law on race, multi-racial identities, tribal law and the intersection of Black Liberation and Indigenous Sovereignty.   To listen in, click here.

Partner Mark Donatelli spoke with KSFR about conditions in jails and prisons state-wide and nation-wide, including the conditions surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's suicide in custody. To listen to this interview, click here.

This ruling allows survivors to challenge the legality of the sequestering of assets from the estate of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. The Archdiocese incorporated parishes and created trusts in order to protect assets from claims made by the survivors of sexual abuse. Now the survivors have the ab...

Partner April Olson will present at an upcoming Webinar and CLE titled “ICWA in Action: Protecting Children and Families” on October 21, 2021.  Ms. Olson will discuss procedural rules adopted by many states that govern admission of attorneys to practice pro hac vice in state courts in cases where...

On September 29, 2020, the Pueblos of Santa Ana, Jemez, and Zia secured a major victory from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Abousleman, No. 18-2164, which overturned the District Court's ruling that the Pueblos' aboriginal water rights in the Jemez River Basin had been com...

On September 25, 2020, the D.C. Circuit delivered a major victory to the Indian tribe plaintiffs in the case of Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation v. Mnuchin (Case No. 20-4205). (Rothstein Donatelli represents the Pueblo of Picuris and is co-counsel with the Navajo Nation Department ...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has reversed a decision by the U.S. District Court of New Mexico and ruled that the Estate of Ricardo J. Ortiz successfully stated a claim against both Santa Fe County and a corrections officer employed by the Santa Fe County Jail (ADF) who ignored ...

Rothstein Donatelli has a rich decades-long tradition of amplifying the voices of marginalized people and communities. We are proud to carry on this history today. This suit represents one man's demand for recognition of his dignity and the dignity of his community and we are proud to fight with ...

The Navajo Nation has sent a clemency petition to President Trump that once again reaffirms the Navajo Nation's opposition to the death penalty for Lezmond Mitchell and requests that Mitchell's sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. The petition from Navajo President Jonathan Nez and Vice Pr...