We are pleased to announce that Allison Athens has joined our Indian law practice in Santa Fe. Allison grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. After law school she clerked for the Alaska Court of Appeals and then worked at the Office of Public Advocacy in Fairbanks, providing legal services for indigent and vulnerable Alaskans. Before law school, Allison completed a Ph.D. in Literature, from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and was an adjunct professor in the Literature Department there. Her academic research focused on literature and film from the circumpolar north, and the uneasy meeting places between law and policy on the one hand and lived experience and oral record on the other. This analytical work, along with her role teaching students from educationally underprivileged communities in California, influenced her decision to go to law school to learn how to better serve communities impacted by social and environmental decisions not always made with these groups in mind. During law school, Allison spent summers working at the Native American Rights Fund and Earthjustice, and the schoolyear advocating for animal welfare, environmental protections, and the control of cultural property by the Karuk Tribe in northern California.