As Oneida Eye stated in a previous post ( Lawyers, Liars & Sonny Boy Delgado ), we believe there is a better way than removal petitions to address the various violations of the Code of Ethics by the Chief Counsel, the Tribal Chairperson and the rest of the Business Committee (excluding Tina Danforth who abstained) regarding the hire and retro-approval of the hiring of Lati Hill as an Oneida Law Office Staff Attorney, which resulted in his illegally false advertisement of himself as an Attorney at Law, given that he has not passed the Wisconsin State Bar exam and is therefore neither an Attorney at Law nor qualified to be hired as a Tribal Staff Attorney.
That way is via an injunction against the Business Committee’s October 9, 2013 retro-approval of Chief Counsel House’s improper hiring of Lati Hill for a position that he lacks the most basic qualifications for:
As Oneida Eye also stated previously, this information has been made available to the offices of the Wisconsin State Attorney General, Brown & Outagamie County Prosecutors, Office of Lawyer Regulation, and Senator Ron Johnson. It has now also been forwarded to the Wisconsin Board of Bar Examiners.
As the Request for Injunctive Relief states:
By approving the employment of a non-licensed individual for professional legal services, the Oneida Business Committee is not inspiring public confidence and trust in the government officials of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin, and rather engenders distrust, suspicion and damages the very credibility of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin as a whole, including the Petitioners as Oneida Tribal Members and General Tribal Council members. Simply put, the Oneida Business Committee is making all Oneidas look bad; especially those involved in the legal profession with actual licenses to practice law.
Hopefully the BC will realize their error and vote to rescind their own retro-approval of Chief Counsel House’s unacceptable hiring of a non-licensed Tribe member to falsely portray himself as an Attorney at Law in violation of Wisconsin State Statute 757.30, yet even that necessary step doesn’t address the serious questions of why the Chief Counsel would think it was in any way appropriate to claim to the Chairperson that her actions, and subsequent actions by the BC – not to mention Lati Hill’s advertised claims to the public – are somehow justifiable due to ‘sovereign immunity.’
What’s next? Hiding behind ‘sovereign immunity’ to hire ‘Registered Nurses’ and ‘Doctors’ who aren’t registered or who lack a license to practice medicine and cannot legally advertise themselves as physicians?
The Chief Counsel’s shockingly inaccurate and false claims to the Chairperson raise unavoidable questions about Jo Anne House’s competency and/or honesty as an attorney.
But we’re fairly certain that Sonny Boy will chalk it all up to Jo Anne being ‘nervous,’ which is why General Tribal Council members have had to step up to try to protect the Tribe from the Chairperson and the Chief Counsel who serves at his pleasure.
See also: Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To be Lawyers
