Dawn Baum
Staff Attorney

Ms. Baum is an enrolled member of the Mole Lake (Sokaogon) Chippewa Tribe of Wisconsin and a descendant of the Menominee Indian Tribe, and was born and raised in Wisconsin. She has been a staff attorney in the Washington, D.C. office since 2006.

Prior to working at NARF, Dawn worked as a Staff Attorney at Environmental Appeals Board of the U.S.E.P.A. which handles permit and penalty appeals under various federal environmental statutes. Dawn has also worked as a staff attorney at the University of Tulsa’s Boesche Legal Clinic instructing and supervising law students as they represented their first clients—tribal members of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in a variety of family and civil law cases in tribal, state, and federal courts. Dawn’s first attorney experiences were judicial. She worked in a clerkship with the Navajo Nation Supreme Court and as the Chief Deputy Clerk of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

Dawn earned a B.A. in Religious Studies from Beloit College, graduating magna com laude, earning the Departmental Prize for Religious Studies, and interning with the Cook County Public Defender. In 2001, she earned her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin, cum laude, interning at a nonprofit firm empowering pro se litigants in Wisconsin and with the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. She also participated in the NNALSA Moot Court competition and the Neighborhood Law Project’s legal clinic for residents of Madison, Wisconsin. In 2005, she completed an L.L.M. with honors in American Indian and Indigenous Law at the University of Tulsa. She was awarded the Outstanding L.L.M. Student Award by the faculty and the L.L.M. Candidate of the Year Award by the local chapter of the Native American Law Student Association.

Ms. Baum is admitted to practice law in the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court of Federal Claims, several federal District Courts, the States of Wisconsin and New Mexico, the District of Columbia, Muscogee (Creek) Nation tribal courts, and the Navajo Nation tribal courts (inactive). Dawn currently serves on the Executive Board of the Native American Bar Association of D.C. and is a co-editor of the Federal Bar Association’s Indian Law Section Newsletter.