The Southwest Intertribal Court of Appeals (SWITCA)

Member Trainings and Meetings

Training on a variety of topics is held approximately four times a year in conjunction with SWITCA administrative meetings. In recent years, training topics have included:

• Updates on federal and state Indian legal issues and cases (regularly held)
• Appellate procedures
• Comparative law: the laws of Scotland and England
• Interplay between child abuse and domestic violence
• Judicial trial practice, and the federal rules of evidence
• Full faith and credit
• Tribal employment law
• Judicial ethics
• Indian housing law
• Adjudicatory and dispositional hearings - procedures and evidentiary issues
• Contempt power

Experts who have trained include law professors, tribal court judges and other personnel, judges from state courts, and attorneys practicing in the field.