Archives West Finding Aid

William Lackey Paul was the son of attorney and native American rights activist, William Lewis Paul. (Although he signed himself William Paul, Jr., his full name is being used to minimize confusion with his father.) He grew up in Alaska and attended the University of Washington, where he earned a law degree. He practiced law in Juneau from 1940 to 1954 and then moved to Seattle. In Seattle, he worked for title insurance companies until 1960, when he joined the civil department of the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. He lost this job in 1971 and returned to Alaska.

Most of the papers in this accession concern William Paul's private practice in federal Indian law. William Paul was 1/4 Tlingit and most of his practice in Alaska was on behalf of Tlingit and Haida villages. The bulk of the papers are volumes which were filed with the Alaska Superior court in Paul v. Weissbrodt in 1972. This case resulted from Paul's attempt to claim $69,000 in fees due him as a result of his work as a claims attorney on behalf of Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska. In 1947 The Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska engaged the services of James E. Curry and William L. Paul, Jr. as associate attorneys in the prosecution of the tribes' land claims against the U.S. After I.S. Weissbrodt took over as chief counsel, Paul was, in his words, "implicitly fired" in 1952. The Court of Claims ruled in favor of the Tlingits and Haida in 1968, awarded them $7,546,053 and awarded $603,684.50 in fees to attorney Weissbrodt. Paul claimed that he was entitled to 1/9 of the fee.

The case files document Paul's work on behalf of the Tlingits and Haida in pursuing their claims and helping villages to organize. The files span the years 1928 to 1954 and include evidence gathered for the case and much material concerning the Alaska Native Brotherhood from as early as 1928. Paul was an officer in the ANB, and additional material concerning the ANB appears in some of Paul's personal papers. The papers also include personal papers of his father, William Lewis Paul.