NIGA Trade Show 2021

Judith Shapiro
Lawyer
Judith A Shapiro, Esq.


For more than 30 years, Judith A. Shapiro has fought to preserve tribal sovereignty, including the representation of tribes in federal and tribal courts, and before federal agencies, in matters of governmental status, protection and restoration of tribal homelands, cultural preservation, gaming and other economic development. She was part of the workgroup that fought to clarify tribes’ rights to conduct class II gaming with the broad use of technological aids, and has continued to press for maximum use of class II developing technology. She has provided advice in connection with tribal recognition, tribal development and financing, acquisition of trust land bases, and the establishment and expansion of tribal gaming facilities. She has spent considerable time assisting tribes in addressing the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Carcieri v. Salazar. Since 2020, Ms. Shapiro has been a strategic partner with Big Fire Law & Policy Group, LLC, a firm vigorously defending tribal sovereign interests. Ms. Shapiro holds a law degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, a Master's in Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College in the performance of Early Music, and a Bachelor's degree in anthropology from Kirkland College, with a focus on Mesoamerican ethnohistory. She served for two years as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Richard Owen in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and is a member of the International Masters of Gaming Law. Ms. Shapiro is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia as well as in several federal and tribal courts and in the United States Supreme Court.

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