Landye Bennett Blumstein Names Elizabeth Saagulik Hensley New Partner

ANCHORAGE—The law firm of Landye Bennett Blumstein LLP announced that Elizabeth Saagulik Hensley became a partner in the firm, effective January 1, 2019. Saagulik is Iñupiaq, a tribal citizen of the Native Village of Kotzebue, and is based at the firm’s Anchorage office.

Saagulik focuses her law practice on representing Alaska businesses and Alaska Native tribes, organizations, and corporations in matters encompassing transactions, health care, employment, business organization, child welfare, hunting and fishing rights and responsibilities, co-management of natural resources, and state and federal policy.

On becoming a firm partner, Saagulik stated, “This achievement belongs not only to me but to the mentors, aunts, uncles, and community members who have invested in my personal and professional development. It also belongs to the clients that I am blessed to work with. Alaska Natives represent less than two percent of Alaska attorneys despite being about twenty percent of Alaska’s population. It is my hope that the legal community will grow to reflect the diversity of our great state.”

Saagulik received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College in 2005 and her Juris Doctorate from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law in 2009. Her experience includes serving as general counsel to a regional tribal nonprofit organization, staff attorney and public policy liaison at an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act regional corporation, Alaska legislative aide, and senior policy advisor for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior. She provided international human rights law support to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Rights of Indigenous Peoples through coursework and a legal fellowship.

Landye Bennett Blumstein is a regional firm with offices in Anchorage and Portland, and provides legal services to clients throughout the Pacific Northwest, including private and public corporations, Alaska Native corporations, tribes, tribal associations and housing authorities, municipalities, real estate developers, nonprofit organizations and individuals.