Gabriel S. Galanda

About Gabriel

Gabe is an Indigenous rights attorney and the managing lawyer at Galanda Broadman. His practice focuses on complex, multi-party litigation and crisis management, representing Indigenous nations, businesses and citizens. He has been named to Best Lawyers in America in the fields of Native American Law and Gaming Law from 2007 to 2026, and dubbed a Super Lawyer by his peers from 2013 to 2025. Gabe is skilled at defending Indigenous nations and business against legal attack by governmental or private parties, as well advocating for the human rights of Indigenous American citizens. He advocates against tribal disenrollment and citizenship rights violations, as well as other domestic Indigenous human rights abuse, including law enforcement violence. He also assists Indigenous clients with transactions and strategy related to various economic diversification initiatives. The American Bar Association awarded Gabe the Spirit of Excellence Award in 2022 and named him a Difference Maker in 2012. The Washington State Bar Association honored him with the Excellence in Diversity Award for his "significant contribution to diversity in the legal profession" in 2014. For his staunch disenrollment advocacy, the University Arizona College of Law awarded him the Professional Achievement Award, and Western Washington University named him a Distinguished Alumnus, in 2018. The University Arizona College of Law also named Gabe its 2022-23 Alumnus of the Year. Indian Country Today honored Gabe as one of “five people are rocking the world with their forward thinking, innovation and commitment to social justice” in 2013, and as one of "Fifty Faces of Indian Country" in 2017. In 2009, the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development honored him as Native American 40 Under 40. He has also received the Native Justice Award from the Northwest Indian Bar Association. Gabe writes frequently about Tribal Treaty and sovereignty rights and Indigenous human rights issues, having been published over 100 times in such other national periodicals as National Law Journal, Business Law Today, and Gaming Law Review & Economics. Most notably, he co-authored a law review article titled, “Curing the Tribal Disenrollment Epidemic: In Search of a Remedy,” which published by Arizona Law Review in 2015. He also often lectures about Indigenous human rights issues at universities and law schools, having talked at Harvard University and Yale, Cornell, Berkeley, Arizona, and Kansas law schools. Since 2023, Gabe has published a series of scholarly essays about existential challenges facing Indigenous peoples: In the Spirit of Vine Deloria, Jr.: Indigenous Kinship Renewal and Relational Sovereignty; The Federal Indian Blood Quantum Fiction; Durability and Duress: Inter-Tribal Kinship and Indian Gaming Capitalism; Into The Void: Indigenous American Civil Rights; The Original Peoples Deserve Freedom. His anti-disenrollment advocacy and scholarship have been included in several books, including David and Shelly Wilkinses’ “Dismembered” (2017); David Treuer’s “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee” (2019); Carrie Schuettpelz’s “The Indian Card” (2024); and Dina Gilio-Whitaker's "Who Gets to Be Indian?” and Joseph Lee’s “Nothing More of this Land” (2025). Gabe is a frequent media commentator as well, having been interviewed and quoted by mainstream and international news outlets such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Guardian, and Le Monde. In his "spare" time, Gabe founded and now operates Huy, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing religious, cultural and other rehabilitative opportunities for Indigenous prisoners. Serving as Chairman of the Huy Board of Advisors, he has lead the organization’s amicus curiae efforts before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal and state appellate courts across the country as well as the group’s human rights advocacy efforts before the United Nations. Gabe belongs to the Round Valley Indian Tribes of California, descending from the Nomlaki and Concow Peoples.

Licensed States

Education

Colleagues at Galanda Broadman

Rachel R. Tobias

Ryan D. Dreveskracht

Anthony S. Broadman

Amber Penn-Roco

Managing Partner

R. Joseph Sexton

Jessica R. Ditmore

Associate Attorney