Chase's distinguished career fighting for the civil rights of Native Americans includes serving as lead local counsel in the Dakotas for the Lakota People’s Law Project, co-founding the Native news website LastRealIndians.com, and work in the Native Lives Matter movement. In 2016, he was the Democratic congressional nominee for North Dakota.

From the beginning of the movement, Chase was involved on the front lines of the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline, hosting tribal leadership, providing legal services, and joining the water protectors in their prayerful and peaceful protest. Born on Standing Rock Nation, today Chase lives at Pine Ridge as an enrolled member of the Oglala Nation.

Chase holds bachelor's degrees in political science and American Indian studies from the University of North Dakota, and a Juris Doctor of Law degree with an emphasis in Federal Indian Law from the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. He is the father of three Lakota children.

Daniel oversees all Romero Institute departments and helps decide strategic direction for the organization. He has over 15 years of experience as a deputy director, organizer, researcher, and writer. He holds a BA in Political Theory from Harvard College and an MA in Social Science from the University of Chicago.

Madonna Thunder Hawk, a member of the Oohenumpa band of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, has a long history of grassroots activism prior to her formative work for LPLP as a Tribal Liaison. She is co-founder of Women of All Red Nations (WARN), as well as the Black Hills Alliance—which prevented corporate uranium mining in the Black Hills and proved the high level of radiation in Pine Ridge reservation's water supply. She was a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and occupied Alcatraz and Wounded Knee in protest of the federal government's genocidal policies against Native Americans. She spent months camped in Standing Rock to oppose the Dakota Access pipeline and protect clean water and treaty rights. Her work with LPLP builds alliances and support for Indian child welfare among South Dakota's tribal leaders and communities. She is a grandmother to a generation of Native American activists.

An enrolled member of the tribe, Phyllis Young leads our #GreenTheRez campaign to bring renewable energy to the people of Standing Rock. Serving as a tribal council member from 2012 to 2015, Phyllis was hired by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to address the NoDAPL struggle in the fall of 2015 and acted as an official “tribal liaison” to the Oceti Sakowin Camp. Her presence was felt daily by the tens of thousands who traveled to the resistance camps protesting the Dakota Access pipeline. Phyllis is a long-time member of the American Indian Movement, and co-founded Women of All Red Nations with Madonna Thunder Hawk in 1978. She also served as a board member of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian for 15 years.

A Harvard-trained constitutional law attorney, Daniel has led or participated in some of the most important public interest cases of the last 40 years. His lawsuits include the Watergate and Iran-Contra Scandals, the Pentagon Papers, and the killing of Karen Silkwood. In 1973-74, he served as amicus counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union regarding the occupation of Wounded Knee. In 1980, he co-founded the Christic Institute, a nonprofit public interest law center that—among many other cases—prosecuted members of the Ku Klux Klan in Greensboro, North Carolina, and represented victims of the Three Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania. In his work with LPLP, Daniel has been a principal attorney in drafting the legal strategy for the federal Justice Department’s lawsuit against the State of South Dakota for its violations of the Indian Child Welfare Act. He was present at Standing Rock during opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline. Daniel also served as defense counsel for LPLP lead counsel and water protector Chase Iron Eyes, who was targeted by law enforcement and faced severe charges following the Dakota Access pipeline protests. You can learn more about Daniel Sheehan at his website and his Facebook page.

The Executive Director of the Romero Institute since 1992, Sara has over 40 years of nonprofit leadership, grassroots organizing, national education, and fundraising experience. She was the director of the Karen Silkwood Fund, executive director and co-founder of the Christic Institute, and executive director of the State of the World Forum in San Francisco. She was the national labor chair for the National Organization for Women and a member of the California Commission on the Status of Women. For over a decade, Sara has been working with our Lakota staff and the nine tribes of South Dakota on matters relating to the Lakota Child Rescue Project, as well as with executive agencies in Washington DC. She holds a BA in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.