Mia A. Montoya Hammersley, Esq.

Attorney

Mia Montoya Hammersley is an associate attorney at Montgomery & Interpreter, PLC. Her primary practice areas are water law, environmental and natural resources law, administrative law, and Tribal and Federal Indian Law.

Ms. Hammersley’s practice's practice is guided by her strong belief in Tribal sovereignty, self-determination, and decolonization. She is of Tiwa and Yoeme descent.

Before joining Montgomery & Interpreter, PLC, Ms. Hammersley completed a Legal Fellowship in Washington D.C. with Earthjustice, a non-profit environmental law firm, where she worked on behalf of Tribal and community-based clients on a variety of environmental issues. In law school, she completed certificates in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy and Environmental Law, Science, and Policy. She also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Arizona Journal of Environmental Law & Policy, the President of the Environmental Law Society, Secretary of the Native American Law Students Association, and as the Sol Resnick Water Resources Fellow.

Professional Experience

Provide legal support to coalition of Tribes opposing mining development in their ancestral territories.
Support and contribute to active litigation by drafting research memoranda, complaints, and petitions.
Assist clients with administrative procedures, including by drafting administrative comments and Rulemaking Petitions.
Communicate Tribal concerns and interests to state and federal government stakeholders to strengthen Tribal positions in policy-making decisions.
Draft resolutions,codes and procedures for Tribal governments.

Representative Publications and Presentations

Mia Hammersley, The Water-Energy Nexus and Tribal Lands: The Missing Link Between Water Rights and Energy Production in the Southwestern United States, in 3 INDIGENOUS JUSTICE (Univ. of Ariz. Press 2020).
Mia Hammersley, Christopher Scott & Randy Gimblett, A Movement for Removal: Evolving Conceptions of the Role of Large Dams as a Method of Social-Ecological Resiliency, 23 ECOLOGY & SOC’Y 1 (2018).
Randy Gimblett, Chistopher Scott & Mia Hammersley, Dam Removal on the Lower White Salmon River, Washington: Rewilding, Sacred Spaces, and ‘Outstanding and Remarkable Values,’ 23 INT’L J. OF WILDERNESS 2 (2017).
Mia Hammersley, The Right to a Healthy and Stable Climate: Fundamental or Unfounded?, 7 ARIZ. J. ENVTL. L. & POL'Y 117 (2017).
Gregg Garfin et al., Managing for Future Risks of Fire, Extreme Precipitation, and Post-Fire Flooding, Report to the United States Bureau of Reclamation, from the project Enhancing Water Supply Reliability (2016).
Mia Hammersley, Fostering Conducive Conditions for Climate Assessments: Collaborative Scenario Planning and the Colorado River Basin Study (2014) (Master's Thesis).