Tara Ford has been honored to work with parents of students at Havasupai Elementary School and the Native American Disability Law Center to bring a recent and important public lawsuit in Arizona. Featured in the New York Times article “Barely Two R’s Are Taught at School That Led Tribe to Sue U.S.”—the case involves representation of students at Havasupai Elementary, the only school in this tribal village. Run by the federal government, the school includes kindergarten to eighth-grade students who are severely underperforming due to the lack of resources and basic necessities available to them. The lawsuit aims to remedy such conditions in federally funded reservation schools. Ford is one of the team of attorneys for the plaintiffs in this case.

Ford has been an advocate for children’s rights for more than 20 years. As the co-founder of Pegasus Legal Services for Children, a nonprofit law firm serving children and their families in New Mexico, she provides legal services to children and youth in dire circumstances. Ford has also been a visiting clinical supervising attorney at Stanford’s Youth and Education Law Project during the winter and spring quarters 2017.