Attorney Lane Thompson is the founder and sole partner at Circling Eagle Law. Lane’s practice areas are Tribal law, tribal economic development, tribal government and inter-governmental affairs, and tribal housing and finance. He also practices in transactional drafting, and policy reforms. Lane has worked extensively with Tribal government and state shareholders since the beginning of his college career. During undergrad, Lane was a key member of the MHA Road’s Taskforce where he coordinated and communicated with various state entities and private corporations on behalf of the Three Affiliated Tribes in obtaining the necessary funding to restore the road conditions that were created due to the oil boom. In addition, Lane worked closely with the Chairman and the Tribal Business Council in addressing and assisting in various tribal issues.
During law school, Lane worked as a Prosecutor at the Three Affiliated Tribes where he was responsible for arraignments, plea bargains, trials, motions, and sentencing recommendations. He also worked closely with other social agencies in finding and assessing the appropriate sentences for each defender to ensure their success and rehabilitation. In Lane’s final year of law school, he was hired as an intern for the Legal Department of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in Las Vegas, Nevada. This experience further honed Lane’s transactional drafting skills. In 2018, Lane was appointed as an Appellate Justice for the Turtle Mountain Appellate Court.
Currently, Lane serves as an independent in-house, on-demand, attorney for the Three Affiliated Tribes where he deals with special projects and the implementation of new policies and programs for the Tribe. Lane also assists as a special attorney with the child support programs of both the Red Lake and White Earth Nations.
Bar Membership
Tribal Enrollment
- Three Affiliated Tribes
- Mandan
- Hidatsa
- Arikara Nation
"I want to support the ideas and projects that my clients care about most, in order to allow them to focus on their work, their lives, and their businesses. Their ideas and projects matter as much to me as they do to them.
In the past few years, there have been massive social and economic changes that alter the way we do things. They affect every industry. Law firms are now confronting this idea of being forced to innovate.
Millennials are entering the workforce but are not interested in participating in the workforce in the same way their predecessors had, and they are not willing to make the same compromises. At the same time, the boomers will be leaving the management and ownership of law firms, causing a change to the firm's operational structure.
I started Circling Eagle Law because I realize the shock of the global economic crisis and the repercussions of it. As consumers, people are much more willing to consume services in a very different way. Consequently, they have a very different expectation of what they are going to get from their professionals.
I have an oil company that I opened before getting my law license and that has changed the way I approach my practice as well. I believe that, as a business owner myself, I have gained invaluable experience that I can share with other businesses or start-ups that an attorney without their own business simply cannot match.
I believe that the static, monolithic, traditional, and conventional law firm partnerships are not very well suited to being nimble and agile to better service those clients.
Thus, Circling Eagle Law was created to better serve the next generation of clients. Technology isn't the key to our practice, but it certainly has made it easier for us to tailor a result to each individual client."
