Fredericks Peebles & Morgan LLP Attorneys


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CALIFORNIA Sacramento Office: 2020 L Street, Suite 250 Sacramento, CA 95811 Phone: 916-441-2700 Fax: 916-441-2067 COLORADO Louisville Office: 1900 Plaza Drive Louisville, CO 80027 Phone: 303-673-9600 Fax: 303-673-9155 MICHIGAN Peshawbestown Office: 2848 Setterbo Road Peshawbestown, MI 49682 Phone: 231-631-8558 NEBRASKA Omaha Office: 3610 North 163rd Plaza Omaha, NE 68116 Phone: 402-333-4053 Fax: 402-333-4761 NORTH DAKOTA Mandan Office: 3730 29th Avenue Mandan, ND 58554 Phone: 303-673-9600 Fax: 701-663-5103 SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls Office: 3817 Slaten Park Drive Sioux Falls, SD 57103 Phone: 605-338-9147 Fax: 605-339-1769 Rapid City Office: 2040 W. Main, Suite 110 Rapid City, SD 57702 Phone: 605-791-1515 Fax: 605-791-1915

FRANCES C. BASSETT – Partner
Louisville, CO 80027
phone: 303.815.1720
fax: 303.673.9155
email: email me

Ms. Bassett joined the firm as a partner in 2008.

TRIBAL AFFILIATION: Ms. Bassett is a member of the Cherokee Nation.

PRACTICE AREAS: Natural resources, oil and gas, water and environmental law, commercial transactions, civil litigation and appellate advocacy.

ADMISSIONS: New Mexico and Colorado; U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Tenth Circuit and the District of Columbia; U.S. District Courts in New Mexico and Colorado.

EDUCATION: University of New Mexico (J.D., 1980); Board of Editors, Natural Resources Journal (1978-1980); University of New Mexico (B.A. 1974).

LEGAL EXPERIENCE: Assistant Attorney General, New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, Division of Water, Environment and Utilities (2003-08), and Division of Special Prosecutions (1987-88); Special Assistant Attorney General, New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission (2002-2003); private practice in New Mexico (1995-2002); Staff Attorney, Colorado Court of Appeals (1988-1995); Staff Attorney, New Mexico Court of Appeals (1985-1987); Atlantic Richfield Company (1980-1985); law clerk at the United States Department of Interior, Field Solicitor’s Office, Window Rock, Arizona (1979).

LEGAL AUTHORSHIP: Constitutional Limitations on State Severance Taxes, 20 Natural Resources Journal 887 (1980); The State and Federal Quandary Over Billboard Controls, 19 Natural Resources Journal 711 (1979).

REPRESENTATIVE CASES: Ms. Bassett has been involved in general civil and commercial cases, as well as complex environmental and endangered species litigation. QEP Field Services Co. v. Ute Indian Tribe, ___ F. Supp.2d ___, 2010 WL 3069832 (D. Utah 2010); U.S. v. Questar Gas Management Co., 2010 WL 267332; Jones v. Norton, 2010 WL 2990829; Ute Indian Tribe v. Ute Development Corporation, 2010 WL 956905; Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Bureau of Reclamation, 601 F.3d 1096 (10th Cir. 2010); New Mexico ex rel. Richardson v. Bureau of Land Management, 459 F. Supp.2d 1102 (D.N.M. 2006); U.S. v. Sackett, 114 F.3d 1050 (10th Cir. 1997); Chappell v. Cosgrove, 916 P.2d 836 (N.M. 1996); Cafeteria Operators, L.P. v. Coronado-Santa Fe Associates, L.P., 952 P.2d 435 (N.M. App. 1997); Las Campanas Ltd. Partnership v. Pribble, 943 P.2d 554 (N.M. App. 1997).

ASSOCIATIONS: New Mexico and Colorado State Bars, New Mexico and Colorado Indian Bar Associations; and Cherokee South West Township, a satellite community of the Cherokee Nation; Board of Directors, Denver Indian Family Resource Center.

Ms. Bassett is experienced in transactional work, litigation and appellate advocacy. She was appointed by the New Mexico Supreme Court to the court’s Appellate Rules Committee from 2001-06, and was Chair of the Appellate Practice Section of the N.M. Bar Association in 2004.

Ms. Bassett has broad experience in water, natural resources and environmental law. At the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office Ms. Bassett drafted portions of the State’s brief-in-chief, reply brief and other pleadings, and argued before the Tenth Circuit in the State’s successful appeal in Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Bureau of Reclamation, 601 F.3d 1096 (10th Cir. 2010), a case under the Endangered Species Act. She also coordinated the work of state agencies and outside counsel in preparing a defense to interstate litigation threatened by the State of Texas over the waters of the Lower Rio Grande.

At the N. M. Attorney General’s Office, Ms. Bassett monitored negotiations and drafted recommendation memoranda for the State’s settlement of Indian water rights claims in three separate adjudications, the Navajo Nation settlement in New Mexico v. United States (N.M. State District Court, San Juan County, N.M.); the Taos Pueblo settlement in New Mexico v. Abeyta (U.S. District Court), and a settlement of claims for the Pueblos of Nambe, Pojoaque, Tesuque and San Ildefonso in New Mexico v. Aamodt (U.S. District Court).

At the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, Ms. Bassett worked with technical staff in developing and implementing the State of New Mexico’s water rights acquisition program in the Pecos River Basin. Under that program New Mexico purchased and fallowed 18,000 acres of farmland and appurtenant water rights and developed an augmentation well field to achieve compliance with the Pecos River Compact and the amended decree and injunction entered by the U.S. Supreme Court in Texas v. New Mexico, 485 U.S. 288 (1988).