Ms. Aanstad is a skilled attorney with more than 20 years of litigation experience in state and federal courts. Ms. Aanstad is committed to delivering justice and advocating for those who need it most. Accordingly, Ms. Aanstad leverages her extensive trial experience to represent clients in significant matters that impact tribal sovereignty, governance, and economic development.

Before joining Cedar Tree, Ms. Aanstad was in public service as a federal and state prosecutor. For more than 15 years, Ms. Aanstad worked with the Department of Justice after the passage of the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010. Most recently, Ms. Aanstad was an Indian Country Attorney Advisor and Program Coordinator for the U.S. Department of Justice’s MMIP Regional Outreach Program in Legal Programs at the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. In that role, Ms. Aanstad provided programmatic support and served as the primary point of contact for United States Attorney’s Offices, Department of Justice component, and partner federal, state, and tribal agencies on MMIP issues. Ms. Aanstad worked to communicate, coordinate, and collaborate across federal, state, and tribal agencies to enhance public safety in tribal communities. As part of her work, Ms. Aanstad assisted in drafting proposed legislation that would enhance public safety in tribal communities and drafted testimony for Congressional hearings pertaining to public safety and MMIP issues.

Prior to working on tribal public safety issues on a national level, Ms. Aanstad was an Assistant United States Attorney and Tribal Liaison in the District of Minnesota. Ms. Aanstad led hundreds of investigations and prosecutions in a wide array of complex cases in Indian country, including violent crimes (homicides, child physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, and assaults), narcotics conspiracies, firearms offenses, and financial fraud crimes. Notably, as a Tribal Liaison, Ms. Aanstad assisted in the coordination and implementation of investigative and prosecution practices after assumption of concurrent jurisdiction was granted to the White Earth Nation and Mille Lacs Band under the Tribal Law and Order Act. Further, Ms. Aanstad worked collaboratively with the Red Lake Nation on United States v. Joseph Joshua Jackson after the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the matter to determine whether a 1905 Act of Congress diminished the Red Lake Indian Reservation.

Before joining the U.S. Department of Justice, Ms. Aanstad was a state prosecutor in Minnesota for seven years, primarily prosecuting violent crimes and financial crimes.