Eventually he joined the Washington office of the law firm of Riegelman, Strasser, Schwarz & Spiegelberg (now known as Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson) as an associate, where he worked with Felix S. Cohen, then the preëminent lawyer for Indian tribes.
[2] In his first appearance before the Supreme Court, he represented the Tuscarora Nation in its unsuccessful attempt to stop eminent domain seizure of reservation land for a reservoir.
[5] The United States Court of Claims on June 13, 1979, in a 5-2 majority, decided that the 1877 Act that seized the Black Hills from the Sioux was a violation of the Fifth Amendment.
[7] Furthermore, the two lawyers continued to work with the government to provide the tribe with just compensation for violating the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.
[10] On June 30, 1980, the United States Supreme Court ruled in an 8-1 majority to uphold the United States Court of Claims’ initial ruling, awarding the Sioux nation $106 million, which resulted in the largest sum ever given to an Indian tribe for illegally seized territory.
[10] In 1991 Lazarus retired from Fried, Frank, which was closing its Indian law practice while expanding further into lucrative work in Mergers and Acquisitions.