Everything about The National Lawyers Guild totally explained
The
National Lawyers Guild is a
progressive/left-wing Bar Association in the
United States "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system."
Its members include
lawyers, law students,
paralegals,
legal secretaries, "
jailhouse lawyers", and other legal workers. It was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the
American Bar Association and has several local chapters across the country as well as a number of Committees and Projects. The NLG web site lists the following aims:
- to eliminate racism;
- to safeguard and strengthen the rights of workers, women, farmers and minority groups, upon whom the welfare of the entire nation depends;
- to maintain and protect our civil rights and liberties in the face of persistent attacks upon them;
- to use the law as an instrument for the protection of the people, rather than for their repression.
The NLG has historically been noted for its support of liberal and left-wing causes.
Currently, the NLG opposes the
PATRIOT Act, corporate globalization, the
World Trade Organization, and has called for the adoption of "the Plan of Action from the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance." The NLG also helps to train and provide
legal observers for political demonstrations. The NLG has supported
Palestinian rights and a number of other causes. In November, 2007, the NLG passed a resolution calling for the
impeachment of President
George W. Bush and Vice President
Dick Cheney.
Marjorie Cohn, a law professor at
Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is President of the NLG as of October 2006.
Dobby Walker was the first woman President of the NLG in 1970, and was a member of the 1972 "Dream Team" that successfully defended
Angela Davis using innovative litigation techniques that are now commonplace.
History
At its founding in 1937, the National Lawyers Guild was the nation's first racially integrated bar association. Among the NLG's first causes was its support of
President Roosevelt’s New Deal, which was opposed by the
American Bar Association. NLG assisted the emerging labor movement, and opposed the racial segregation policies in the American Bar Association and in society in general.
Following the
Nazis' invasion of the Soviet Union, the Guild gave its complete support to President Roosevelt's wartime policies, including that of
Japanese American internment.
During the
McCarthy era, it was alleged to be a
Communist front organization.
Federal Bureau of Investigation director
J. Edgar Hoover repeatedly tried to get successive
Attorneys General to declare the NLG a "subversive organization," but without success. On
June 9,
1954, on the 30th day of the
Army-McCarthy Hearings, McCarthy launched an attack against
Fred Fisher (a junior attorney working at the same law firm as the Army's attorney,
Joseph Welch) for having associated with the NLG while in law school. The attack provoked an impassioned response on the part of Welch, who angrily rebuked McCarthy with his famous plea, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" Welch's speech was widely viewed as having undermined McCarthy's credibility and, coupled with an earlier
March,
1954 exposé by
Edward R. Murrow, led to a major shift in public opinion against McCarthy.
The NLG was also involved in the
American Civil Rights Movement from an early date, organizing a 1947 conference on the subject of
lynching. This continued into the 1960s with the creation of the Guild's Committee for Legal Assistance. This era also saw NLG involvement in
anti-war (including
draft resistance) and anti-poverty efforts.
Membership
Full membership in the NLG is open to lawyers, law students, and legal workers (including legal secretaries, legal investigators, paralegals, and jailhouse lawyers). Prior to the 1960s, membership was only open to lawyers. Members of the Guild now include labor organizers, tribal sovereignty activists, civil liberties advocates, civil rights advocates, environmentalists, and many other progressive cause advocates involved in some aspect of legal work.
According to journalist Chip Berlet, a paralegal member of the NLG:
In the 1950s the National Lawyers Guild refused to purge its members who were members of the Communist Party. Today there are Guild members who are cadres in a variety of communist groups along with a majority of unaffiliated members. As a paralegal investigator, I joined the Guild in the 1970s. I found an example of an organization that tried hard to incorporate the participation of cadres within a democratic structure. [...] The cacophony at some meetings makes Star Wars seem like a minimalist film. I've chaired committee meetings with debates featuring cadres from Leninist, Trotskyist, Stalinist, and Maoist groups, along with Marxists, anarchists, libertarians, and progressive independents—interacting with a preponderance of reluctant Democrats—all intertwined with multiple alternate identities as lawyers, legal workers, labor organizers, tribal sovereignty activists, civil liberties and civil rights advocates, environmentalists, feminists, gay men and lesbians, and people of color.
Funding
The NLG is a dues-paying membership organization, and various projects have also received funding from the
Open Society Institute, the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the
Ford Foundation, the
New World Foundation and other funders.
Criticism
Since its founding, the NLG has been the focus of controversy and criticism, primarily from more conservative elements but also from moderates and liberals.
Sidney Hook described the individuals who founded the NLG as “not being capable of taking any stand that conflicts with the
CPUSA (the Communist Party of the USA)”. Hook illustrated this point with the NLG’s repeated refusal to defend the
Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party members prosecuted under the
Smith Act in 1941 but being one of the first legal defense teams involved in the defense of CPUSA membership prosecuted under the Smith Act in 1947. Central to these critics' arguments is the claim that the organization is a supporter of communism, or, more recently, terrorism.
These claims have been repeatedly denied by the organization's leadership as “
red-baiting”.
In 2003, a controversy arose around the case of NLG member attorney
Lynne Stewart, who was charged with transmitting "terrorist communications" from prison for
Omar Abdel-Rahman, her former client and mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Stewart was ultimately convicted of the charges and sentenced to 28 months in federal prison.
The NLG supported Stewart, condemning the charges and the conviction.
NLG Attorney Elaine Cassel stated that "Stewart never provided any financial support, weaponry -- or any other concrete aid -- for any act of terrorism. No act of terrorism is alleged to have resulted from her actions."
Further Information
Get more info on 'National Lawyers Guild'.
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