The National Lawyers Guild

The National Lawyers Guild is a progressive national bar association composed of lawyers, law students, non-lawyer legal workers, and inmate legal experts. Founded in 1937 as an alternative to the still-segregated American Bar Association, Guild members have spent nearly 70 years at the center of the struggle for civil rights and social justice.

In the 30's they opposed fascism and supported labor unions.
In the 40's they fought Jim Crow laws.
In the 50's they defended victims of the McCarthy era.
In the 60's they provided legal support for the Civil Rights movement.
In the 70's they represented draft resisters and antiwar activists. They defended members of the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement targeted by the FBI.
In the 80's they helped Central American refugees, and helped to expose the Iran-Contra scandal.
And much more.

The Guild's constitution lists as its goals:

(a) To aid in making the United States and the State Constitutions and law and the administrative and judicial agencies of government responsive to the will of the American people;
(b) To protect and foster our democratic institutions and civil rights and liberties of all people;
(c) To aid in the establishment of governmental and professional agencies to supply adequate legal services to all who are in need and cannot obtain it;
(d) To promote justice in the administration of the law;
(e) To aid in the adoption of laws for the economic and social welfare of the people;
(f) To keep the people informed upon legal matters affecting the public interest;
(g) To encourage, in the study of law, a consideration of the social and economic aspects of the law;
(h) To improve the ethical standards which must guide the lawyer in the performance of his or her professional and social duties; and
(i) To promote world unity through collaboration among the Bars of members of the United Nations.

Today, the Guild continues working to "be an organization which shall function as an effective political and social force in the service of the people, to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests," (Preamble, Constitution of the National Lawyers Guild).

the New York chapter  *  the Chicago chapter   *   the LA chapter

Goals for the Student Chapter

• To help connect interested students to the national organization.
• To serve as a forum connecting similarly interested students.
• To foster a positive environment in the law school.

A brief sampling of the 90+ student chapters in law schools across the country
Harvard * University of Wisconsin * Northwestern University * Berkeley * University of Colorado at Boulder * West Virginia University * Lewis & Clark * University of Iowa * University of Michigan * UC Davis * NYU * Ohio State * Northeastern * Loyola * Chicago-Kent * George Washington * Case Western Reserve * American University * Cornell * Pace


Resources
Linked from the NLG website.

The Disorientation Handbook

"Know Your Rights" pamphlet

Your right to protest (multiple resources)

Legal Observer Manual
    A companion piece to NLG Legal Observer Training.

The Jailhouse Lawyer Handbook
    A free resource for prisoners wishing to file Section 1983 suits in prison.