National Lawyers Guild
Student Chapter
Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis

Constitution and Bylaws

This work was designed to minimize the impact of centralizing power, and thus hierarchal authority.

Article I.Chapter Purpose

The IU Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild is an association dedicated to the support and defense of economic and social justice, and to improvement rather than the acceptance of the status quo.

We seek to educate ourselves and the community about issues affecting economic and social justice and to increase awareness of the CLS community on issues surrounding economic and social justice.

We seek to unite the lawyers, law students, legal workers and jailhouse lawyers of America in an organization which shall function as an effective political and social force in the service of the people, to the end that economic and social justice are basic human rights and must be protected and expanded.

Article II. Voting

1. Substantive decisions on Chapter policy will be made through the voting of the membership. All members will be given the same reasonable opportunity to vote.

2. Once an issue is proposed to the group to either be approved or disapproved, an approval through consensus will be sought. If a consensus cannot be reached, the issue may be approved by three-fourths of the members.

3. The explicit abstention of a member from voting, or the failure of a member to vote, will have no influence on the decision being made. Absenting from voting or a failure to vote makes a person constructively absent from the voting pool.

4. Voting will normally be conducted through raising hands. However, it may be performed anonymously at the request of the majority of the members present.

Article III. Administrative Board

1. The members may create an administrative board for the purpose of performing the administrative functions of the chapter.

2. To become a member of the administrative board, a person must first volunteer for that position. Then that person must then be confirmed by the same voting process outlined in Article II, section 2.

3. Any member of the administrative board may be removed from that position though a vote of "no confidence," requiring the approval of a majority vote.

Article IV. Transparency

Transparency sits at the core of democratic governance. The members of the Chapter have a right to examine materials of substance used by the Administrative Board in their duties.

Article V. Amendment

This Constitution is completely open to amendment, following the voting procedure outlined in Article II, section 2.