National Lawyers Guild

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) was founded in 1937 as an association of progressive lawyers and jurists who believed that lawyers had a major role to play in reconstructing legal values by emphasizing human rights over property rights. From its inception, the Guild welcomed into its ranks all members of the profession without regard to race, gender or ethnic identity; it was the first national legal professional association to do so. Since its founding, the Guild has been instrumental in leading struggles for civil rights and civil liberties in numerous historic legal controversies. Areas of activity include: labor law, including preparation of materials for hearings of the National Labor Relations Board; support for the civil rights of communists, labor unionists and foreign born Americans, particularly in the post-World War II decade, and for the civil rights of African-Americans and of peace activists. The Guild defended many of the men and women who were subpoenaed by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and House Un-American Activities Committee. The Guild also defended many veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who had fought against fascism in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and were subjected to political persecution in later decades. The Guild itself was charged, in the 1950s, with being a "communist front" organization, and spent many years in litigation vs. the U.S. Attorney General before obtaining relief. Lawyers playing prominent roles in the NLG or in relation thereto, and represented in the collection include Leonard Boudin, Herbert Brownell (U.S. Attorney General), Royal W. France, Ernest Goodman, Abe Isserman, Leo J. Linder, Victor Rabinowitz, Harry Sacher, and Leo Sheiner. The NLG also worked in cooperation with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.

Organizational Information

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the conservative and racially segregated American Bar Association. NLG is an organization that utilizes the legal and political skills of its members to serve the basic principle set out in its constitution: to 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" and to support the movement for progressive social change. Currently, active membership is composed of lawyers, law students, legal workers, and jailhouse lawyers. As of 1999, approximately 5,000 NLG members support 56 chapters nationwide. The NLG website is at http://www.nlg.org

The Guild is a member of the American Association of Jurists and of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. These organizations provide legal assistance in the struggle for self-determination, economic independence, and action against discrimination internationally.

Lawyer Ann Fagan Ginger served as NLG Administrative Secretary between 1955-1959. Ginger founded the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute in Berkeley, California, in 1965. Soon after, NLG passed a resolution designating the Institute's Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Library as the official repository for its records. With a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission in Washington, D.C., Ginger and her staff compiled an inventory of NLG's significant historical documents and in 1980 published two annotated guides to the records and publications of the National Lawyers Guild: Inventory #1 is titled, The Legal Struggle to Abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities: The Papers of Jeremiah Gutman . Inventory #2, The National Lawyers Guild: An Inventory of Records 1936-1976, An Index to Periodicals 1937-1979 .

The National Lawyers Guild produced many publications on the national, regional and chapter levels beginning with a periodical in 1937, National Lawyers Guild Quarterly, now called the Lawyers Guild Practitioner . Other publications include, amicus briefs for key cases, legal guides, reports, and books, such as Civil Liberties Docket v. 1-13, Citizens' Guide to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and Minimizing Racism in Jury Trials . Among the richest sources of information on the activities of the NLG are the newsletters of the National Office and the New York City Chapter which were distributed nationally under various mastheads including, National Lawyers Guild News-letter, The Guild Lawyer, and Guild Notes .

The National Lawyers Guild was influential in shaping the social legislation the characterized the New Deal era. The Guild defended workers and their trade unions and Guild attorneys fought the battles of pickets, strikers, and union organizers in the courtroom in the 1940s.

During the 1950s, NLG fought political repression. Guild members represented the Hollywood 10 and virtually every other person subpoenaed to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, among other now infamous McCarthy-era investigative bodies. Guild lawyers argued landmark cases such as Dennis v. U.S. and Bailey v. Richardson before Supreme Court. The Guild filled dozens of amicus briefs in opposition to the Smith Act, the Loyalty Program, HUAC, and to the deportation of aliens or denial of citizenship based on political beliefs.

The National Lawyers Guild opposes all forms of racial discrimination, from anti-Klan and anti-lynching legal work, to supporting affirmative action and diversity both in the work force and throughout society. In 1964, a campaign was organized to focus national attention on the struggles in Mississippi. Guild lawyers' represented hundreds of "freedom riders" and civil rights activists. NLG was deeply involved in the Black and Puerto Rican liberation movements, and the founding of several public interest law firms, including the Center for Constitutional Rights, in New York, and the Instituto Puertorriqueño De Derechos Civiles, in San Juan.

Throughout the Vietnam War, the Guild offered legal assistance to people opposed to the war for political, religious, or moral reasons. They published The New Draft Law: A Manual for Counselors and Lawyers . During the 1970's the Guild was also actively involved in the struggles for affirmative action and women's and gay rights, and organized defense teams for Wounded Knee and Attica.

In the 1980s the Guild was a leader in organizing demands for affirmative action in law schools and defending gains when courts became vehicles of organized backlash. A new generation of legal activists organized support for the anti-nuclear movement and for groups opposing U.S. intervention in Central America. It also forged innovative strategies for advancing domestic and international human rights.

The decade of the 1990s has seen NLG at the helm of the fight for workers rights both in the United States and abroad. The Guild has responded to the challenges of the right and the growing anti-poor and anti-immigrant sentiment in this country by providing legal advice and support to the progressive movement on these issues.

Portions of organizational information and organizational chronology excerpted from: National Lawyers Guild website: http://www.nlg.org "A National Lawyers Guild Chronology: 1937-1987", National Lawyers Guild 50 th Anniversary Commemorative Journal.

Organizational Chronology

Organizational History

The National Lawyers Guild (Guild) was an association of over 10,000 progressive attorneys, law students, legal workers and jailhouse lawyers with over 200 chapters across the country, In 1985 Guild activist Paul Albert formed the National Lawyers Guild AIDS Network (NGLAN) in response to the inadequate legal services many Persons With AIDS were experiencing at that time. NGLAN was set up to provide legal assistance to people with HIV and to AIDS service organizations around the country through a network of attorneys and legal workers. It also advocated for progressive public policy, and educated individuals and groups about HIV and the law. It was organized as a separate body, with its own Board, policies and fiscal program, but was clearly a subsidiary of the Guild. Albert was appointed director, a position he held until he left five years later. Eileen Hansen, another legal activist and community organizer, was hired to direct the Network in 1990.

NGLAN's primary work involved referral of HIV positive individuals to the AIDS organization nearest them, and referral of AIDS organizations to cooperating local lawyers. Their major educational contributions included the preparation and publication of the AIDS Practice Manual, a comprehensive resource on HIV law for attorneys, and the Exchange, a newsletter published three times a year for lawyers, people with HIV, and other interested parties. NLGAN closed in 1993.

The Great Depression, with its social and political upheavals, also had its effects upon the nation's professional communities. Millions of workers -- native and foreign-born, black and white, male and female -- were being recruited to the ranks of organized labor. On the international scene, the rise of fascism in Europe was viewed with growing alarm on the left, and, by 1936, the first armed conflict again fascist forces was underway in Spain. The advent of the New Deal was also releasing forces for social progress and reform in every sector of the population. Little of this was reflected in the composition or activities of the American Bar Association and other professional legal organizations. Growing numbers of members of the profession were dissatisfied with the failure of their organizations to react to these dramatic social/political changes. This discontent found organizational expression in the formation of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) in Feb 1937. Its avowed purposes would be to protect democratic institutions, individual rights, and advance "the legal well-being of the legal profession." (Weinberg and Fassler, Historical Sketch, p.1) Among the Guild's founding members were Morris Ernst, Jerome Frank, Senator Albert Wald, Frank Walsh, and the general counsels of both the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. From its inception, the Guild welcomed into its ranks all members of the profession without regard to race, gender or ethnic identity; it was the first national legal professional association to do so.

The Guild's membership worked actively on a wide variety of issues. At the outset, it was instrumental in drafting, administering and litigating much progressive New Deal legislation. At the same time, it challenged all forms of discrimination and opposed limitations on the right of free speech. It also fought vigorously for the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Many NLG members cooperated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and NLG work helped to shape the legal precedents that were later incorporated into labor law by the National Labor Relations Board.

The NLG's commitment to the right of freedom of expression became particularly meaningful with the establishment of a number of Congressional investigating committees, starting with the Dies Committee in the 1930s and continuing in the post-World War II period with the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the McCarthy and McCarran Committees in the Senate. The Guild was steadfast in its opposition to the attempts of these committees to investigate the opinions and associations of private individuals. It also condemned the infringement of First Amendment rights by the federal loyalty program instituted by the Truman Administration. Similarly, it opposed the Smith Act prosecutions of the leaders of the Communist Party (later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court) and the requirement for registration of alleged "subversive" organizations under the Internal Security Act, also later declared unconstitutional. The Guild was vocal in its condemnation of abuses of individual rights by the F.B.I., for example, wiretapping, mail tampering, illegal searches and prying into citizens' beliefs and associations. It was also outspoken in seeking equal protection for the foreign born. During the McCarthy period Guild members defended many of the men and women who were subpoenaed by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and House Un-American Activities Committee.

Another important aspect of the Guild's work was its service in the communities. It established neighborhood law offices to serve people living in urban slums and provided advice to tenant councils, consumer groups and other community organizations. After its founding as a national organization in 1937, the Guild began establishing chapters in such cities as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and San Francisco.

In 1944, the Guild's National Executive Board submitted a statement on the subject of punishment of war criminals and, as a result, was invited by the United States prosecutor, Justice Robert Jackson, to be official observers at the Nuremberg trials. Soon after, the U.S. State Department asked the Guild to act as an advocate/consultant to the U.S. delegation at the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco.

After World War II, the Guild was outspoken in its opposition to the nuclear arms race and urged a ban on all such weapons. It fought vigorously against the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 which rolled back many of the protections the labor movement had secured a decade earlier under the Wagner Act.

From the beginning the Guild played an important role in the civil rights movement. In 1947, it convened a conference in order to respond to the lynching crisis in the South. As part of its commitment to civil liberties, it also furnished representation to the "Hollywood Ten" - writers and directors called to testify before and later jailed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for refusing to act as informers. The Guild also defended many veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who had fought against fascism in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and were subjected to political persecution in later decades.

In the 1950s, HUAC labeled the Guild as a "Communist-front" organization and issued a publication entitled "The National Lawyers Guild: Legal Bulwark of the Communist Party." Attorney General Herbert Brownell asserted that the Guild was controlled by the Communist Party and attempted to label it a subversive organization dominated by a foreign power. He brought proceedings in 1953 which dragged on until 1958, at which time the Justice Department dropped its efforts because its evidence was deemed insufficient.

After a period of relative inactivity, the Guild responded quickly and energetically in support of the civil rights movement of the 1960s by establishing its Committee for Legal Assistance in 1962 to provide legal resources for those fighting racism and injustice in the South. It co-sponsored the first integrated bar conference in the South and opened the first office that provided legal representation to the civil rights movement. It also created the Committee to Aid Southern Lawyers and sent attorneys to the Southern states to represent civil rights activists.

During the late 1960s, the Guild worked closely with the peace movement defending many draft resisters and others who opposed the war in Vietnam. Student chapters of the NLG were formed in many cities. In the course of the decade the Guild was wracked by internal strains common to many old left organizations facing new challenges and a new generation of youthful activists. A rival progressive lawyers group, the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee, had emerged from the civil rights and anti-poverty movements and soon had chapters in most law schools. Eventually a cooperative relationship between the two organizations was worked out, and the Guild entered a period of renewed vitality under the presidency of prominent civil liberties attorney Victor Rabinowitz.

In the 1970s the NLG was actively involved in the struggles for affirmative action and women's and gay rights; organized defense teams for Native-American defendants from Wounded Knee and prisoners charged in connection with the Attica Prison uprising; supported self-determination for Palestine and opposed apartheid in South Africa.

A new generation of legal activists during the 1980s organized support for the anti-nuclear movement and for groups opposing U. S. intervention in Central America and the NLG National Immigration Project began working on issues spurred by the need to represent Central American refugees and asylum activists fleeing Nicaragua and El Salvador. In 1989 the organization finally prevailed in its lawsuit against the FBI for carrying out illegal political surveillance.

Guild members mobilized in the 1990s in opposition to the Gulf War, defended the rights of Haitian refugees, opposed the blockade of Cuba and began to define a new civil rights agenda that included the right to employment, education, housing and health care.

Guild members continue into the twenty-first century using their experience and professional skills to support environmental and labor rights activists, fight for social justice, protect civil liberties and encourage respect for the Constitution and international law.

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