National Lawyers Guild

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The National Lawyers Guild is based in New York, NY and was organized with the assistance of the Communist International in 1936 as a legal action front operated by the Communist Party USA.[1][2][3]. It is the largest U.S. affiliate of the Soviet-controlled International Association of Democratic Lawyers.[4]

Soviet front affiliate

The National Lawyers Guild has long been and remains a member of the old Soviet front organization, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers[5].

While there are small numbers of Maoists, Trotskyites and independent Marxist "New Leftists" in the organization, the NLG's international positions and real domestic control lies with the supporters of the Soviet and Cuban Communist regimes. During the 1970s, the NLG's cooperation with the Cuban government has escalated markedly.[4]

Mission

The National Lawyers Guild is openly socialist:[6]

The National Lawyers Guild is an association dedicated to the need for basic change in the structure of our political and economic system. We seek to unite the lawyers, law students, legal workers and jailhouse lawyers of America in an organization that 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.
Our aim is to bring together all those who recognize the importance of safeguarding and extending the rights of workers, women, farmers, people with disabilities and people of color, upon whom the welfare of the entire nation depends; who seek actively to eliminate racism; who work to maintain and protect our civil rights and liberties in the face of persistent attacks upon them; and who look upon the law as an instrument for the protection of the people, rather than for their repression.

History

Founded in 1936, the National Lawyers Guild was the nation’s first racially integrated bar association.

The first Guild lawyers supported President Roosevelt’s New Deal, assisted the emerging industrial labor movement, and opposed the racial segregation policies of the American Bar Association and the larger society. During its 65 year history, the NLG has been an important part of the American people’s struggle for real democracy, for economic and social justice, and against oppression and discrimination based on race, ethnicity, immigration status, class, gender or sexual orientation. Consistent with its commitment to ensuring fairness and equality for all people, law students, non-lawyer legal workers and inmate legal experts are full members. The Guild elected its first African-American president in the early 1950s and its first female president in the 1960s. The first legal worker president was elected in 1996.

Communist affiliations

Originally the National Lawyers Guild was as a spin-off of the International Labor Defense, a Communist front started in 1925 as the U.S. branch of the International Red Aid, a worldwide Soviet-backed group founded in 1922.[7]

In 1940, the NLG President, Russell N. Chase, was also the attorney for the Communist Party USA in Ohio

The NLG became affiliated in 1946 with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, another Soviet front. Guild members have been prominent in communist and far-left causes and organizations in the U.S. and have represented such clients as the Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society, the Cuban Government, atom spy Morton Sobell, Soviet agent Judith Coplon etc.

At the Guild's convention in Austin. Texas, in 1973 concluded with the singing of communist anthem, "The Internationale."<re>.Communists inside the Democratic Party, page 32</ref>

As at March, 1982, the Guild was the principal legal bulwark of the CPUSA, its fronts and controlled unions.[4]

Activism

In the 1930s, NLG lawyers helped organize the United Auto Workers (UAW), the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and supported the New Deal in the face of determined ABA opposition. In the 1940s, Guild lawyers fought against fascists in the Spanish Civil War and WW II, and helped prosecute Nazis at Nuremburg. Guild lawyers fought racial discrimination in cases such as Hansberry v. Lee, the case that struck down segregationist Jim Crow laws in Chicago and entered our culture as Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” The Guild was one of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) selected by the U.S. Government to officially represent the American people at the founding of the U.N. in 1945.

As at 1982, major NLG activities include defense of revolutionaries and militant extremists charged with violent crimes, litigation against law enforcement intelligence units, and providing legal advice in advance of demonstrations with civil disobedience-in effect acting as co-conspirators in violating the law.[4]

Trial lawyers

In the late 1940s and 50s, Guild members founded the first national plaintiffs personal injury bar association that became the American Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA), and pioneered the storefront law offices for low-income clients that became the model for the community-based offices of the Legal Services Corporation. During the “McCarthy era,” Guild members represented the Hollywood Ten, the Rosenbergs, and thousands of victims of the anti-communist hysteria. Unlike all other national civil liberties groups and bar associations, the Guild refused to require “loyalty oaths” of its members and the NLG was labeled “subversive” by the government.

Southern activism

In the 1960s, the Guild set up offices in the South and organized thousands of volunteer lawyers and law students to provide legal support for the Civil Rights Movement long before the federal government was involved. Guild members represented the families of murdered civil rights activists Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman, who were assassinated by local law enforcement members of the Ku Klux Klan. Guild-initiated lawsuits brought the Kennedy Justice Department directly into the Civil Rights struggle in Mississippi and challenged the seating of the all-white Mississippi delegation at the 1964 Democratic Convention. Guild lawyers defended thousands of civil rights activists who were arrested for exercising basic rights and established new federal constitutional protections in ground-breaking Supreme Court cases such as: Dombrowski v. Pfister, which enjoined thousands of racially-motivated state court criminal prosecutions; Goldberg v. Kelly, the case that established the concept of “entitlements” to social benefits which require Due Process protections; and, Monell v. Dept. of Public Services, which held municipalities liable for brutal police employees.

Taking on the government

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Guild members represented Vietnam War draft resisters, antiwar activists and the Chicago 7, after the 1968 Chicago Convention. NLG offices in Asia represented GIs who opposed the war. Guild members argued U.S. v. U.S. District Court, the Supreme Court case that established that Nixon could not ignore the Bill of Rights in the name of “national security” and led to the Watergate hearings and Nixon’s resignation. Guild members defended FBI-targeted members of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, the Puerto Rican independence movement and helped expose illegal F.B.I and C.I.A. surveillance, infiltration and disruption tactics (called COINTELPRO), that the U.S. Senate “Church Commission” hearings detailed in 1975-76 and which led to enactment of the Freedom of Information Act and other specific limitations on federal investigative power. The NLG supported self-determination for Palestine, opposed apartheid in South Africa, at a time when the U.S. Government still called Nelson Mandela a “terrorist” and began the fight against the blockade of Cuba. During this period, NLG members founded other important civil rights and human rights institutions, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL), the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute in Berkeley, San Francisco’s New College School of Law and the Peoples Law School in Los Angeles.

An interesting book which contained selected writings from many NLG leaders and members is "Radical Lawyers: Their Role in the Movement and in the Courts", Jonathan Black, Editor, Avon Books, paperbook version, 1971. Those who contributed works to this book were:

This list constitutes one extremely important group of writings by individuals who led the following groups and activities:

NLG Members Listed in Congressional Hearings/Reports

All these attorneys were identified as Communist Party USA members and some as Soviet operatives and spies in sworn congressional testimonies which are listed for each individual in the referenced report.[8]

The National Lawyers Guild: Advocates For Terrorism, Congressional Record, Sept. 18, 1976

Rep. Larry McDonald (D-Ga), put a report into the Congressional Record of September 13, 1976, pages (Extension of Remarks ) 30211 - 30212 (HeinOnLine), entitled "The National Lawyers Guild: Advocates For Terrorism". It was a short summary of the present ideological orientation re communism and terrorism. The full text of this report is as follows.

Mr. McDonald. Mr. Speaker, the National Lawyers Guild -- (NLG) -- was formed in 1936 with the assistance of the Comintern and has been cited by both the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) and the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) as a Communist front. Since the 1960's, the NLG has recruited large numbers of Castroite Communists, New Left revolutionaries and Maoists who can control their political differences to unite on programs attacking our constitutional form of government and our institutions. Nevertheless, basic NLG policies are controlled by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) - CPUSA - working in close coordination with the Castroites.

The National Lawyers Guild serves as a resource center and coordinating body in support of domestic and international Soviet and Cuban-supported terrorist groups. NLG members act as supporters, defenders, contacts, and couriers for such terrorist groups as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) - PLO - the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) - WUO - the Black Liberation Army (BLA) - BLA - the FALN associated with the Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PRSP), and many others.

The NLG remains an active member of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) - IADL - an international Soviet-directed Communist front. The NLG recruits young lawyers and others to serve as contacts and informal, unregistered agents of Communist governments, such as Cuba. Some of the recruits have U.S. Government jobs.

A main area of National Lawyers Guild work has been to set legal precedents which justify terrorism and violence on the grounds that "the system" - by which the NLG means our government, laws, economic system, and institutions - are so "oppressive" that terrorism and revolutionary "armed struggle" are the only appropriate response. This was the thrust of the NLG defense teams during the trials of rioting Attica prisoners and during the prosecution of leaders and participants in the American Indian Movement's armed occupation of Wounded Knee.

The National Lawyers Guild operates a speakers bureau to help raise money for its activities and spread its views.

The NLG has described its activities in the following terms: "* * * Our members were intimately involved in the formation and defense working people's organizations in the 1930s: the fight against fascism at home and abroad in the'40s; the battle against McCarthyism and the related political trials of the '50s; the civil rights, anti-war and student movements of the 1960s; and the Attica and Wounded Knee defenses in the '70s. It has been Guild attorneys who have provided the defense in every political trial in this country from the Rosenberg case to the Panther 21, Chicago, Pentagon, and Berrigan cases.

The Guild has done pioneering work in the areas of electronic surveillance, First Amendment rights, prison litigation and has, over the last five years, developed a strategy of resistance to government abuses of the grand jury process."

The NLG Speakers Bureau also notes the organization's close connection with Communist governments, stating that: "Guild attorneys have represented the governments of Chile under the Communist/Socialist coalition government of Salvador Allende, Cuba, China, Vietnam, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries."

CONTINUE

NLG 1979 National Convention

A special 20 page report by Information Digest in 1979 focused on the National Lawyer Guild and its "37th National Convention" held in San Francisco, February 15-19, 1979.

This report, which will be put online in the future if there are no copyright issues, was written by at least some people who were at the convention and had access to registration and/or attendance lists, agendas, task force programs, etc. so it is more credible than a report written solely from the outside. Its sections were:

  • Introduction
  • Early History
  • NLG and Terrorism
  • Convention Attendance
  • Convention Logistics
  • Convention Activities
  • Workshops and their leaders
  • NLG National Officers
  • Resolutions
  • Appendices - including a roster of persons playing leading roles in the NLG convention and its organization, workshops and task forces; a list of NLG publications; the NLG national projects; and the present list of 77 NLG chapters (nearly illegible)
  • Persons Identified as Participating in the Activities of the NLG 37th National Convention (phonetic)

The introduction from the report has been reprinted below:

"The National Lawyers Guild NLG, a coalition of Old Left Communist Party USA CPUSA members and supporters, Castroites, Maoists and other New Left Activists, held its 37th national convention in San Francisco, February 15-19, 1979."
"The NLG convention reaffirmed the NLG's commitment to continue serving as the key U.S. support group for foreign and domestic Marxist-Leninist, revolutionary and terrorist movements. During the plenaries, caucuses, workshops, task force and committee meetings, support was expressed - and in some cases practical measures planned - to aid revolutionaries and terrorists from the Middle East, Iran, West Germany, Nicaragua and other countries as well as such violence-oriented U.S. groups as the American Indian Movement, the Black Panther Party, Puerto Rican Socialist Party, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (Puerto Rican marxists in the U.S.), United League of North Mississippi and the Weather Underground Organization."

Reception by PFOC and WUO Members and Supporters

On Feb. 16, 1979, a reception was held at Stuart Hanlon's Law Office by NLG members associated with the Weather Underground Organization WUO and its above ground arm the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee and a "splinter group" known as the May 19 Communist Organization to honor a leftist Steve Guerra of theMovimiento de Liberaciion, a former coordinator of the National Committee Against Grand Jury Abuse, a Guild project, and Myrna Salgado, National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Prisoners of War.

Sponsors of the event, as listed by ID, were:

Persons present from the PFOC and the John Brown Book Club which distributes the PFOC's theoretical journal, "Breakthrough":

Support for the release of Puerto Rican terrorists was expressed and, according to ID,

"The reception's principal purpose was to urge NLG activists to become involved in organizing a national movement to 'support the armed clandestine independence movement' by pressing for the release of":
  • William Morales
  • two Puerto Ricans who participated in the armed takeover of the Chilean consulate in San Juan, P.R. on July 3, 1978:
  • Wydia Ester Cuevas and
  • Pable Marcano Garcia, "and of course the four remaining National Party terrorists serving sentences for the attempted assassination of President Truman and shooting Congressmen in the 1950's".

Literature available included that supporting FALN bomber William Morales

37th National Convention Attendees

Groups that Attended the Convention

ID identified the following organizations as having attended this NLG convention:

Members Who Helped Provide Logistics

Logistics Planning Committee:

Foreign Visitors

Another associate of Gronewold and Rogge, Ranier Koncke was indicted in Germany along with Rogge in supplying information to Gronewold which he distributed to RAF clients and defense lawyers.

Podium Committee Members Who Helped Run the Convention

Welcoming Speeches

Workshop Leaders and Participants, Friday Night

Gay Rights: Referendums & Community Organizing

Immigration: Refugee Status & Political Asylum

Adding Injury to Insult - "to explore the provacative (sic) political and legal questions concerning potential actions (in the field of occupational safety and health) against employers, manufacturers, doctors, clinics, and federal and state agencies"

Weber: Legal and Mass Responses

Fascism and the First Amendment

Organizing Around Environmental Issues

Native American and the Struggle for Natural Resources

Abortion/Sterilization Abuse

Guild F.B.I. Lawsuit

Legal Aid and Defender Office Organizing

NLG International Committee presentation on Vietnam and Cambodia. The Chinese invasion of Vietnam was defended for the Maoists of the Anti-Imperialist Caucus by:

"Struggle in Tupelo" presentation re supporting the "militant" United League of North Mississippi by the LNG and NCBL. Main speaker was:

Workshops and Presentations, Speakers and Participants, Saturday Night

Mercenaries - "geared towards persons working with solidarity groups and other types of anti-imperialist organizations"

NLG National Officers-Elected at this Convention

  • Paul Harris - "I come from an old left background and a new left experience". Founder, 1966, NLG chapter at Boalt Hall since the 1950's; organized other NLG chapters at other California law schools with Ken Cloke; law clerk for Albany, GA. civil rights lawyers C.B. King, and a federal judge. Founder of the Community Law Office in San Francisco. An initiator of the "Black Rage" psychiatric defense and co-counsel with Michael Kennedy for Black Panther Party chairman Huey Newton in his recent trials for assault and murder (not convicted in two trials). NLG national leader since 1975. Harris stated at the time,
"I believe that capitalism strikes on all fronts. At times the cutting edge may be selective service and military work, at times criminal defense, at other times it could be two or three areas. Without approving a 'scattergun' approach, I will support Guild member working in any area of conflict with the state***."
  • Abby Ginzburg - National Vice-President, U.S. Government employee, Department of Labor - Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Previously a member of Paul Harris's Community Law Office collective. Joined the NLG in 1972 while at the Hasting School of Law. Member of the NLG's DC Executive Board and International Committee. Member of the Guild's trip to Red China and said/wrote that: "International work has played a very significant role in the recent paste, in part because of our increased understanding of the nature and scope of U.S. imperialism". (ID, p.12 of report)
  • Steve Saltzman - National Treasurer. Legal Aid Society of Cleveland since 1974. Aided the leftist Teamsters for a Democratic Union

Sunday meeting of the Middle East Subcommittee was quiet after several years of contention between pro-PLO and pro-Israel factions. The PLO faction was led by Bill Schaap, D.C. NLG chapter president and "a leader of Philip Agee's Covert Action Information Bulletin group. William Schaap was one of those who presented a very anti-Israel report on their trip there in 1977.

The Cuba Subcommittee had as its key members:

Resolutions Passed at the Convention

The following is a list of some of the resolutions passed at the convention:

  • Expansion of the Police Crimes Task Force to the National Committee on Government Repression and Police Crimes.

Defined "police crimes" as "surveillance, infiltration, disruption and harassment of political groups"

  • Will coordinate NLG work with the:
  • Resolution in support of the Iranian revolutionaries led by the Islamic psychopath Ayatollah Khomeini. Called for sending a "message of solidarity to the Iranian people by way of Radio Iran".
"Whereas the heroic struggles of the Iranian people have succeeded in crushing the Shah's U.S.-backed regime; Whereas a large segment of the Iranian people have taken up arms to defend the achievements of their revolution; Whereas the revolution in Iran today is a major defeat for U.S. imperialist policy throughout the world***."
  • The Military Law Task Force, involving Bill Schaap included a resolution for the NLG to block any congressional reinstatement of Selective Service registration, stating:"the objective of such plans is to increase the ability of U.S. imperialism to mobilize to protect corporate interests worldwide against national liberation and other struggles which could jeopardize those interests;" as well as a resolution to support the U.S. withdrawal from military bases in the Philippines that "serve as a visible support for the Marcos dictatorship and as springboards for U.S. military intervention in Southeast Asia, Asia and the Middle East."
  • "A resolution backing an NLG move to take control of the Legal Services Corporation by selecting and recommending candidates for the post of the president of the corporation in cooperation with the NCBL and La Raza lawyers association was adopted unanimously."


50th Annual NLG Convention 1992

The NLG held its 50th annual convention in Chicago on August 15, 1992. Not much information on this affair appeared in print but there were two articles in the CPUSA newspaper, People's Weekly World, August 15, 1992, that provided a good insight into it. The first article was entitled "Lawyers Guild Convention: 'Tough times are all alike'", PWW, Page 6, by Herb Kaye (aka Herb Kransdorf).

The article focused on a workshop, "Sustaining Our Political Work in Tough Times", and featured old NLG attorneys "who played major roles in defending labor's rights in the turbulent struggles of the 1930s." Those who spoke included:

Of interests was McTernan's statement crediting the "militant industrial unions of the Communist-led Trade Union Unity League (TUUL) with providing much of the leadership that was able to stand up to the employer-sponsor terror of the time."


Another article by Kaye in the same edition of the PWW was entitled "Lawyers Guild supports Cuba, Palestine sovereignty." It was the "Palestine" issue and a NLG trip/report on Israel and human rights in 1977 that created a major split among some of the Jewish members of the Guild who felt that it was decidely one-sided against Israel. This convention explicitly supported the Palestinians, as Kaye wrote in the final paragraph of the article, reproduced immediately below.

"Palestinian rights were reaffirmed in a resolution that called for the U.S. "to halt all loans and economic aid to Israel and boycott all Israeli products" until Israel withdraws completely from the Occupied Territories, stops all settlements there, ends human rights violations against Palestinians, complies with the 1949 Geneva Convention and U.N. resolutions concerning the Occupied Territories, recognizes the necessity of a two-state solution and the Palestinians' right to self-determination, including choosing representation by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and any other elected representatives."

Other resolutions supported "Cuban sovereignty", "an end to the embargo and to the restrictions against travel to Cuba", as well as reaffirming "support for the independence of Puerto Rico from U.S. colonial domination and for the release of all Puerto Rican political prisoners and prisoners of war."

Among those attorneys who participated in the convention were:

A march by 100 convention delegates went to the offices of the Stepan Chemical Co., "where the delegates protested Stepan's documented pollution of the air and water in Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico."

Among the protesters were:

GUILD PROJECTS

An attachment to the Information Digest special report on the NLG

NLG PUBLICATIONS

Practice Manuals

  • Representation of Witnesses Before Federal Grand Juries
  • Raising and Litigating Electronic Surveillance Claims and Cases
  • Immigration Defense Manual
  • Police Misconduct Litigation Manual

Guild Newsletters:

  • Immigration Newsletter - National Immigration Project
  • QUASH = grand Guild Grand Jury Project
  • Labor Newsletter - National Labor Committee
  • Women's Newsletter - NCWO
  • Military Law Task Force Newsletter - available c/0 Frank Munger Antioch School of Law, Wash. D.C.
  • Puerto Rico Project Newsletter - Puerto Rico Project

Other Guild Publications:

  • The Puerto Rican Journal of Human Rights - Puerto Rico Project
  • Guild Practitioner - Guild Practitioner
  • Law for the People - law student organizing handbook
  • A Brief Introduction to Cross Examination - by Oliver Rosengart, NYC NLG chapter
  • The Jury System: New Methods for Reducing Prejudice - National Jury Project

National Lawyers Guild: 853 Broadway, Room 1703, New York New York 10023[9]

NLG CHAPTERS

Extremely poor quality copy making it almost impossible to identify some chapters and individuals named

International issues

Opposition to Nuclear Weapons

In the 1980s, the Guild pioneered the “necessity defense” and used international law in support of the anti-nuclear movement and began challenging the use nuclear weapons under international law. This eventually resulted in the World Court declaration that nuclear weapons violate international law in a case argued by Guild lawyers more than a decade later.

The NLG has produced a handbook for NLG lawyers involved in mass defense of anti-nuclear demonstrators; and NLG chapters nationwide have been active in providing aid to antinuclear power and disarmament demonstrators. The NLG is a member of the June 12 Disarmament Coalition.[4]

Immigration

The NLG National Immigration Project began working systematically on immigration issues, spurred by the need to represent Central American refugees and asylum activists fleeing U.S. sponsored “terror” Nicaragua and El Salvador. The Guild organized “People’s Tribunals” to expose the illegality of U.S. intervention in Central America that even more widely known as the “Iran-Contra” scandal. The Guild prevailed in a lawsuit against the F.B.I. for carrying out illegal political surveillance of legal, activist organizations, including the Guild.

Modern times

In the 1990s, Guild members mobilized opposition to the Gulf War, defended the rights of Haitian refugees escaping from a U.S.- sponsored dictatorship, opposed the U.S. embargo of Cuba and began to define a new civil rights agenda that includes the right to employment, education, housing and health care. Legal theories for holding foreign human rights violators accountable in U.S. courts based on early 19th Century statutes were pioneered by Guild lawyers. The Guild began developing an analysis of the impact of “globalization” on human rights and the environment several years before the Seattle demonstrations, and our members have played an active role opposing NAFTA and in facilitating and supporting the growing movement for “globalization of justice. As the 20th Century came to a close, the Guild was defending anti-globalization, environmental and labor rights activists from Seattle, to D.C., to L.A. Guild members were playing an active role in encouraging cross-border labor organizing and in exposing the a buses in the maquiladoras on the U.S.-Mexico Border. The NLG’s Project for Human, Economic and Environmental Defense (HEED) and the Committee on Corporations, the Constitution & Human Rights began working on “globalization” issues[10].

National Executive Committee

Executive Officers[11]

(This list was on the NLG's website in 2010)

Please Note: The EXECUTIVE COUNCIL of the NLG is made up of the Executive Officers of the NLG and the Executive Director of the NLG National Office. All members of the Executive Council are also members of the National Executive Committee.

National VPs:

National Legal Worker VP:

Co-Jailhouse Lawyer VPs:

National Student VPs:

Regional VPs:

Committee Representatives:

TUPOCC:

Mass Defense:

Labor and Employment:

Military Law Task Force:

Queer Caucus:

Anti-Racism Committee:

Prison Law Project:

Anti-Sexism Committee:

National Police Accountability Project:

Members as identified from various sources

These are being entered as they are found, alphabetically

E:

S:

Proposed Committee Members (2010-2011)

the following were listed on a ballot for the NLG New York City Chapter Officers & Executive Committee Members:[14]

Proposed Chapter Officers:

Proposed Executive Committee Members:

DSA Comrade

In April 2019 Ethan Fox and Cameron Greene, Vice President of the National Lawyers Guild, were members of Heart of the Valley Democratic Socialists of America.[15]

Supporter of the New American Movement

In 1981, Karen Dubinsky, Chairperson, Ontario Federation of Students; the Pittsburgh Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild; the Socialist Community School Bookstore of Los Angeles; Bonnie Lambert and Marshall Mayer; Mary Clarke and Ben Clarke were listed as supporters of the New American Movement.[16]

Peoples College of Law of the National Lawyers Guild

Established in late 1974, and official operating in 1975, the Peoples College of Law (PCL) was an open project of the National Lawyers Guild, and was located in Los Angeles.

Please go to its own Keywiki page, "Peoples College of Law" for more information on this "college".

Moratorium NOW!

On Sept. 17, 2008, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions sponsored a rally at the Michigan State Capitol, demanding the State Legislature enact SB 1306, a two-year foreclosure moratorium bill. Represented at the rally was UNITE HERE, Change to Win, United Auto Workers, Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Teachers, Green Party of Michigan, Detroit Greens, the Cynthia McKinney presidential campaign, Students for a Democratic Society, National Lawyers Guild, Workers World Party, Food Not Bombs, Critical Moment, Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, Michigan Welfare Rights, Call ’Em Out, Latinos Unidos of Michigan, Grand Rapids Latino Community Coalition, Joint Religious Organizing Network for Action and Hope, Adrian Dominican Sisters & Associates for Peace. The following led or spoke at the rally: Sandra Hines and Abayomi Azikiwe of the Moratorium NOW!; Kris Hamel; Reverend Ed Rowe, Central United Methodist Church; State Representatives Gabe Leland, Shanelle Jackson, Bettie Cook Scott and Steve Tobocman; State Sen. Martha G. Scott; Rubie Curl-Pinkins and her daughter Nikki Curl; Jerry Goldberg, people’s attorney and coalition leader; Juan Daniel Castro, Grand Rapids Latino Community Coalition; Linette Crosby; Larry Holmes, a leader of the Troops Out Now Coalition; Robert Pratt of UNITE HERE; and Rosendo Delgado of Latinos Unidos of Michigan.[17]

Moratorium NOW! is affiliated with the Bail Out the People Movement and is controlled by the Workers World Party. The organization's office is located at the Central United Methodist Church and holds meetings there.[18][19]

Solidarity with Sept. 24 FBI Raid Activists

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression lists National Lawyers Guild as one of the organizations that has issued a statement of solidarity in support of the activists raided in the September 24, 2010 FBI Raids.[20]

2014 National Lawyers Guild Testimonial Dinner (San Francisco Bay Area Chapter)

2003 Iraq War Protest left to right - James Cox, Tanya Russell, Dan Siegel, Millie Cleveland, Anne Butterfield Weills

Every year, the National Lawyers Guild holds a dinner honoring various activists. In 2014, the honorees were Anne Butterfield Weills & Dan Siegel. The Master of Ceremonies was Nadia Kayyali, National Lawyers Guild SF Bay Area Chapter and Electronic Frontier Foundation, with Carlos Villarreal, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild SF Bay Area Chapter, as well as presenters of the "Partners in Liberation" Marie Levin and Azadeh Zhorabi and the "Unsung Hero Presentation" referring to Zahra Billoo. Also present was Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) San Francisco Bay Area and Cat Brooks and Nate Miley, Alameda County Supervisor.[21]

In the program, Robert Scheer referred to Dan Siegel one of the "legendary lawyers of the Left, such as Leonard Weinglass, Leonard Boudin and Charles Garry." David Siegel, Jonathan Siegel, Jesse Siegel, Narda Zachino, Penny Matson, Michael Siegel, Christopher Scheer, Krystof Lopaur, Effie Rawlings, Davi Barker, and Ignacio Chapela all wrote testimonials.

The following were documented as congratulating Anne Butterfield Weills, Dan Siegel, Zahra Billoo and the California Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition:

Local businesses and/or individuals also purchased advertising on the program for the 2014 dinner:

Founding Members of the Legacy Society

National Lawyers Guild Bay Area Chapter Testimonial Dinner Honorees by Year

2014 Honorees

Sustainer and Advocate Members

References

Template:Reflist

  1. ↑ Special Committee on Un-American Activities House Report 1311, on the CIO Political Action Committee, March 29, 1944, p. 149
  2. ↑ National Lawyers Guild: Legal Bulwark of the Communist Party, House Report 3123, House Committee on Un-American Activities, September 21, 1950; Sept. 17. 1950
  3. ↑ Communist Legal Subversion: The Role of the Communist Lawyer - Report, February 16, 1959, HCUA, House Report No. 41, 86th Congress, 1st Session
  4. ↑ Jump up to: 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 The War Called Peace: Glossary, published 1982
  5. ↑ http://www.iadllaw.org/en/members
  6. ↑ http://nlg.org/aboutus/history.php
  7. ↑ Communists in the democratic party, page 31
  8. ↑ Communist Legal Subversion: The Role of the Communist Lawyer - Report, House Report No. 41, HCUA, Feb. 16, 1959
  9. ↑ ID, May 4, 1979
  10. ↑ http://nlg.org/aboutus/history.php
  11. ↑ http://nlg.org/aboutus/board.php
  12. ↑ "Daily World", Sept. 27, 1980, p. 13, "N.Y. Peace Council city-wide conference"
  13. ↑ "THE WREE-VIEW", April-June 1979 issue, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 4
  14. ↑ NLG New York City Chapter: Proposed Committee Members (2010-2011) (accessed on Feb. 14, 2011)
  15. ↑ [1]
  16. ↑ 10th Anniversary Booklet for the New American Movement, 1981
  17. ↑ International Action Center - Boston: People tell Michigan legislators: ‘MORATORIUM NOW!’ (accessed on Feb. 10, 2011)
  18. ↑ Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr: Members of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition attending a meeting at the Central United Methodist Church on Nov. 20 in Detroit, Nov. 20, 2010 (accessed on Feb. 10, 2011)
  19. ↑ International Action Center - Boston: People tell Michigan legislators: ‘MORATORIUM NOW!’ (accessed on Feb. 10, 2011)
  20. ↑ Committee to Stop FBI Repression: Solidarity Statements (accessed on Oct. 6, 2010)
  21. ↑ National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter’s Testimonial Dinner, accessed August 14, 2015
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