National Lawyers Guild (NLG)

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is an association dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of the US political and economic system. It seeks 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.

Their 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 colour, 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.

The Guild was the first racially integrated bar association in the US and gave legal support to the 1960s civil rights movement. It opposed US military action in the Vietnam and Gulf Wars. The NLG provides legal support for anti-globalisation, environmental and labour rights activists. It focuses on the case of death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal to advocate the abolition of the death penalty.

The Guild organises the Law Student Day Against the Death Penalty once a year.

Date founded

1937             

Structure type

Association             

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