The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressivepublic interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States. The group was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association (ABA) in protest of that organization's then exclusionary membership practices and conservative political orientation. They were the first predominantly white US bar association to allow the admission of minorities to their ranks. The group sought to bring more lawyers closer to the labor movement and progressive political activities (e.g., the Farmer-Labor Party movement), to support and encourage lawyers otherwise "isolated and discouraged," and to help create a "united front" against Fascism.[1]
Upon its formation in 1937, the organization aimed to provide a progressive and racially integrated alternative to the ABA.[2] Shortly thereafter, New Dealers and civil libertarians split from the organization, making it more left-wing. In its early days some of its members also belonged to the Communist Party.[2][3]
The group declares itself to be "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system ... to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests."[4] During the McCarthy era, Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. and the House Un-American Activities Committee accused the organization of operating as a communist front group.
On December 1, 1936, nearly 25 East Coast lawyers met at the City Club of New York to discuss creation of a new group counter to the conservative American Bar Association. United Auto Workers general counsel Maurice Sugar was instrumental in calling the meeting. Lawyers present included: Morris Ernst, Robert Silberstein and Mortimer Reimer of the Lawyers Security League, ACLU attorney Osmond Fraenkel, IJA-US founder Carol Weiss King, and union lawyer Henry Sacher. The group agreed on an aim to unite "all lawyers who regarded adjustments to new conditions as more important than the veneration of precedent, who recognize the importance of safeguarding and extending the right of workers and farmers upon whom the welfare of the entire nation depends, of maintaining our civil rights and liberties and our democratic institutions." The group elected Frank P. Walsh, member of the New York State Power Authority, as its first president.[1]
I am sure that the results of this meeting will be worth while. It is a time for progressive and constructive thinking, and having known most of you intimately for many years, I have every confidence that your deliberations will affect the welfare of your own profession and the well-being of the country at large. I send to you my hearty felicitations and warm personal regards.[1]
According to Victor Rabinowitz, head of the NLG in the 1960s, the original membership of the organization came from two camps — established liberal attorneys with a labor-oriented perspective and "a militant segment of the bar, mostly young and sometimes radical."[13] The National Lawyers Guild was the nation's first racially integratedbar association.[6] Among the NLG's first causes was its support of President Roosevelt's New Deal, which was opposed by the American Bar Association (ABA). NLG assisted the emerging labor movement, and opposed the racial segregation policies in the ABA and in society in general.[4] Following the Nazis' invasion of the Soviet Union, the Guild gave its support to President Roosevelt's wartime policies, including that of Japanese American internment.[14]
Before mid-March 1937, within two weeks of its founding, the NLG formed chapters in New York City, Newark, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, St. Louis, and Chicago.[1]
In 1937, Allan R. Rosenberg joined the NLG and remained a member as late as 1956 during his second appearance before HUAC.[16]
In 1937, Ferdinand Pecora was a founding member of the NLG.[17] On March 1, 1938, Pecora become NLG president, noted as a "forceful speaker."[18] Pecora resigned from the NLG during its third annual convention in 1939 after the vote against his resolution disavowing Communists failed to carry in the national vote.[17]
By 1939, Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle was a Guild member. According to the NLG's A History of the National Lawyers Guild 1937–1987, two factions arose as early as 1940. External events driving these factions included the Spanish Civil War (started 1936), the Hitler-Stalin Pact (1939), and the Russian invasion of Finland (1940). One faction, led by Berle and Ernst, supported New Deal policies. The other, led by Osmond Fraenkel and Thomas I. Emerson, supported freedom of speech and press as well as Anti-Fascism (seen at the time as a Popular Front stance, thus pro-Communist). Other issues supported by Fraenkel, Emerson, the National Executive Board and many chapters included: support for Loyalist Spain, criticism of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, and support for labor unions. Berle and Ernst recommended anti-Communist oaths, which Fraenkel and Emerson opposed. Many Berle and Ernst supporters left the NLG by 1940. During the NLG's 1940 convention, newly elected president Robert W. Kenny of California and secretary Martin Popper of New York sought to persuade members to return. During a phone call from Kenny, Berle gave him a short list of lawyers to leave as a simple matter of "cleaning house": Kenny rejected the request.[1] David Scribner, civil rights and labor lawyer, was a member of both the IJA and the NLG.[19]
In 1944 the Special House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) chaired by Texas Congressman Martin Dies Jr. published a brief history of the NLG in its massive and controversial "Appendix — Part IX" cataloging so-called "Communist Front Organizations" and their supporters.[21] This report charged that the NLG, despite being promoted as a "professional organization of liberal lawyers" had proven itself by its actions to be "just one more highly deceptive Communist-operated front organization, primarily intended to serve the interests of the Communist Party of the United States..."[5]
The 1944 HUAC history asserted that the NLG was merely "a streamlined edition of the International Juridical Organization", a Communist Party mass organization established in 1931.[22] The document charged that "the National Lawyers Guild has faithfully followed the line of the Communist Party on numerous issues and has proven itself an important bulwark in defense of that party, its members, and organizations under its control."[23] Particularly damning in HUAC's eyes was the NLG's reversal of position on the war in Europe after the June 22, 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union by the forces of Nazi Germany, with an October resolution by the previously anti-war organization offering "unlimited support to all measures necessary to the defeat of Hitlerism" and supporting the Roosevelt administration's policy of "'all out aid' and full collaboration with Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and other nations resisting Fascist aggression."[24]
1950s
In January 1950, the NLG published a report for US President Harry S. Truman that accused the FBI of "systematic search by illegal methods" into the politics of thousands of private citizens, reported the Washington Post. The report focused on FBI methods used against Soviet spy Judith Coplon. The report recommended that the President stop such practices. It also recommended that the President appoint a committee of private citizens to investigate the FBI. Contributors to the report were NLG president Clifford J. Durr, Frederick K. Beutel, Thomas I. Emerson, O. John Rogge, James A. Cobb, Joseph Forer, and Robert J. Silberstein.[25]
On September 21, 1950, HUAC responded with Report on the National Lawyers Guild: Legal Bulwark of the Communist Party. The HUAC report accused the NLG of playing a part in "an overall Communist strategy aimed at weakening our nation's defenses against the international Communist conspiracy."[26][27] The report advocated that Guild members be barred from federal employment in light of the organization's alleged subversive character.[28]
From 1951 to 1954, Earl B. Dickerson served as the first black president of the National Lawyers Guild.[29][30] Dickerson was instrumental in contesting the proposed classification of the National Lawyers Guild as a "subversive organization."[31]
In 1954, the NLG New York chapter elected Frank Serri as president. Other officers included: Hubert T. Delany, Osmond K. Fraenkel, Leo J. Linder, Harold M. Phillips, David L. Weissman, Julius Cohen, and Simon Schachter. Directors included: Bella Abzug, Gloria Agrin, Michael B. Atkins, Benjamin H. Booth, Edward J. Cambridge, Harold Cammer, William B. Cherevas, George H. Cohen, Frank Donner, Issac C. Donner, Stanley Faulkner, Royal W. France, Nathan Frankel, Doris Peterson Galen, Murray Gordon, Charles Haydon, Lazaar Henkin, Bernard L. Jaffe, H. Leonard King, Rhoda Lakes, Mendel Lurie, Edward J. Malament, Stanley J. Mayer, Basil Pollitt, Samuel Rosenberg, Arnold E. Rosenblum, Barney Rosenstein, Simon Rosenstein, Mildred Roth, Harry Sacher, Arthur Schutzer, Elias M. Schwarzbart, Moses B. Sherr, Kenneth L. Shorter, Leonard P. Simpson, Lorna Rissler Wallach, and Henry R. Wolf.[32]
In 1958, the US Government determined that the NLG could not be declared subversive.[33]
1970s–1990s
Again in 1974, the US Government determined that the NLG could not be declared subversive.[33]
Lawyers from the NLG were the biggest source of funding of the Weather Underground, a far left militant group.[34]
In 1977, at the request of Arab-American lawyers, the NLG sent a delegation to the occupied Palestinian Territories and published its findings in a 1978 report: "Treatment of Palestinians in Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Gaza".[35][non-primary source needed]
In 1989 the FBI admitted its continued efforts to investigate and disrupt the NLG in the period from 1940 to 1975.[33]
2000s
In the 2000s, the NLG opposed the PATRIOT Act, corporate globalization, the World Trade Organization, and has called for the adoption of "the Plan of Action from the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance."[citation needed] The NLG has also helped to train and provide legal observers for political demonstrations.[citation needed] The NLG has supported Palestinian rights and a number of other causes.[citation needed]
In 2011, the NLG defended the Occupy movement in the United States, making use of temporary restraining orders on behalf of encamped activists in an effort to forestall the forced dispersal of their sites by law enforcement.[39] Charging that the Occupy movement was the subject of a "coordinated national crackdown," NLG lawyers filed actions in Boston, New York City, San Diego, Fort Myers, Atlanta, and other cities seeking the temporary prohibition of site removal efforts.[39]
Commenting on the contested2024 Venezuelan presidential election, the NLG's president, Suzanne Adely, said the elections "were not only fair and transparent but also represented an example of popular civic participation. Their successful outcome is a triumph for the Venezuelan people, especially considering the level of U.S. interference and attempted sabotage of the democratic process, particularly through sanctions and coercive economic measures aimed at producing 'regime change' in Venezuela".[40]
National Lawyers Guild legal observers, in trademark green hats, at a Solidarity Against Hate demonstration in Seattle.
Structure
Past Guild presidents have included Dobby Walker (the first female President of the NLG, first serving in 1970 and member of the 1972 "Dream Team" that successfully defended Angela Davis using innovative litigation techniques that are now mainstream),[41]Marjorie Cohn (a law professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and author), and Azadeh Shahshahani (the first woman of color to be President of the NLG and a human rights attorney who defends the rights of immigrants and Muslims in the United States South). Heidi Boghosian served as its Executive Director[42] for 15 years, from 1999 to 2014. Pooja Gehi is the current Executive Director.[citation needed]
Full membership in the NLG is open to lawyers, law students, legal workers (including legal secretaries, legal investigators, paralegals, law collective members, and jailhouse lawyers). Prior to the 1972 NLG National Convention, held in Boulder, Colorado, membership was only open to lawyers. Members now include labor organizers, tribal sovereignty activists, civil liberties advocates, civil rights advocates, environmentalists, and G.I. rights counselors.[43][citation needed]
The NLG is a dues-paying membership organization, with income-based sliding scale rates ranging from $25 to $800 per annum used in 2020.[45]
Publications
The first journal of the NLG was the National Lawyers Guild Quarterly, first issued in December 1937 and then terminated in July 1940.[46] This was succeeded in October 1940 by a new quarterly called Lawyers Guild Review, which was published continuously through the year 1960.[47] The publication's editorial office was moved to Los Angeles and its name was briefly changed from 1961 through 1964 to Law in Transition, followed by a change in 1965 to Guild Practitioner.[48] In 2009, the journal once again changed name to National Lawyers Guild Review, shortening to NLG Review.[citation needed] With the Center for Constitutional Rights, the NLG published a revised Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook, and annually distributes thousands of copies to inmates seeking legal information and resources.[49]
Lee Pressman was a labor attorney and earlier a US government functionary, publicly alleged in 1948 to have been a spy for Soviet intelligence during the mid-1930s, following his recent departure from Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as a result of its purge of Communist Party members and fellow travelers. From 1936 to 1948, he represented the CIO and member unions in landmark collective bargaining deals with major corporations including General Motors and U.S. Steel. According to journalist Murray Kempton, anti-communists referred to him as "Comrade Big."
Nathan Witt, born Nathan Wittowsky, was an American lawyer who is best known as being the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1937 to 1940. He resigned from the NLRB after his communist political beliefs were exposed, and he was accused of manipulating the Board's policies to favor his own political leanings. He was also investigated several times in the late 1940s and 1950s for being a spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. No evidence of espionage was ever found.
The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was a United States civil rights organization, formed in 1946 at a national conference for radicals and disbanded in 1956. It succeeded the International Labor Defense, the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, and the National Negro Congress, serving as a defense organization. Beginning about 1948, it became involved in representing African Americans sentenced to death and other highly prominent cases, in part to highlight racial injustice in the United States. After Rosa Lee Ingram and her two teenage sons were sentenced in Georgia, the CRC conducted a national appeals campaign on their behalf, their first for African Americans.
Bartley Crum was an American lawyer who became prominent as a member of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, his book on that experience, and for defending targets of HUAC, particularly the Hollywood Ten and Paul Robeson.
Ferdinand Pecora was an American lawyer and New York State Supreme Court judge who became famous in the 1930s as Chief Counsel to the United States Senate Committee on Banking and Currency during its investigation of Wall Street banking and stock brokerage practices.
Robert Walker Kenny, 21st Attorney General of California (1943-1947), was "a colorful figure in state politics for many years" who in 1946 ran unsuccessfully against Earl Warren for state governor.
Carol Weiss King was a well-known immigration lawyer, renowned for her advocacy in defending the civil rights of immigrants, key founder of the International Juridical Association, and a founding member of the National Lawyers Guild in the United States. Her left-leaning career spanned from the Palmer Raids to the McCarthy Era.
Jerry Joseph O'Connell was an American attorney and politician. He is most notable for his service as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Montana.
Adolf Augustus Berle Jr. was an American lawyer, educator, writer, and diplomat. He was the author of The Modern Corporation and Private Property, a groundbreaking work on corporate governance, a professor at Columbia University, and an important member of US President Franklin Roosevelt's "Brain Trust."
During the ten decades since its establishment in 1919, the Communist Party USA produced or inspired a vast array of newspapers and magazines in the English language.
Harold I. Cammer was an American lawyer who co-founded the National Lawyers Guild. He was known for his participation in labor law, civil rights, peace and justice issues, and freedom of speech cases; in particular, defending those accused of communist leanings.
Osmond Fraenkel was an American attorney who served as general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Abraham J. Isserman was an American lawyer and activist who defended Gerhart Eisler in 1947 and CPUSA leaders in the Foley Square trial (1949): he was found in contempt of court by Judge Harold Medina, sentenced to four months in jail (1952), and disbarred.
The International Juridical Association was an association of socially minded American lawyers, established by Carol Weiss King and considered by the U.S. federal government as "another early (communist) front for lawyers. The principal concern about the IJA was that it "constituted itself an agent of a foreign principal hostile to the interests of the United States."
Joseph Forer was a 20th-century American attorney who, with partner David Rein, supported Progressive causes, including discriminated communists and African-Americans. Forer was one of the founders of the National Lawyers Guild and its DC chapter. He was also an expert in the "Lost Laws" of Washington, DC, enacted in 1872–1873, that outlawed segregation at business places.
Abraham Unger (1899–1975) was a 20th-Century American lawyer, co-founder and officer of the National Lawyers Guild, and partner in the law firm of Freedman and Unger. Defendants included: Communist Party (CPUSA), state-level Party organizations, individual Communist and Progressive activists, radical and/or Communist-associated labor unions and their leaders and activists, Puerto Rican nationalists, and fellow lawyers charged with contempt and other crimes in connection with their defense of radicals. Colleague Victor Rabinowitz noted in his memoir that Unger was "a lawyer who frequently represented the Communist party."
Allan Robert Rosenberg was a 20th-century American labor lawyer and civil servant, accused as a Soviet spy by Elizabeth Bentley and listed under Party name "Roy, code names "Roza" in the VENONA Papers and code name "Sid" in the Vasilliev Papers; he also defended Dr. Benjamin Spock.
David Rein (1914–1979) was a 20th-Century American attorney who, with partner Joseph Forer, supported Progressive causes including the legal defense of African-Americans and accused Communists. Rein and Foyer were members of the National Lawyers Guild and its D.C. chapter. Rein represented "more than 100 people", alleged to have been Communists, before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and the subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Administration.
Thomas I. Emerson (1907–1991) was a 20th-century American attorney and professor of law. He is known as a "major architect of civil liberties law," "arguably the foremost First Amendment scholar of his generation," and "pillar of the Bill of Rights."
George Andersen was an American lawyer and partner in the San Francisco-based law firm of Gladstein, Andersen, Leonard & Sibbett. One of his clients, Harry Bridges of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), allegedly supported communist or pro-communist legal organizations from the 1930s to the 1960s including International Labor Defense, the International Juridical Association, and the National Lawyers Guild as well as holding stock in the communist newspaper People's World.
↑ "The Last Party". New York Times. 27 April 1997. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
1 2 Mark Decker, "A Lot Depends..." in Harold Bloom (ed.), "Richard Wright's Native Son. Langhorne, PA: Chelsea House, 1998; p. 180.
↑ Victor Rabinowitz, quoted in Decker, "A Lot Depends...", p. 180.
↑ Peter H. Irons, Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases, New York: Oxford University Press, 1983; pp. 180–81.
↑ "In 1950 the House Un-American Activities Committee issued a report denouncing the Guild as 'the foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party,' and in 1953 Attorney-General Herbert Brownell attacked the Guild as 'the legal mouthpiece of the Communist Party.'"Michael Powell, "Anatomy of a Counter-Bar Association: The Chicago Council of Lawyers,"[dead link]Law and Social Inquiry, vol. 4, no. 3, p. 503
↑ Miller, Julie; Rafferty, Shae (15 March 2019). "David Scribner Papers"(PDF). Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
↑ Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. New York: Little, Brown, 1998; p. 224.
↑ Burrough, Bryan (2016). Days of rage: America's radical underground, the FBI, and the forgotten age of revolutionary violence (Paperbacked.). New York: Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. p.142. ISBN978-0-14-310797-2.
Ann Fagan Ginger and Eugene M. Tobin (editors); Ramsey Clark (foreword). The National Lawyers Guild: From Roosevelt Through Reagan. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988. ISBN0877224889
Victor Rabinowitz and Tim Ledwith (editors), A History of the National Lawyers Guild: 1937–1987 (New York: National Lawyers Guild, 1987)
Finan, Christopher M. From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 2007.
Heard, Alex. The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim Crow South. New York: Harper, 2010.
Lobel, Jules. Success Without Victory: Lost Legal Battles and the Long Road to Justice in America. New York: New York University Press, 2003.
Swidler, Joseph Charles and Henderson, A. Scott. Power and the Public Interest: The Memoirs of Joseph C. Swidler. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002.
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