National Lawyers Guild

Common card · No. 479598

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public 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 admit 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. Upon its formation in 1937, the organization aimed to provide a progressive and racially integrated alternative to the ABA. Shortly thereafter, New Dealers and civil libertarians split from the organization, making it more...

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