The purpose of the National Lawyers Guild is to serve the people, rather than public or private entities that do not put human needs first.
By stating clearly that “human rights shall be held more sacred than property interests,” the NLG Preamble recognizes that economic and social needs should also be considered “rights” and that these rights often conflict with the interests of propertied elites in all nations. Adherence to these ideas resulted in charges of “subversion” during the anticommunist hysteria of the 1950s and 1960s. Toda
y many of these same ideas are embodied in the United Nations International Declaration of Human Rights and many international agreements to which the U.S. is (or should be) a party, and are being incorporated into 21st century constitutional theory and practice. These same principles have informed the Guild’s approach to domestic legal, political, and social justice issues for over 70 years. These ideas have made possible the Guild’s existence as a multi-issue organization. Rather than focusing on narrow areas of professional practice, the National Lawyers Guild sees that a wide range of social, political, and legal issues, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, environmental destruction, immigrant-bashing, labor issues, and voting rights, are intertwined with questions of economic justice and cannot be solved through focus on specific “legal practice” issues, or through the legal system alone. As a result, in addition to belonging to other professional organizations with a specific practice or professional focus, Guild lawyers, nonlawyers, students, academics, legislators, jurists, and activists from a wide range of law-related work find ways to make common cause, through the National Lawyers Guild. AJMLS-NLG Executive Officers:
John T. Brumfield - Executive Director
Kia Sutton - Co-executive Director
Darrylnn Thomas - Director of Finance & Accounting
