National Lawyers Guild
Chicago Chapter

 The Libby Scooter:
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637 South Dearborn Street, Third Floor
Chicago, Illinois 60605
Ph: 312-913-0039
Fax: 312-913-0045
contact@nlgchicago.org
www.nlgchicago.org

"...to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests."

The National Lawyers Guild is dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system. Through its members -- lawyers, law students, jailhouse lawyers, and legal workers united in chapters and committees -- the Guild works locally, nationally and internationally as an effective political and social force in the service of the people.

Our aims:
. to eliminate racism;
. to safeguard and strengthen the rights of workers, women, farmers and minority groups, upon whom the welfare of the entire nation depends;
. to maintain and protect our civil rights and liberties in the face of persistent attacks upon them;
. to use the law as an instrument for the protection of the people, rather than for their repression.



More about the NLG

Support Lynne Stewart

"You can't tell lawyers how to do their job."

View Our Rosa Parks Memorial

Repeat after us:


     Law School is not the Most Alienating Experience of My Life

     I am Always Treated with the Respect I Deserve

     Taking a Public-Interest Salary will still Seem Like a Good Idea After
     Graduation, Because What's a Little Debt Between Friends?

     This is Fun. This is Fun. This is Fun

Don't worry. You really can survive this with your moral sensibility intact. Your fellow students in the NLG are there for you.


There are National Lawyers Guild chapters at each of the law schools in Chicago:


     Chicago-Kent: http://www.kentlaw.edu/student_orgs/nlg/

     DePaul: Website coming in 2006-2007 academic year!

     John Marshall: Website coming in 2006-2007 academic year!

     Loyola: http://www.luc.edu/law/activities/orgs/national.shtml

     Northwestern: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/nlg/

     University of Chicago: Website coming in 2006-2007 academic year!


If you are still in need of inspiration, try this:


Assume:
1. The fundamental forms of social misery in American society can be neither adequately addressed nor substantially transformed within the context of existing legal apparatuses. Yet serious and committed work within this circumscribed context remains indispensable if progressive politics is to have any future at all. This refers to the defensive role of progressive lawyers.

2. This crucial work will remain primarily defensive until significant extraparliamentary social motion or movements bring power and pressure to bear on the status quo. This means either rebellious acts of desperation that threaten the social order or grassroots citizen participation in credible progressive projects.

3. Progressive legal practitioners must link their work within the system to movements that attempt to transform American society fundamentally.

     —Paraphrased from "The Role of the Law in Progressive Politics," Cornel West, in The Cornel West Reader. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999.