National Lawyers Guild
Legal Observer Program
The National Lawyers Guild is a leading organizer of Legal Observer (LO) support for protests.
Posted August 7, 2020
Background & Context
The National Lawyers Guild Legal Observer® program was established in 1968 in New York City in response to protests at Columbia University and city-wide antiwar and civil rights demonstrations. That same year, Guild students organized for the defense of people swept up in mass arrests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Work & Deliverables
Lawyers are asked to volunteer as LOs or to volunteer as lawyers on record for LO programs.
LOs attend demonstrations, protests, and other gatherings and observe/document law enforcement conduct. This information can become important for legal defense of people who are arrested and as evidence of official misconduct. Moreover, the presence of LOs may serve as a deterrent to unconstitutional behavior by law enforcement during a demonstration.
LOs are trained and directed by Guild attorneys, who often have established attorney-client relationships with activist organizations, or are in litigation challenging police tactics at mass assemblies. Individual attorneys will be connected with opportunities to support protests and demonstrations.
National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild is an association dedicated to the need for basic change in the structure of our political and economic system. We seek to unite the lawyers, law students, legal workers, and jailhouse lawyers of America in an organization which shall function as an effective political and social force in the service of the people, to the end that human rights and the rights of ecosystems shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests. Our aim is to bring together all those who regard adjustments to new conditions as more important than the veneration of precedent; who recognize the importance of safeguarding and extending the rights of workers, women, farmers, and minority groups 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.
National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild is an association dedicated to the need for basic change in the structure of our political and economic system. We seek to unite the lawyers, law students, legal workers, and jailhouse lawyers of America in an organization which shall function as an effective political and social force in the service of the people, to the end that human rights and the rights of ecosystems shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests. Our aim is to bring together all those who regard adjustments to new conditions as more important than the veneration of precedent; who recognize the importance of safeguarding and extending the rights of workers, women, farmers, and minority groups 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.