NLG #Law4thePeople Convention 2020

UPDATE 9/23 - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here. Password is L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants. Please do not circulate.)

If you're an attorney seeking CLE credit for this program, please complete and submit the following forms that were emailed to you:

• Evaluation Form
• Attendance Form

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CLE Credit: 4 Hours for General (Topical content, skills training, law practice management)

On January 17, 1893, the Hawaiian Kingdom was invaded and its government overthrown by the United States empire, beginning a 126-year occupation and unlawful annexation of the Pacific nation. On October 7, 2001, the United States invaded the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, overthrew its government, and began a 19-year occupation of that Middle Eastern nation. Less than two years later on March 20, 2003, under the pretext that the Republic of Iraq had failed to abandon its weapons of mass destruction, the United States led the invasion, overthrow and continuing occupation of Iraq. The Israeli occupation of Palestine, continuing since 1947 and marked by the Nakba in 1948 when more than 700,000 Palestinians were forceably expelled from their homes and lands, has evolved, with full political and economic support of the U.S., into a belligerent expansion and occupation of territory of Palestine, Jordan, and Syria.

International humanitarian law, also known as the law of war or armed conflict, is the legal framework applicable to situations of armed conflict and occupation. An esteemed panel of international law experts will discuss and examine the application of these rules of law to illegal wars and occupations involving the United States. The panel will discuss the law of occupation which governs the relationship between the occupying power and those subject to belligerent occupation as well as the interplay between humanitarian law and international human rights law. The panel will also cover the legal mechanisms and remedies available to occupied peoples and nations, including Hawaii, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, to challenge continuing occupation and violations of humanitarian and human rights.

CLICK HERE FOR HANDOUTS!

(CLE Credit will be given through the State Bar of CA. After the convention, we'll be emailing out attendance verification forms to all attendees.)

Sponsor: NLG International Committee

Speakers:

Valentina Azarova, Ph.D. is an international legal academic and practitioner, who teaches and writes on foreign territorial control and the law of third state responsibility. She is Visiting Academic at the University of Manchester International Law Centre (England) and Associate Editor of the Oxford Reports on International Human Rights Law and United Nations Treaty Bodies. Dr. Azarova is legal advisor to the Global Legal Action Network and has over a decade of experience documenting and engaging in legal actions and advocacy to challenge processes of structural violence of armed conflict and occupation with a focus on third party complicity. She has worked with and regularly advises UN bodies and fact-finding missions, states and non-governmental organizations. She is the author of numerous articles on humanitarian law including that law of prolonged belligerent occupations and Israel’s occupation of Palestine. She co-founded the Human Rights and International law program at Al-Quds Bard College (Palestine) and has held positions at Birzeit University (Ramallah), and in Lebanon, Budapest, and Istanbul. She received her Ph.D. from the National University of Ireland’s Irish Centre for Human Rights.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law (San Diego) and a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. Professor Cohn has written extensively on war and humanitarian law, particularly on torture and targeted killings. She is the author of numerous law review articles and five books. In 2010, Professor Cohn debated the legality of the war in Afghanistan at the prestigious Oxford Union. A lifelong peace activist, Professor Cohn has provided expert testimony on the law of war and is the recipient of 2008 Peace Scholar of the Year Award from the Peace and Justice Studies Association among other awards for her work. She received her J.D. from the Santa Clara University School of Law.

Federico Lenzerini, Ph.D., is an associate professor of public international law and international human rights law at the University of Siena (Italy), a professor in the intercultural human rights program of the St. Thomas University School of Law (Miami). He is a UNESCO consultant and has served as a Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He is the author or editor of over one hundred academic articles and seven books. He received his Doctor of Law degree from the University of Siena and his Ph.D. degree in international law from the University of Bari (Italy).

Keanu Sai, Ph.D. is the Chairman of the Council of Regency and Acting Minister of the Interior of the provisional government of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Dr. Sai served as Agent for the Hawaiian Kingdom at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Larsen v. Hawiian Kingdom. He is the editor of the recent book, Investigating War Crimes and Human Rights Violations Committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom. Dr. Sai received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in political science specializing in international relations and public law from the University of Hawai’i where he also teaches. Dr. Sai co-chairs the Hawaiian Kingdom Subcommittee of the International Committee of the NLG.

UPDATE 9/23 - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here. Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants. Please do not circulate.)

A reminder if you're an attorney seeking CLE credit for this program, please complete and submit the following forms that were emailed to you:

• Evaluation Form
• Attendance Form

-----------------------------------------------------


CLE Credit: 1.5  Hours for General (Topical content, skills training, law practice management)

As the movement to dismantle policing and shut down prisons continues to gain steam, this panel will connect contemporary struggles to the theoretical and practical underpinnings of the abolitionist movement in the US. Panelists will highlight connections across areas of work with both social movements and NLG committees, addressing mass criminalization and incarceration, immigration enforcement, militarism, and colonialism. We will examine recent victories, provide attendees with ways to evaluate different reform and policy proposals, and discuss how the NLG as an abolitionist organization can lend support to social movements on the ground.

In 2015, NLG adopted a resolution supporting prison abolition. At the time, many members were still new and some even hostile to the idea of abolition, even as NLG chapters and members mobilized to support the first wave of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests. Now, as a new wave of BLM protests again forces the United States to reckon with police violence against Black people, abolition is significantly more influential in the formation of mainstream demands such as the call to defund police.

This major panel will help deepen NLG members’ understanding of abolition as both a political analysis and an organizing principle. We will explore the role of abolition in shaping both immediate responses to police violence domestically and as an overarching goal for organizers and the NLG itself. This ultimately deepens our individual and collective commitments to abolition and better prepares members to support the current grassroots movements led by Black, Brown, Indigenous people and other People of Color.

(CLE Credit will be given through the State Bar of CA. After the convention, we'll be emailing out attendance verification forms to all attendees.)

CLICK HERE FOR HANDOUTS!

Sponsors: Mass Incarceration Committee, Mass Defense Committee, International Committee, National
Immigration Project, TUPOCC (The United People of Color Caucus of the NLG)

Speakers:

Moderator: Pooja Gehi (she/her), Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild. Pooja has worked for immigrant and racial justice, trans and queer liberation, transformative justice, youth leadership, and cross-movement coalition building throughout her life. Currently, she serves as the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild. For over eight years, she worked as a Staff Attorney and Director of Immigrant Justice at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP). There she provided direct legal services to hundreds of low-income transgender and gender nonconforming clients, and achieved major victories like access to transition-related healthcare for New York State Medicaid recipients through litigation and coalition work.

Benji Hart (any pronoun), Author, Artist, & educator, Chicago IL. Benji Hart is an author, artist, and educator from Amherst, Massachusetts, living in Chicago. They hold a bachelors in African American Studies from Wesleyan University, and a masters in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago. The writer behind the blog Radical Faggot, their essays and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies including Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief (AK Press), and Trans Bodies Trans Selves: Second Edition (forthcoming from Oxford University Press). Their commentary has been published at Teen Vogue, In These Times, The Chicago Reader, The Advocate, Autostraddle, Out of Print, and others.

Setareh Ghandehari (she/her), Advocacy Manager, Detention Watch Network. Setareh leads Detention Watch Network's advocacy team by collaborating with our membership and coalition partners to advance DWN's mission to abolition immigraiton detention. Prior to joining DWN, Setareh was the Director of the Labor & Employment Committee of the National Lawyers Guild and was previously a Program Associate for the Legal Orientation Program at the Vera Institute of Justice. Setareh received her Bachelor's degrees from the University of Maryland and J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law.

Sharlyn Grace (she/her) is a founding member of Chicago Community Bond Fund and currently serves as CCBF’s Executive Director. Before joining CCBF full-time in 2018, she was the senior criminal justice policy analyst at Chicago Appleseed. Sharlyn has also previously managed a school-based restorative justice program in Back of the Yards and coordinated the Juvenile Expungement Help Desk at the Cook County Juvenile Center. Sharlyn has been part of supporting several abolitionist projects, including We Charge Genocide, Tamms Year Ten, and anti-eviction work. Sharlyn is a former national Executive Vice-President of the National Lawyers Guild and a co-author of the NLG’s 2015 Resolution Supporting the Abolition of Prisons. Sharlyn was recognized as one of eleven 2020 Leaders for a New Chicago by The Field Foundation for her campaign work with CCBF and the Coalition to End Money Bond.

Dominique Morgan (she/her), Executive Director, Black & Pink. Dominique Morgan is an award-winning artist, activist, and TEDx speaker. As the Executive Director of Black and Pink, the largest prison abolitionist organization in the United States, they work daily to dismantle the systems that perpetuate violence on LGBTQ/GNC people and individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Partnering her lived experience of being impacted by mass incarceration (which included 18 months in solitary confinement), with a decade of change-makin

Membership meeting of the NLG International Committee.

Sponsors: The United People of Color Caucus (TUPOCC) and the Anti-Racism Committee (ARC)

This training will provide skills and resilience practices for members who are experiencing trauma vicarious trauma while providing legal support to movements on the ground during COVID and heightened police violence. Dr. Hawthorne Smith will contextualize this political moment within an anti-oppression framework and offer a space for NLG members to create strategies for self care and resilience.

Speaker:

Dr. Smith is a licensed psychologist and the Director of the Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture. He is also an Associate Clinical Professor at the NYU School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Smith received his doctorate in Counseling Psychology (with distinction) from Teachers College; Columbia University. Dr. Smith had previously earned a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, an advanced certificate in African Studies from Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, as well as a Masters in International Affairs from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

Among his clinical duties, Dr. Smith has facilitated a support group for French-speaking African survivors of torture for the past 23 years. He also speaks extensively at professional conferences and seminars on providing clinical services for survivors of socio-political violence, and enhancing cross-cultural clinical skills among therapeutic service providers. Dr. Smith has been recognized for his work with such awards as: the Robin Hood Foundation’s “Hero Award”; the “Frantz Fanon Award” from the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health; the “W.E.B. DuBois Award” from the International Youth Leadership Institute; the “Distinguished Alumni – Early Career Award” from Teachers College; the “Man of Distinction Award” from the National Association of Health Service Executives; the “Union Square Award for Community Advocacy” from the Fund for the City of New York; and a “Humanitarian Award” from the Cousul General of the Republic of Haiti .

Prior to coming to Bellevue, Dr. Smith was a youth counselor to “court involved youth” in Washington, DC during the height of the crack epidemic. He then coordinated care at a shelter for homeless families in San Francisco prior to, and in the aftermath of 1989 earthquake. Dr. Smith was also a co-founding member of Nah We Yone, Inc. (a non-profit organization working primarily with refugees from Sierra Leone, as well as other displaced Africans in New York), and helped to coordinate the International Youth Leadership Institute (IYLI), a leadership program for marginalized New York City teens. Currently, Dr. Smith provides forensic evaluations, human rights consultations, and mitigation services on capital cases for private legal firms and public entities such as the US Department of Defense and the US Office of the Federal Defender. Dr. Smith is also a professional musician (saxophonist and vocalist) with national and international experience.

UPDATE 10/1 - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants and NLG members. Please do not circulate publicly.)

A reminder if you're an attorney seeking CLE credit for this program, please complete and submit the following forms that were emailed to you after the session:

• CLE Evaluation Form
• CLE Attendance Form

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CLE Credit: 3 Hours for General (Topical content, skills training, law practice management)

Amid calls for defunding police and expelling police unions from the labor movement, the NLG Labor & Employment Committee, with co-sponsors the NLG National Police Accountability Project and the NLG Military Law Task Force, presents a half-day webinar exploring police unions in their historical context, the relationship between law enforcement locals and other unions, the politics of expelling police unions from labor federations, an understanding of police union-management collective bargaining, including responsibility for and impact of harmful police union contract provisions, strategies to challenge police brutality while maintaining a pro-labor stance, and a discussion of the role of labor lawyers in this moment. This workshop aims to give participants an understanding of both the history and current state of police unions as a lens through which to see the work of dismantling state violence while protecting the rights and livelihoods of workers as a whole.

(CLE Credit will be given through the State Bar of CA. After the convention, we'll be emailing out attendance verification forms to all attendees.)

CLICK HERE FOR HANDOUTS!

CLICK HERE FOR DESCRIPTION WITH FULL SPEAKER BIOS

Sponsors: Labor and Employment Committee, National Police Accountability Project, Military Law Task Force

Part I: Historical and Political Context
In this opening section, panelists will situate police unions in their historical and political contexts, by giving an overview of the professionalization of policing and growth of police unions over the past century, as well as the challenges they pose for contemporary social justice movements and politics. This will ground the audience with a basic understanding of police and their unions’ role in labor history, how these unions evolved to their current state, and why they are a target for those pushing to reform and/or abolish policing.

Aaron Bekemeyer is a Harvard PhD Candidate studying the history of American capitalism in the 20th century.

Roger Toussaint started as a cleaner in New York City's subways in 1984, became a rank and file activist, and was elected President of the 38,000 member Transport Workers Union Local 100 in NY from 2001-2009.

Kim Kelly is a freelance writer and organizer based in Philadelphia. She is currently the labor columnist for Teen Vogue.

Part II: Relationship within Federations and Broader Labor Movement

In Part II, panelists will explain the relationship between law enforcement locals, other locals, and labor federations; the internal governance processes that would enable or block expulsion of certain locals; as well as how potential expulsion would affect other workers who are members of those federations. We will also engage in a discussion of police unions’ relationship to other public unions, including whether both rhetoric and proposed changes to police unions and contracts could have collateral impact on other public sector unions and will explore whether strategies developed in other public sector unions, such as bargaining for the common good, could be used to produce fairer and more transparent police contracts. In addition, panelists will touch on what is encompassed when the labor movement talks about law enforcement unions: are ICE and CBP officers included; correctional facility guards, etc? What does our definition of who is included in this category mean for a call to demilitarize and defund police?

Ana Avendaño is a lifelong worker advocate who has served as an Associate General Counsel to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, as well as Assistant General Counsel to the AFL-CIO, and Assistant to the AFL-CIO President for Immigration and Community Action.

Carmen Berkley is an award winning political strategist, entrepreneur, radio host, and DJ striving to change the world through politics, social impact, creative expression, and culture.

David Unger is a labor educator at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, an adjunct instructor at Empire State College, and also teaches diversity, mobilizing, and organizing classes for unions and social justice organizations around New York.

Part III: Challenging Police Union Misconduct 

In Part III, panelists will explore the nuts and bolts of police union contracts and explore how labor law and union membership may be able to protect individuals who act as whistleblowers within their departments or who want to resist racist or violent orders by superiors. We will look at examples of provisions of police collective bargaining agreements that protect officers who have been disciplined, had civilian complaints filed against them, and committed acts of racist brutality and other crimes and discuss these provisions, what their effect on police work is, and what can be done about them. (ex: including if these provisions can be eliminated from future contracts, either through bargaining or superseding state or federal statutes, and what kind of legal challenges that would pose, such as potential constitutional or labor law claims by police union members.) We will also consider the success of failures of combating police brutality through legal means, including what systems we have to hold police accountable, including civilian review boards, litigation, and other means.

James M. Branum is a military criminal defense and free speech attorney, author, and past chair of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild.

Michelle Gross is co-founder and president of Communities United Against Police Brutality and board member of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

DeRay Mckesson is a civil rights activist focused primarily on issues of innovation, equity and justice. As a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter Movement and a co-founder of Campaign Zero, DeRay has worked to connect individuals with knowledge and tools, and provide citizens and policy makers with commonsense policies that ensure equity.

Leo Gertner is a labor and employment lawyer and writer living in New York. He has worked with the National Employment Law Project, Service Employees International Union, United Steelworkers, and Communications Workers of America.

UPDATE 10/1 - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants and NLG members. Please do not circulate publicly.)
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This panel will address the importance of a right to housing in the era of COVID-19, especially in Black neighborhoods; the need for divestment from policing/prisons and investment in housing initiatives; and strategies for lawyers and organizers demanding the right to housing. Many moratoria on evictions have already expired or will soon, and the recession will increase homelessness substantially. Panelists will discuss the right to adequate housing from the United Nations stance, the racialization of COVID-19 and its connection to homelessness, and policies that support anti-displacement and housing security while reversing growing trends of displacement and homelessness.

Sponsors: NLG Housing Committee, NLG International Committee

Speakers:

Leilani Farha was the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing from 2014 to 2020 and is the Global Director of The Shift.

Jade McDuffie McClary is a Staff Attorney for the Home Preservation Project of the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland and a member of the NLG Housing and Homelessness Committee.

Leah Simon-Weisberg is the Legal Director for Anti-Displacement and Land Use Programs at ACCE Institute.

Eric Tars, Legal Director of National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, Board Member of US Human Rights Network as moderator.

Dominique Walker is a co-founder of Moms 4 Housing based in Oakland, CA and an organizer with ACCE Institute.

Separate registration and fee at:
NIPNLG CLE Registration Page

CLE Sponsored by: National Immigration Project of the NLG (NIPNLG)

Questions
Please send inquiries about the CLE to events@nipnlg.org


Agenda

11:45:  Introductions

12:00 - 1:30:  Administrative Advocacy: CRCL, OIG, and FTCA Complaints 90 minutes of instruction (1.50 CLE Credit)

This session will cover creative ways to advocate for your clients outside immigration court, through administrative advocacy channels that exist to hold government officials accountable. The panel will cover general complaints to the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), complaints to the Section 504 sub-office of CRCL, complaints to the DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and complaints pursuant to the Federal Torts Claims Act (FTCA). Panelists will provide an overview of these processes, a nuts-and-bolts guide to how to put each type of complaint together and what materials to include, typical outcomes, and creative ways to use these complaints to fight for your clients' rights and to further systemic change efforts to reform DHS.

Faculty: Mitra Ebadolahi, Senior Staff Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties
Pilar Gonzalez, Senior Staff Attorney, Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center
Christopher ("Chris”) Rickerd, Consultant, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild
Kathryn (“Katie”) Shepherd, National Advocacy Counsel, Immigration Justice Campaign, American Immigration Council

1:30 - 1:45:  Break

1:45 - 3:15: Bail Motions for Clients with Pending PFRs: Successes and Pitfalls 90 minutes of instruction (1.50 CLE Credit)

This session will address bail motions and other emerging or little-used strategies for obtaining release of clients with pending Petitions for Review in various circuits. The panel will cover sources of legal authority for release by a court of appeals, then will provide a more in-depth discussion of recent experiences with bail motions in the Second and Ninth Circuits. Finally, the panel will discuss next steps and possible claims for cases that are transferred to the district court.

Faculty:  Denisha S. Bacchus, Associate, Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP
Kari E. Hong, Associate Professor, Boston College of Law and Supervisor and Founder, Ninth Circuit Appellate Program
Suchita (“Suchi”) Mathur, Federal Practice Attorney, Immigration Practice, The Bronx Defenders

3:15 - 3:30: Break

3:30 - 5:00:  Motions to Reopen and Return of Deported Clients 90 minutes of instruction (1.50 CLE Credits)
This session will focus on strategies for seeking return of deported clients. The panel will start by covering the basics of the different types of final removal orders, then will delve into DHS Motions to Rescind, EOIR Motions to Reopen and Reconsider, and other creative strategies including mandamus, INA § 329, 8 U.S.C. § 1503, and visa waiver applications. Finally, the panel will describe the nuts and bolts of returning your clients to the United States.

Faculty: Talia Inlender, Supervising Senior Staff Attorney, Public Counsel
Aimee Mayer-Salins, Staff Attorney, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
Trina Realmuto, Executive Director, National Immigration Litigation Alliance
Talia Inlender, Supervising Senior Staff Attorney - Immigrants' Rights, Public Counsel

5:00 - 5:15: Closing

5:15: Seminar Ends

CLE credits
An application for 4.5 credits is pending in Washington. Certificates will be available for attorneys to request CLE credits in other states.

Registration Fees 
Legal Worker/Non-Profit/Student - $150
Current Members of NIPNLG, NLG, or Minority Bar Associations - $225
Private Attorney - $275

Membership Meeting of the NLG Labor and Employment Committee. 

Membership meeting for the NLG Housing and Homelessness Committee.

UPDATE 10/1: UPDATE 9/23 - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants and NLG members. Please do not circulate publicly.)

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Joint reception of the National Police Accountability Project of the NLG (NPAP) and the National Immigration Project of the NLG (NIPNLG). Presentation of the NIPNLG Daniel Levy Award to UndocuBlack Network, updates from NIPNLG and NPAP, and a musical performance!

UPDATE 10/1 - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! This event was publicly livestreamed, so feel free to share this recording widely!

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Please join us for the keynote address by scholar, author, and activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor! This event is free and open to the public. If you are sharing this publicly with non-registrants, please use this link: https://livestream.com/accounts/19497242/events/9317384/player (Registrants, please use Zoom link.)

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes and speaks on Black politics, social movements, and racial inequality in the United States. She is author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, and From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. She is also editor of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective.

Taylor is a contributing writer at The New Yorker. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Review, Paris Review, Guardian, The Nation, Jacobin, and Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, among others. She is a former Contributing Opinion Writer for The New York Times. Taylor is Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University.

Annual membership and litigation meetings of the National Immigration Project of the NLG. For NIP members only!

All NLG members are welcome to join this plenary, which will be focused on Guild governance in the form of elections, resolutions, and amendments. 

Membership Meeting for the NLG Military Law Task Force.

Check out the "virtual" MTLF literature table here to learn more about the MLTF: nlgmltf.org/2020-nlg-convention-literature/

Follow MLTF social media accounts:

• Facebook: @NLGmltf
• Twitter: @Military_Law

NLG MLTF Meeting Agenda

Introductions

Brief introduction to the Task Force

Reports from our committees and areas of work:

Women's project

Anti-racism committee

Selective Service

CLE committee

On Watch

Nominations and discussion of steering committee elections (if we have a quorum, we'll actually hold the election)

Brainstorming about work for the coming year, priorities, etc.

UPDATE 10/1 - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants and NLG members. Please do not circulate publicly.)
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Joint reception of the NLG International Committee and Labor and Employment Committee. Presentation of the 2020 Debra Evenson Award to Charlotte Kates and tribute to 2020 Ernie Goodman Awardee Jeanne Mirer. 

CLE CREDIT: 7.5 hours for General (Topical content, skills training, law practice management)

Sponsor: NLG Prisoners Legal Advocacy Network & Pro-Active Coalition

Full Program Available Here

Presenter Bios Available Here

Morning Session: COVID-19 created emergency advocacy needs for incarcerated people everywhere. The Prisoners Legal Advocacy Network (PLAN) harnessed the untapped legal capacity created by shelter-in-place orders by convening remote legal response teams that collectively developed legal analysis and boilerplate pleading text to help jailhouse lawyers and other legal practitioners challenge COVID-19 conditions and argue for compassionate release. This publicly available work product is intended to aid attorneys with limited capacity or prisoners’ rights expertise to advocate for people inside during the current crisis and help pro se litigants fight for themselves despite prolonged lockdowns and law library closures. PLAN attorneys, legal workers, law student clerks, and jailhouse lawyers will discuss the trends in COVID-19 conditions in prisons and jails their investigations uncovered and the legal strategies they have developed to challenge these conditions in a variety of jurisdictions nationwide.

Afternoon Session: When a crisis emerges, social justice organizations frequently experience a surge in membership and an outpouring of pro bono support. In the absence of carefully developed structures and procedures, this capacity is frequently under-utilized and often dissipates when the crisis subsides. By mobilizing the core competencies of diverse community stakeholder and legal practitioners through a unified alliance, the Pro-Active Coalition enables PLAN and other DE-NJ NLG practice areas to meet the intensified legal needs created by the mass demonstrations that emerged following the murder of George Floyd. The Pro-Active Coalition also creates sustainable infrastructure for rapid response to future critical events. DE-NJ NLG supervising attorneys, legal workers, and law student clerks will discuss how the Coalition effectively catalyzes pro bono capacity to meet heightened community needs and how this transferable model could help other organizations develop and sustain pro bono relationships.

CLICK HERE FOR HANDOUTS!

(CLE Credit will be given through the State Bar of CA. After the convention, we'll be emailing out attendance verification forms to all attendees.)

UPDATE 10/1 - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! This event was publicly livestreamed, so feel free to share this recording widely!
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Join us for a very special discussion with longtime NLG San Francisco Bay Area member and human rights attorney Walter Riley, and son Boots Riley, activist music artist and filmmaker (Sorry to Bother You)! This intergenerational discussion will explore the current political moment as it intersects with systemic poverty, racism, capitalism, and the human rights movement.

Moderated by historian, writer, activist and professor Barbara Ransby.

CLE Credit: 1 hour for General (Topical content, skills training, law practice management)

This panel will discuss some of the strategies and effective techniques for rural community organizing and legal advocacy. The presenters will discuss the community justice worker model used in rural and indigenous communities in the Southwest including ‘checkerboard’ inter-jurisdictional areas of state,federal, and tribal lands. Topics covered include the particular challenges facing community organizers and legal advocates working in rural locations, the anatomy of a successful rural community campaign in Western New Mexico and strategies to allow legal workers and organizers to better work effectively together building the power of marginalized communities from the ground up.

(CLE Credit will be given through the State Bar of CA. After the convention, we'll be emailing out attendance verification forms to all attendees.)

Speakers:

Michelle Garcia is a civil rights and tribal law attorney with New Mexico Legal Aid who oversees an LGBTQ+ legal access program in rural and indigenous areas. Garcia formerly worked as Senior Trial Attorney for the State of New Mexico and is a graduate of Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans.

Marquita Nez is a student at the University of New Mexico obtaining her undergraduate education in Family and Child Studies concentration in Human Development and Family Relations, minoring in Native American Studies with an emphasis on Indigenous Learning Communities. Nez has worked as a Community Justice Worker for New Mexico Legal Aid focusing on advocacy and engaging in community based learning and service.

Maslyn Locke is currently an environmental justice staff attorney at the New Mexico Environmental Law Center working on environmental impact litigation. She formerly worked as a staff attorney at New Mexico Legal Aid focusing on the areas of housing and family law and LGBTQ+ legal access and holds both a JD and Master's of Social Work from the University of Kansas.

CLE Credit: 1.5 hour for Recognition and Elimination of Bias in the Legal Profession and Society

This panel will discuss the basics of the framework for disability justice. It will convey the need for individuals to constantly work on the decolonization of their bodies from a capitalist, ableist, white, heteropatriarchal system. It will provide the basic foundations for the lens and how the audience can bring it into their work and their Guild chapters.

This major panel CLE includes live CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) English captioning and ASL/English interpretation.

(CLE Credit will be given through the State Bar of CA. After the convention, we'll be emailing out attendance verification forms to all attendees.)

Sponsor: NLG Disability Justice Committee
                                   
Speakers:

Celia Brown is the chair of Mindfreedom International, an international organization opposing forced psychiatric treatment. She is a consumer advocate at the New York State Office of Mental Health, and has organized mutl-day conferences on alternatives to forced psychiatric treatment.

AJ Link is the Co-President of the NDLSA dealing with external affairs. He oversees Outreach and Advocacy, Educational Resources, and Professional Development. AJ Link received his JD from The George Washington University Law School in 2020. His studies focused extensively on disability law, international human rights, and space law. AJ has been actively involved with disability advocacy in the Washington, DC area and nationally within the United States.

Lydia X. Z. Brown is a disability justice advocate, organizer, educator, attorney, strategist, and writer whose work has largely focused on interpersonal and state violence against multiply-marginalized disabled people living at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, and language. They are Policy Counsel for the Privacy and Data Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology; Adjunct Lecturer in Disability Studies for Georgetown University's Department of English; and Director of Policy, Advocacy, & External affairs at the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. They are also founder and volunteer director of the Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of Color's Interdependence, Survival, and Empowerment. Currently, they serve as a founding board member of the Alliance for Citizen Directed Supports, presidential appointee to the American Bar Association's Commission on Disability Rights, and co-chair of the American Bar Association's Section on Civil Rights & Social Justice, Disability Rights Committee.

Talila A. Lewis is an abolitionist attorney, educator, organizer who helps people understand the inextricable links between racism, classism, ableism and structural inequity. Lewis created the only national database of deaf/blind imprisoned people in the U.S. and works to correct and prevent deaf wrongful conviction cases as the volunteer director of HEARD (www.behearddc.org). Lewis co-created the Harriet Tubman Collective and the Disability Solidarity praxis, and lectured at Northeastern University School of Law and Rochester Institute of Technology. Named a Top 30 Thinker Under 30 by Pacific Standard magazine, Lewis has received numerous awards, including the 2015 White House Champion of Change Award.

Membership Meeting of the Cuba Subcommittee of the NLG International Committee.

Membership Meeting of the NLG Environmental Justice Committee.

UPDATE - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants and NLG members. Please do not circulate publicly.)
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Movements are under attack. Subpoenas for grand jury testimony, legal observer work product, and Guild training materials are threats to our safety and protest legal support infrastructure. Come learn from activists and practitioners facing off against these challenges and tips on how you can best resist these risks and support mass defense organizing in your community. We will also discuss best practices for digital security around collecting LO work product and hear from resistance fighters who have been at the forefront of this fight for decades.

Sponsor: NLG Mass Defense Committee

Speakers:

Nathan Sheard (nash) leads EFF's grassroots, student, and community organizing efforts. As the lead coordinator of the Electronic Frontier Alliance, nash works to support the Alliance's member organizations in educating their neighbors on digital-privacy best practices, and advocating for privacy and innovation protecting policy and legislation. nash's work is informed by lived experience with aggressive and militarized policing in the United States, Honduras, and Palestine, including racial profiling, the effects of biased broken windows policing tactics, and police brutality. nash has worked extensively to help mitigate the damage of harmful interactions with law enforcement online and in over-policed communities. Before joining EFF, as co-founder of Black Movement Law Project and a member of Mutant Legal, nash spent close to a decade training communities in crisis on how to document police conduct, exercise their legal rights, counteract state repression and actively participate in their own legal defense.

José E. López has written and spoken extensively on the political and social reality of Puerto Ricans in the United States while serving as Executive Director of The Puerto Rican Cultural Center Juan Antonio Corretjer in Chicago, which he co-founded in 1973; presently he is an adjunct instructor at Columbia College and the University of Illinois at Chicago. In his role as educator/activist, he has been invited to speak at over 50 colleges and universities in the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Puerto Rico as well as in international forums such as the United Nations Decolonization Committee. For over 50 years, he has been a leading member of the Puerto Rican independence movement and is also the editor of “Puerto Rican Nationalism: A Reader.” Presently, he is active in developing new/praxis/theory in community and social empowerment, particularly in the areas of educational reform through the Community as a Campus Initiative, and addressing health inequities through the building of a holistic community of wellness in Chicago’s Greater Humboldt Park communities. He has served on various Boards including Bethany/Advocate Fund Board, the Chicago Public Schools Latino Advisory Committee, The National Museum of Puerto Rico Arts and Culture, and The Puerto Rican Agenda. He is an important voice for policy and legislative reform working closely with many Latino elected officials at the city, county, state and federal levels. Over the years he has received many recognitions, including the Cook County Board of Commissioners 2009 Hispanic Heritage Award, the 2010 Health Award from Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, and the Chicago Cultural Alliance: 2014 Outstanding Community Leader Award.

Carol Sobel is a civil rights lawyer and advocate who has repeatedly sued the City of Los Angeles for violating the rights or protestors and the unhoused population. Ms. Sobel spent 20 years working at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California until she left in 1997 to start her own practice. After the 1992 Rodney King uprising in LA, she was one of the lawyers who worked on revising the LAPD's Crowd Control and Use of Force policies. She served as lead co-counsel in several cases challenging police practices at the DNC 2000 in Los Angeles. She also served as class co- counsel in Multi-Ethnic Worker Immigration Network ("MIWON") v. City of Los Angeles, resulting from the LAPD's assault on nearly 5,000 people involved in a peaceful immigration rights rally on May Day 2007. She also served as class co-counsel in Aichele v. City of Los Angeles in 2011, brought on behalf of 300 individuals arrested for camping on City Hall lawn as part of Occupy Los Angeles, and Chua v. City of Los Angeles, on behalf of a large group of protestors arrested by the Los Angeles in the demonstrations that followed the decision of the Ferguson grand jury not to indict the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown. Currently, Ms. Sobel is co-counsel in Black Lives Matter Los Angeles v. City of Los Angeles, a class action filed in federal court on behalf of more than 4,000 persons arrested in the City in protests against the killing of George Floyd and other persons of color by law enforcement around the country, as well as individuals subjected to use of force in the form of "rubber bullets" and batons deployed against the Floyd protestors. She co-chaired the National Lawyers Guild's Mass Defense Committee for 10 years and is a board member of the National Police Accountability Project. She is currently an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School where she teaches a civil right practicum.

Maggie Ellinger-Locke (she/hers) is a staff attorney at Greenpeace USA where she supports as in-house counsel, advises climate justice activists, and works on democracy issues including voting rights and anti-protest legislation. She is very active with the Guild and has held several positions within NLG over the years. She is particularly committed to mass defense and helped to lead the Guild's response through several movement moments, including the Ferguson Uprising, the Trump inauguration (J20), and the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. She is originally from St. Louis and currently lives in the Washington, DC area.





   

Membership Meeting of the Task Force on the Americas Subcommittee of the NLG International Committee.

NOTE: Out of an abundance of caution for the safety of our panelists, we have decided to not distribute a recording for the panel "Crisis and Failed States: How the Pandemic Deepened the Police State." Thank you for your understanding.

CLE Credit: 1.5 hours for General (Topical content, skills training, law practice management)

The pandemic did not create more crisis, it revealed the deep structural inequities and collapsed social safety net that already existed, especially in communities of color across the globe. It also served as a pretext for an intensification of surveillance, criminalizing safety responses and targeting exploited labor forces, and a deepening of the police state. Under the guise of public health and safety, law enforcement, militia and paramilitary violence has increased in communities that were already targets of state-sanctioned and sponsored violence prior to COVID-19. Technologies and tactics used by police and military forces are being duplicated worldwide in order to suppress organizing, worker demands and uprisings against state violence while simultaneously protecting capital and property interests. As citizens organize against disaster capitalism policies and make collective demands, the state has become more violent, more privatized and also more exposed. This workshop will address the construction of criminalizing narratives and the policing of citizens from an internationalist perspective, surfacing how workers’ organizing, housing insecurity individuals and Afro-descendant communities have been fighting back against corporate-state violence.

(CLE Credit will be given through the State Bar of CA. After the convention, we'll be emailing out attendance verification forms to all attendees.)

CLICK HERE FOR HANDOUTS!

Sponsors: International Committee, Puerto Rico Subcommittee, TUPOCC (The United People of Color Caucus of the NLG)

Speakers:

Ariadna Godreau Aubert, Ayuda Legal PR - She obtained JD from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law and a Masters in Law degree in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford, UK. Ariadna is has worked in several access to justice initiatives, which include strategic litigation at local and international levels, the use of technology to increase legal literacy and organizing movements lawyers. She is the coordinator of the Access to Justice Working Group and the Executive Director of Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico, Inc.

Mari Mari Narvaez, Kilometro 0 - Executive Director of Kilometro 0, an organization that looks for ways to build a more democratic society, where the state does not abuse its power to use force against citizens and where people can create community strategies against insecurity, as well as exercise their rights. Mari has a master's degree in Journalism and Latin American Studies and doctoral courses in History and Gender Studies.

Kranti KC (India y ESCR Network) - Kranti is the Executive Director of HRLN since 2014. He works extensively with young lawyers, across various cities in India and heads HRLN’s fellows program and students for human rights, and encourages the participation of young people with access to justice programs. A graduate from ILS Law College, Kranti has facilitated a wide range of litigation; such as food security, healthcare, and right of the indigenous, sexual minorities, and foreign nationals, persons with disabilities, environmental issues, governance, labour, women and children among others. He takes special interest in using the law to combat violence that women face within the domestic, workplaces and society at large.

Andrea Ritchie is a Black lesbian immigrant, police misconduct attorney and organizer whose writing, litigation, and advocacy has focused on policing and criminalization of women and LGBT people of color for the past two decades. She is the author of Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color (Beacon Press 2017), co-author of Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women (AAPF 2015) and Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States (Beacon Press 2011), and is a nationally recognized expert on policing issues. She works with groups across the country to support campaigns to end profiling, police violence criminalization, mass incarceration, and deportation through the Interrupting Criminalization initiative she co-founded with Mariame Kaba and Woods Ervin, and as a consultant. She is also co-founder with Derecka Purnell of the COVID19 Policing Project (covid19policing.com). She is a member of the Movement for Black Lives Policy Table, was a founding member of the Steering Committee of New York City's Communities United for Police Reform (2011-2015), and was appointed to the New York City Council Young Women's Initiative, where she co-chaired the Anti-Violence and Criminalization Working Group. She was a 2014 Senior Soros Justice fellow and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Invisible Institute.

Marisol Lebron (Moderator) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and a 2019-2020 Faculty Fellow at Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. Prior to arriving at UT, Dr. LeBrón was an Assistant Professor of American Studies at Dickinson College and a Postdoctoral Associate in Latino/a Studies in the Global South at Duke University. Dr. LeBrón received her PhD in American Studies from New York University and her bachelor's degree in Comparative American Studies and Latin American Studies from Oberlin College. An interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. LeBrón’s research and teaching focus on social inequality, policing, violence, and protest.

CLICK HERE FOR HANDOUTS!
   

Membership Meeting of the Mesoamerica Subcommittee of the NLG International Committee.

CLE held by the National Police Accountability Project of the NLG (NPAP)

Registration Link and Full Program

IMPORTANT: Please note that this CLE is not included with general #Law4thePeople Convention registration, and you must register at the NPAP link above to attend.

Join us for NPAP’s annual CLE program during the National Lawyers Guild #Law4thePeople Convention. In this moment of uprising and community mobilization around police misconduct and accountability, NPAP’s program focuses on tools and strategies to serve our clients and the movement, while also facing the conflicts and challenges inherent in civil-rights litigation. We’ll discuss how to challenge and overcome the police Code of Silence and the doctrine of qualified immunity. We’ll also grapple with the tensions between abolitionist and reformist movement demands and litigation tactics and outcomes. We’ll also talk about how our lawsuits can both serve individual client needs and become tools for local organizing and accountability efforts. Expect to learn tips and strategies for your litigation toolbox along with critical reflections on how and why we do what we do as police misconduct lawyers.

Membership Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Subcommittee of the NLG International Committee.

UPDATE - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants and NLG members. Please do not circulate publicly.)
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What lessons are there in comparative social constructs, movements for Black liberation, and state and organizational responses to individual and systemic racism and anti-Blackness? This workshop will engage experts on Cuba and the U.S. on:

• The social construction of race and the applicability/limitations of critical legal and race theory outside of the U.S.                
• Movements for Black lives and the comparative trajectories of fights against anti-Blackness in Cuba and the U.S.             
• Dismantling structural racism and anti-Blackness through institutional, political and social interventions

Sponsors: NLG International Committee, Cuba Subcommittee, TUPOCC

Speakers:

Dr. Tamara Lee, Rutgers Univ. & NLG L&E Committee

Yanet Pumariega Pérez, Third Secretary, Cuban Embassy in Washington D.C.

August H. Nimtz, Jr, Professor at University of Minnesota

Esteban "Tatico" Jimenez Guerra, Afro-Cuban artist (between Harlem and Cuba)

Dr. Gail Walker, Director, IFCO Pastors for Peace (Moderator)







   

Membership Meeting of the NLG Anti-Racism Committee.

Membership Meeting for the NLG Mass Defense Committee. 

UPDATE - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! This event was publicly livestreamed, so feel free to share this recording widely!

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NOTE: In addition to broadcasting this over Zoom for convention registrants, we are livestreaming this event publicly at this link: https://livestream.com/accounts/19497242/events/9317384/player. (If you would like to circulate the event to non-registrants, please use the livestream link.)

Join us as we honor scholar, activist, and author Dr. Angela Davis with the 2020 Arthur Kinoy Award! For decades, Dr. Davis has worked to advance the mission of human rights over property interests through an intersectional approach to movements for global solidarity, prison abolition, and anti-carceral feminism. Watch her acceptance speech and she gives her thoughts on the current political moment, and the struggles ahead.

UPDATE - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants and NLG members. Please do not circulate publicly.)
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This panel brings together labor lawyers and leaders from around the globe to discuss what the pandemic has revealed about the structure of global capitalism, racial capitalism and exploitation, and the impact on workers in the global supply chain during COVID. Preliminary Reading for the major panel: "Until We Win: Black Labor and Liberation in the Disposable Era" by Kali Akuno (2015).

Sponsor: International Labor Justice Working Group

Speakers:

Moderator: Suzanne Adely, NLG IC & Food Chain Workers Alliance

Jaribu Hill, Executive Director of the Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights & NLG Member

Biju Mathew, International Alliance of App Based Transportation Workers

Max Bakwana, President of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADEL), Labor Advisor

Luisa Fernanda Duque, President of the Association of Latin American Labor Lawyers

Danielle Bisnar, Canadian Association of Labor Lawyers







   

UPDATE -  RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants and NLG members. Please do not circulate publicly.)

A reminder if you're an attorney seeking CLE credit for this program, please complete and submit the following forms that were emailed to you following the session:

• CLE Evaluation Form
• CLE Attendance Form

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CLE Credit: 1 hour for Recognition and Elimination of Bias in the Legal Profession and Society

Black, Palestinian, Indigenous, anti-fascist, and environmental justice movements have been attacked by both the state and ultra-right organizations as “terrorists.” The label is a tool to surveil, criminalize and repress our movements- both historically and currently. We will discuss how the branding is deployed to repress liberation movements using tactics such as: formal legal designations, broad surveillance authorization, the use of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to investigate and prosecute activists, lawsuits by far-right plaintiffs, and more. We will review how the terrorist labeling has attempted to neutralize movements, and how activists and movement lawyers collaborate to resist.

(CLE Credit will be given through the State Bar of CA. After the convention, we'll be emailing out attendance verification forms to all attendees.)

Speakers:

Amira Mattar is a Palestinian-American attorney, the Michael Ratner Justice Fellow at Palestine Legal, and an NLG-NYC member. She specializes in challenging the censorship, suppression and surveillance of Palestine rights advocates in the U.S.

Moira Meltzer-Cohen is an abolitionist, lawyer, and educator supporting people’s liberation movements, with a focus on advocacy for elderly and gender nonconforming persons in prison. She has engaged in grand jury litigation, criminal defense on behalf of people protecting land and water, and defended against politically repressive federal grand jury subpoenas.

Leoyla Cowboy is a legal worker born to the Dine Nation. Leoyla organized at Standing Rock, with the Water Protector Legal Collective, the Red Nation, and the NoDAPL Political Prisoners Support Committee. She has testified at the UN about the criminalization of Indigenous people fighting extraction of resources.

Ajamu Dillahunt is a decolonial activist for Palestinian and Black liberation, based in North Carolina, and a PhD student at Michigan State.

Marbre Stahly-Butts is the executive director of Law for Black Lives and founder of the National Bail Out Collective. She currently sits on the Leadership Team of the Movement for Black Lives Policy Table and helped develop the Vision for Black Lives Policy Platform.

UPDATE - RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants and NLG members. Please do not circulate publicly.)
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Building on last year's panel - "Restorative Justice, Reparations, and the War on Drugs" - panelists will discuss how and why cannabis companies and policies should center social equity and racial justice. Now that more than half the 50 states have some form of cannabis legalization and 10+ states are touting cannabis social equity, it is crucial to understand what's working, what's not, and why. We must support campaigns led by Black and Brown communities impacted by the war on drugs and develop clear standards and oversight for social equity programs.

Sponsor: NLG Drug Policy Committee

Speakers:

Cat Packer was appointed by the Los Angeles Mayor in 2017 to serve as the first Executive Director and General Manager of the Department of Cannabis Regulation, where Packer leads licensing and regulation of commercial cannabis activity within the City and implementation of the City's cannabis policies and programs. Packer previously served as California Policy Coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance, ensuring the equitable implementation of cannabis policy reforms. Packer also served as Campaign Coordinator for Californians for Responsible Marijuana Reform. Packer is an alumna of The Ohio State University where she received a Bachelor’s, Master’s and a Juris Doctor.

Akele Parnell is an attorney at Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights where he works to advance racial equity and inclusion in the marketplace, particularly within the cannabis industry. He is a member of the board of directors of Chicago NORML and the Cannabis Equity Illinois Coalition where he co-led the negotiation and implementation of the cannabis industry’s first community benefits agreement (CBA). He is also a member of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Task Force of the Cannabis Trade Federation. Previously, Akele was an in-house attorney for Chicago-based cannabis company, Green Thumb Industries Inc.

Shaleen Title was appointed in 2017 by the Massachusetts governor, treasurer, and attorney general to the Cannabis Control Commission’s social justice seat. She has won several awards for her advocacy work and efforts to bring more people of color into drug reform. Previously, she co-authored Massachusetts’ marijuana legalization and consulted on marijuana policy around the country. She served as founder of a woman-led recruiting firm and as a founding board member of the Minority Cannabis Business Association. She previously served on the board of the National Lawyers Guild. Title holds business, law, and Master’s degrees from the University of Illinois.

UPDATE 10/3: View the 2020 Awards Program Tribute Journal here and view the full recording of the 2020 Awards Ceremony here!

At the NLG 2020 Awards Ceremony, we will honor Guild members and allies whose exceptional work has contributed to social justice movements! Please join us as we present the following awards:

Law for the People Award: Minnesota NLG Chapter

Ernie Goodman Award: Jeanne Mirer

Legal Worker Award: Sara Kershnar

C.B. King (Law Student) Award: Jodi Hill

Carol King Award (National Immigration Project): Michael Wishnie

Show your support for the Guild by joining us to get inspired by the remarkable achievements of our members and renew your commitment to our vision and values!

Please note that this event will be livestreamed and recorded. Your participation constitutes consent to use your name and image. If you do not wish to be seen, please turn off your video. If you would not like your name to be visible to viewers, please leave the event and watch the livestream at nlg.org/convention.

* If you would like to download a virtual background for the celebration, please go to: nlg.org/awardsvirtualbackgrounds

To use the background once you have downloaded it and are in Zoom, click on the video icon at the bottom left of your zoom screen and select "Choose virtual background..." then click on the "+" on the right side of the pop up to upload. Please note that not all browsers allow the use of virtual backgrounds.

Can’t make it this year? You can still support the Guild by making a donation at www.nlg.org/2020donate

Membership Meeting of the NLG Disability Justice Committee.

Membership Meeting of NLG Legal Workers. 

UPDATE RECORDING AVAILABLE: Watch the recording of this program here! Password is (includes exclamation mark):

L4tP2020!

(NOTE: This recording is only meant to be accessed by convention registrants and NLG members. Please do not circulate publicly.)

Suzanne Adely (International Committee Co-Chair) and Pooja Gehi (NLG Executive Director) invite us to reflect on historical examples of State repression and movement resistance. By connecting this political moment to a global frame, panelists will brainstorm the role of the NLG in the struggle for peoples' liberation.