Mission of the 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 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.

The objects of the organization shall be:

1. To aid in making the United States and the State Constitutions and law and the administrative and judicial agencies of government responsive to the will of the American people;
2. To protect and foster our democratic institutions and civil rights and liberties of all people;
3. To aid in the establishment of governmental and professional agencies to supply adequate legal services to all who are in need and cannot obtain it;
4. To promote justice in the administration of the law;
5. To aid in the adoption of laws for the economic and social welfare of the people;
6. To keep the people informed upon legal matters affecting the public interest;
7. To encourage, in the study of law, a consideration of the social and economic aspects of the law;
8. To improve the ethical standards which must guide the lawyer in the performance of his or her professional and social duties; and
9. To promote world unity through collaboration among the Bars of members of the United Nations.

- from the Constitution of the National Lawyers Guild