The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) will be providing legal support to protesters throughout the course of the Republican and Democratic national conventions. Undoubtedly the most visible part of this effort will be our teams of trained Legal Observers® (LOs), who will attend demonstrations across Tampa and Charlotte carrying notebooks and sporting bright green caps. These observers have become a common sight at protests over the past few decades, but we often hear questions about their role, so we figured we'd explain the basics here.
What LOs are for:
The Anti-Capitalist Brigade started gathering early on May Day at Oakland’s Snow Park. There was free coffee, oatmeal, doughnuts, fliers with the day’s agenda and plenty of pot. A “street medic” — “I just finished a wilderness first-aid course,” he told me when I asked about his training — tended to his first case of the day, a man in his 20s whose leg had been beaten to a purple hue with a metal rod in an overnight fight in the park. Nearby, an organizer reminded protesters to take down the toll-free number for the National Lawyers Guild: “This is important.
"We are under the impression that the whole country is a free speech zone," said Michael Zytkow, a 26-year-old organizer for Occupy Charlotte. "We were bothered by the idea of any government-designated playground."
Carol Sobel, a lawyer from Santa Monica, California, who co-chairs the Mass Defense Committee of the National Lawyers Guild, asked, "Who'd want to use it? You're talking to yourself."
Her group works to push back against what it views as government attempts to stifle dissent.
WASHINGTON — As copycat Occupy Wall Street encampments around the country confront the inevitable legal tangles that come with a nationwide sit-in style protest, a growing army of First Amendment-loving lawyers is shepherding the demonstrators through the legal system at no charge.
Growing numbers of protesters are being arrested for trespassing, failure to disperse and disobeying a lawful order, as city after city confronts the question of whether individual rights to free speech and assembly include the right to camp out on public property.
The Oakland Police Department may have violated a 2003 agreement for handling street protests when it descended on an Occupy Oakland street protest Tuesday night, say lawyers affiliated with the National Lawyers Guild. That group, which is offering legal advice to protesters
arrested Tuesday, helped draft the 2003 policies on how to manage crowded protests, including appropriate use of rubber bullets, tear gas and other less-than-lethal forces.
Hundreds of attorneys, law students and other legal minds are volunteering their skills to protect the rights of protesters in the Occupy movement, according to the National Lawyers Guild.
"Someone needs to get over to Bank of America."
The shout—aimed at a handful of National Lawyers Guild members gathered around a folding table—came from a group of some 200 people bunched together in lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, a grassless plaza that is the headquarters of the month-old, anti-corporate demonstration known as Occupy Wall Street.
"I'll go," said Zainab Akbar.
As Sandy showed Many activists now appearing in court had organised relief during the storm. Hopefully NYPD officers will remember that.
Ninety-nine people arrested during Occupy Wall Street's 17 September anniversary actions had their court dates last week. They trooped into the courthouse accompanied by green-hatted legal observers and National Lawyers Guild representatives, and faced the judge. Their charges mostly boiled down to "being part of a public protest".
“It’s going to be a long day for you guys – they’ve already started arresting people downtown,” the senior court officer told me on the morning of November 17. Two days after the raid on Zuccotti Park, the 17th was a day of mass demonstrations confronting the injustices of global capital at its symbolic center in the Financial District. A five-minute walk from Wall Street at the Manhattan Criminal Court, it was also arraignment day for 30 of more than 700 people arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge six weeks earlier.
This year’s RNC and DNC presented a demanding set of circumstances for NLG protest support efforts. Both conventions were held in cities with no NLG chapter and with few or no NLG members. Drawing on the expertise, time, and passion of members across the country, as well as a phenomenal group of new student members from Charlotte Law School, Mass Defense Coordinator Abi Hassen and a team of volunteers provided Legal Observers® at every major protest and 24-hour legal support hotlines in both Tampa and
Charlotte.
Tampa