Major panels (1.5 hours) and workshops (1 hour) are the main political and educational components of the NLG #Law4thePeople Convention. Organized by NLG members, chapters, regions, committees, projects, and allied organizations, these events offer legal analysis, trainings, and opportunities to reflect on the current state of the world from a Guild perspective. In 2024, major panels and workshops will cover topics related to Palestine solidarity work, Indigenous rights, environmental justice, legal education, the unhoused crisis, U.S. imperialism, prison litigation, and much more!
Major panels and workshops take place Thursday October 31-Sunday November 3. Some events will include CLE credits, which will be announced in the coming weeks.
Note: Titles, content, and speakers are subject to change.
To register, or for more information about the Convention, visit nlg.org/convention.
Half-Day and Full-Day CLE’s
We are excited to offer CLE’s for convention attendees. The following are CLE’s that will be provided during our #Law4ThePeople convention. Please register separately if you wish to attend and receive credit.
[Full-Day] Military Resistance and the Law (Military Law Task Force)
[Half-Day ] Liberation Strategies for Incarcerated Persons (National Police Accountability Project)
[Half-Day] Disability Discrimination In The Law And Beyond (Disability Justice Committee)
*CLE Credit pending through the Alabama State Bar.*
Major Panels (1.5 Hours)
Criminalizing the Right to Dissent for Palestine and Cross-Movement Solidarity
Since October 7, the Palestine solidarity movement has endured attacks at unprecedented levels. We’ve seen attempts to stifle Palestinian activism through legislation, the criminalization of campus encampments/protests, employment repercussions, harassment and discrimination, and more. Tactics used against the Palestine liberation movement are the same ones historically deployed against other social justice movements, namely #StopCopCity, the struggle for Indigenous sovereignty, and the movement for Black lives. This panel will highlight the importance of building cross-movement solidarity and ways to fight against repression as we continue to move toward collective liberation.
Representing Revolutionaries
This panel will focus on the period from the late 1960’s to early 1980’s when progressive attorneys, many members of the NLG, stepped up to represent members of the BLA, FALN and other revolutionary groups. The panelists will be asked to address why they took on that representation, the political issues involved, the lessons they learned and how those lessons can help us today.
Indigenous Peoples, Climate Chaos, and Carbon Colonialism
The Carbon Markets are a new form of colonialism creating significant threats to Indigenous Peoples globally and to Indian Tribes in the US specifically. The whole premise of carbon markets is contrary to traditional Indigenous Knowledge, and the agreements on Indian lands lock it up for decades and further erode tribal sovereignty by waiving sovereign immunity and limit tribal jurisdictional authority.
Changing The World, One Legal Education At A Time
This panel will consist of diverse legal education professionals and law students with lived experience addressing the barriers, opportunities, and realities of accessing a legal education as members of diverse underrepresented populations. Framed by issues of persistent inaccessibility, the panel will share the unique challenges they encountered while applying to and attending law school. Furthermore, each panel member will deconstruct how the barriers they’ve encountered influenced their career trajectories following graduation.
Workshops (1 Hour)
Canary in the Coal Mine: Exploring the Intersection of Environmental Justice and the Labor Movement through Alabama’s Black Warrior River
This workshop will bring together Alabamians with different relationships to the environmental justice movement in order to explore the aftermath of the strike at Warrior Met Coal, the longest strike in Alabama history. During the strike, Warrior Met’s Mine 7 discharged large amounts of pollutants into Black Warrior River, a major source of drinking water for the area. We will discuss the lawsuit brought by Black Warrior Riverkeeper against Warrior Met as well as the strike, and will explore the intersections of workers’ rights and environmental justice.
Law as a Tool: Litigating for Palestine
Over the past year, universities, employers and government officials have been engaging in a McCarthyite crackdown on advocacy for Palestinian rights. But activists are fighting back — with help from movement lawyers! From challenging the Biden administration’s complicity in genocide, to suing Columbia for unlawfully suspending the Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters, movement lawyers are using litigation as a tool to defend those at the frontlines of the movement. Join panelists as they speak on the successes and challenges of litigating Palestine in the courtroom — and learn how you can help the movement at this critical time.
Representation Is Not Enough: Youth Justice and The Case for Legal Empowerment with Youth of Color
As police militarization reaches an all time high, young people on the frontlines of organizing are experiencing ever increasing danger. Racial capitalism and adultism are created and maintained by the legal system, and function as barriers for youth advocates hoping to access legal resources.In response to this legal crisis, PDP seeks to provide legal tools that make law a super power for young people. Rather than simply providing representation, movement lawyers have a responsibility to share power with young organizers of color. This workshop trains lawyers to use their access and privilege as a means to strengthen the autonomy of youth leaders. To reduce the gatekeeping of legal knowledge, lawyers must build trust through shared decision making, and informed consent when working with young organizers.
How NLG Can Support in the Unhoused Crisis
This workshop will highlight the many ways that NLG can be involved in supporting our unhoused community members and countering the effects of discriminatory and traumatizing policies that continue to place folks in harm’s way. Expanding on organizing efforts happening in the Far West at the local and state levels, participants will learn how individuals from different areas of intersect can engage, from direct outreach and services to ticket defense clinics, legal observation, and the development of impact litigation.
Challenging Court Secrecy in Prison Litigation
Prison and detention litigation often involves matters of life and death, public policy, and major local, state, and federal expenditures. It is far too common that critical evidence and rulings about such matters are kept from public disclosure via protective orders and orders to seal. In this workshop, facilitators will discuss the scope and predominance of non-public filings in prison litigation; explore the reasons why practitioners often acquiesce to secrecy; offer insight into how such information, if made public, can be useful to movements and the media; and share practical guidance to litigators seeking to maximize transparency. The workshop will highlight recent efforts to unseal court records in a prison conditions case against the federal Bureau of Prisons as a case study (California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. BOP). Written materials will include sample briefs and a model protective order. Finally, workshop participants will practice crafting sample protective order provisions aimed at maximizing access to matters of public interest while fervently protecting litigants’ sensitive personal information.
How to Sue US Government Officials and Companies who Incite and Profit in Genocide, War Crimes, and Apartheid
This one hour workshop is designed to be a birds-eye blueprint to provide interested litigators the overview to begin suing companies and officials that contribute to war crimes, apartheid and genocide. The workshop will particularly focus on private litigators suing these criminal actors for money damages in US courts. The panelists will speak from their specialized experience and scholarship about US statutes and federal court precedent and how they may be used, or were not successful in being used- to address these particular crimes in US Courts. Discussions will be had about direct liability, aiding and abetting, civil remedies, status of past international and domestic law and cases on these issues. This workshop will examine recent legislation and international law, including the ICJ’s recent findings and anti-BDS legislation. The panelists will briefly introduce statutory vehicles that have been successfully used by victims of terrorism in the past. Participants will be provided with pitfalls and successes in suing US companies for their human rights violations, and how this has been/can be extended to weapons manufacturers, banks, and technology companies in US courts, under specific US statutes, US court precedent, and using internationally adopted/ ratified laws. Anti Terrorism Statutes will be discussed, specifically 18 U.S.C. 2333(a) and (d), Alien Tort Statute as vehicles in pursuit of accountability.
Reportback from the First Legal Brigade to Cuba – Law For the People Brigade
Workshop speakers will represent a brigade of 25 lawyers, law students, legal workers, and non-legal workers who traveled to Cuba in August 2024. The brigade is visiting Cuba with the purpose of creating teach-in materials and writings on the Cuban legal system, people power within that system, how the blockade is viewed under international law, and how these topics are connected to local struggles. During the panel we will present our teach-in materials and share insights about the process of creating these documents and forming a brigade.
Fighting Confederate Monuments
There has been a growing movement across the South to remove or remove monuments to the Confederacy or to place them in historic context. Many have been removed, many more remain and many defend them. Alabama has passed a “Monument Preservation Act,” making it unlawful to remove or alter monuments, schools, streets, etc. This panel will discuss both political advocacy and potential litigation around Confederate monuments and how the two can augment each other.
Sanctions, Blockades and Coercive Economic Measures: Confronting U.S. Imperialism
The NLG was a co-sponsor of the International People’s Tribunal on US Imperialism: Sanctions, Blockades, Coercive Economic Measures.Following the verdict of the tribunal — and the US-backed genocide in Gaza — it is more urgent than ever to put that verdict into practice through both litigation and a popular campaign. This workshop will discuss the effects of sanctions in Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Palestine (with a particular focus on Gaza), Haiti, and nations around the world, as well as the resistance in these countries. It will also serve as a major launching and promotion point for the new campaign to involve Guild chapters, students, and a mass movement in confronting US imperialism through directly challenging sanctions and blockades.
Narrative and Non-Legal Intervention for Lawyers
As our legal remedies are limited, it’s important to understand the ways in which narrative interventions can be made. In this workshop, panelists plan to discuss strategies and experiences of how narrative and the media is utilized to bring about change that the law cannot. Panelists will also discuss what to look out for when defending and framing a communication strategy when taking on Palestine-related cases.
Hot Topics Workshops (1 Hour)
The category of Hot Topics are 1-hour workshops based on events that took place after the original programming deadline in June.
Solidarity with Uhuru 3: Rising Political Repression in the US
The Uhuru 3 are Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP); Penny Hess, Chair of the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC); and Jesse Nevel, Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM). In April 2023, the Uhuru 3 were indicted by the U.S. government on bogus charges of being “agents of a foreign government”. The charges came nine months after the FBI and local police violently raided seven homes and properties of the APSP and Uhuru Movement in St. Louis, MO and St. Petersburg, FL on July 29, 2022.These charges carry prison sentences of up to 15 years each. The case came to trial on September 3rd in a federal courthouse in Tampa, Florida and the jury repudiated the foreign agent charges. This workshop will feature a small panel of defendants and one lawyer to present on the details of the prosecution of the UHURU 3 and the abuse of FARA and Conspiracy laws. Panelists will talk about this in the context of growing political repression and rising number of civil and criminal charges targeting several movements in the United States with a focus on how to fight back.
Wrongful Conviction and Community Activism: How Non-Litigation Advocacy in Individual Cases Can Spotlight Egregious Systemic Injustice
Toforest Johnson is a Black man who has spent more than 25 years on death row in Alabama and is at risk of being executed for the 1995 murder of Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff William G. Hardy despite the fact that even the prosecutor who put him on death row believes he should have a new trial. The Birmingham community has rallied in support of Mr. Johnson, whose case illustrates the tragically daunting challenge of undoing a “settled” murder case – even when almost everyone involved has serious doubts about the integrity of the conviction. We intend the workshop to focus on two related topics: (1) the failure of the legal system to provide remedies in the postconviction context, even when the jurisdiction’s own law enforcement leaders no longer stand by a conviction; and (2) the role that community organizing efforts can play in complementing litigation efforts to raise awareness about injustice in the criminal legal system and capital cases in particular.
