National Lawyers Guild

To the Editors:

For more than thirty years there has been a national organization that has, without fanfare, worked for and with all groups that are striving for a society in the United States that more adequately meets the needs of its people. Members of the National Lawyers Guild have provided legal defense for nearly all critical political trials during that thirty-year period. The most recent include Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Reies Tijerina, Benjamin Spock, the Oakland 7, and Chicago 8 (now 10). The NLG and its members developed materials on techniques of trying political cases, military and draft cases, tenant union problems, and many other movement-oriented legal-political issues. It was the pioneer in legal defense of the civil rights activists of the 1960s.

With the people intensifying their struggles and with repression increasing at an alarming rate, the need for a strong National Lawyers Guild is critical.

The 1970 Guild Convention recently approved a program which includes the following: a national Legal Defense Committee which will provide the best means for a coordinated Legal response to governmental attack upon movements for social change; the establishment of new Guild chapters and the creation of permanent Guild regional offices across the country, where young lawyers can provide legal assistance to those engaged in the struggle and where the Guild can organize and train lawyers and law students to meet the ever increasing demands for political-legal skills.

The National Lawyers Guild urgently needs funds to carry out this program. Guild lawyers give heavily of their time, skills, and money. Our own resources are inadequate to the magnitude of the task involved, You must help. Send contributions large or small to:

National Lawyers Guild

1 Hudson Street

New York, N.Y. 10013

Charles R. Garry

Member

National Lawyers Guild

San Francisco, California