The National Lawyers Guild Chicago condemns the recent actions of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC), which attempted to sanction Sheryl Ring, Esq, an Illinois attorney, for filing a federal lawsuit against the ARDC last month for their refusal to prohibit discrimination against transgender and gender nonconforming attorneys and litigants. While we are pleased to see that the ARDC has now stated that this attempt was done so in error, we join Ms. Ring in demanding that the ARDC prohibit attorneys and judges from engaging in gender identity discrimination against any attorney practicing law in the State of Illinois.

Post-Bostock, 47 States —all but Illinois, Alabama, and Mississippi—prohibit lawyers and judges from engaging in gender identity discrimination in their Rules of Professional Conduct; the ARDC is the only State agency in Illinois to ignore Bostock. The ARDC actively discriminates against transgender Illinois attorneys on the basis of sex and gender identity through ongoing practices of outing and deadnaming transgender attorneys.

The ARDC is meant to be an avenue of transparency and accountability for residents in the state—to ensure that attorneys practice in alignment with the profession’s ethical standards, policies, and procedures. The ARDC’s purpose is to regulate the legal profession to ensure that clients and the broader public are protected from misconduct. The ARDC is not a weapon to be wielded against transgender and gender non-conforming attorneys.

The guiding principle of the National Lawyers Guild is that human rights and the rights of ecosystems shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests. It is profoundly disturbing–to the point of professional incompetence– that the state’s key accountability body for attorneys has not moved to prohibit discrimination against transgender attorneys in their policies and procedures.

We demand that the ARDC immediately end the practice of discrimination against transgender attorneys in the State of Illinois. Ms. Ring has repeatedly stated that she simply wants the State of Illinois and the ARDC to refrain from discrimination on the basis of gender-identity. Ending discrimination against transgender attorneys is the only moral path forward for the ARDC whose stated mission is “promoting and protecting the integrity of the legal profession.”

Will you consider being a sponsor of the NLG Chicago 2021 Annual Celebration? We are virtual this year and will show sponsorship ads as part of the digital event.  Last day to purchase sponsorships is Oct 27th!

This year we are honored to be presenting our annual Kinoy Award posthumously to Brian Nelson, a formerly incarcerated activist who worked to fight solitary confinement in Illinois prisons. We are also introducing our inaugural Trailblazer Award and will be announcing the winner at the event.  We have sponsorship levels ranging from $100 to $1500. Sponsorship purchases close on Wednesday, Oct 27th, so buy now! Sponsorships can be purchased on the event website. To pay via check or another method, email chicago@nlg.org.

Name Listing ($100)

Name listed on the event website, and in the event slide show. Must be purchased by Oct 27th

Sponsorship – Supporter ($500)

Half-screen ad in the event slideshow; name listed on our event website and social media. Must be purchased and ads must be emailed to chicago@nlg.org by October 27th.

Sponsorship – Mobilizer ($1,000)

Full-screen ad in the event slideshow, and name will be mentioned by the event MC during the celebration. Plus name listed on event website, on event promotional materials, and on NLG Chicago website. Must be purchased and ads must be emailed to chicago@nlg.org by October 27th.

Sponsorship – Revolutionary ($1,500)

Full-screen ad in the event slideshow, and the opportunity to talk about your organization during the event, in addition to your name being mentioned by the event MC. Plus name listed on event website, on event promotional materials, and on NLG Chicago website. Must be purchased and ads must be emailed to chicago@nlg.org by October 27th.

At this year’s Annual Celebration, NLG Chicago will be announcing the inaugural Trailblazer Award. The Trailblazer Award is an opportunity to highlight someone who pushes boundaries within movement work, or creates resources that people previously may not have imagined or believed were possible in their community. We seek to honor a Trailblazer involved in movement work in the Chicagoland area that embodies the NLG Mission.

Many amazing candidates were nominated and our finalists are Marsheda Ewulomi, Emmanuel Andre & Christian Snow! Each finalist will have a donation made in their honor to an organization of their choice. The finalist who receives the most votes will be honored as our 2021 Trailblazer Awardee and given a platform to speak about their work at our virtual Annual Celebration on Nov 13th. Visit www.tinyurl.com/NLGChi2021 to purchase tickets to the event. Please see the bios below for reference and cast your votes! Voting closes at midnight on Sunday, Oct 17th.

Finalists:

Marsheda Ewulomi
Marsheda Ewulomi (she/her) works at BPI as Staff Counsel focused on police accountability. She played an integral role in bringing community coalitions together to further the passage of the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS). Marsheda specializes in supporting grassroots coalition work and providing creative policy and strategic support to communities. She owns her own consulting company, She-Verse LLC, focused on supporting women and girls in identifying who they are and owning their power. Marsheda is driven by the power of narrative to transform lives: the narrative associated with an issue, the story that is missing to inform policy, and the narrative that must be shared to motivate collective action.

Please donate to Chicago Freedom School on behalf of Marsheda Ewulomi.

Emmanuel Andre
Emmanuel Andre (he/his) is passionate about creating spaces that center the lived experiences of communities impacted by the criminal legal system. Mr. Andre has over 10 years of experience litigating complex criminal cases. A restorative justice practitioner, he co-created Circles and Ciphers, an organization which incorporates hip hop into its work of conflict resolution independent of the courts with a path towards healing. Additionally, he has helped launch several innovative solutions to violence, working towards abolition through community partnerships. Mr. Andre is currently the Deputy of Policy and Strategic Litigation at the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender.

Please donate to Circles and Ciphers on behalf of Emmanuel Andre.

Christian Snow
Christian Snow (she/her) is a long-time resident of Chicago’s west side and Program Director at the Illinois Justice Project, a non-profit that engages in criminal legal system reforms to make communities safer and reduce carceral systems. There she works to bridge gaps between grassroots organizers building power and policy advocates implementing reforms. She previously worked as an Associate Attorney at People’s Law Office, focused on civil rights cases. Additionally, Christian was the first Executive Director of Assata’s Daughters, a Black women-led, young person-focused abolitionist organization rooted in the Black radical tradition, that serves as a political home for young Black people in Chicago where they can build community as they learn to become rigorous and effective organizers.

Please donate to Assata’s Daughters on behalf of Christian Snow.

Check out what NLG Chicago attorneys have been saying in the news during the uprising.

Listen to attorney Brad Thomson on WBEZ talking about protesters’ rights, and Jani Hoft discussing Chicago Police Department’s seizure of protesters’ bicycles.

NLG is currently a co-plaintiff in two lawsuits, one to prevent federal troops from coming to Chicago and one over access to counsel in lock-up.   MacArthur Justice Center’s site has more coverage of the suit on access to counsel, as does WTTW, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Reporter and Block Club.

These two articles from Injustice Watch and Time Magazine mention the NLG Chicago and quote a few of our members voicing their frustration with CPD’s chaotic tactics of intimidation and suppression.

 

Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office Announces it will
Drop Some Charges against Black Lives Matters Protestors

On Tuesday, June 30, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO)  announced in a memo to all Assistant State’s Attorneys that it would be declining to prosecute a number of charges against people arrested at recent protests against anti-Black racism and police violence. 

This announcement comes after calls to drop the charges have come from local activists, community groups and legal organizations including the National Lawyers Guild of Chicago (NLG Chicago.) The announcement follows similar announcements by prosecutors across the country, in cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Denver, and others. 

We anticipate that this will lead to a large number of protest-related cases being dropped. However, it DOES NOT include all the protest related cases. 

The memo issued by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx (available here) lists five types of charges that are “most likely to be the result of a protest-related arrest” and states that there will be a “presumption of dismissal” for those cases. Additionally, the memo lists eight types of charges where there will be a “presumption against proceeding” unless a Police Officer is the complaining witness or there is Body Worn Camera footage to support the charge. 

It still remains to be seen which specific cases the SAO will be pursuing and which ones they will drop. 

It is also important to note that this applies ONLY to the Cook County SAO and does NOT apply to the Chicago City prosecutors who prosecute city issued ordinance violations. Independent of Kim Foxx’s Office, the City of Chicago has brought charges against protestors for violating City ordinances. As stated in the Foxx memo, these protest-related municipal violations are largely for “disorderly conduct” and “curfew violations.” 

The City has not indicated that it will drop any of these charges written up as violations of the municipal law. We believe there are hundreds of people being charged with violating these City laws whose charges are unaffected by the Foxx memo. Neither the mayor or the corporation counsel of the City of Chicago have made any statement or pronouncement that they do not intend to prosecute the city charges against protestors.  

For individuals who are facing charges related to the recent uprisings and have contacted NLG for legal support, this announcement does not mean you don’t have to appear at court. Unless you have received information from the court or from your attorney that you do not need to appear in court, you should still plan to appear at your first court date. 

For those attorneys who have volunteered with the NLG to provide pro bono representation to the individuals arrested at the recent protests and uprisings, we will still be relying on your assistance and support.

As long as there continue to be charges brought against people who are taking action against state violence and white supremacy, we will continue to organize to provide legal support to those people. 

We call on Lori Lightfoot and the City of Chicago to follow suit and DROP ALL CITY CHARGES related to these protests. 

For years, people arrested in Chicago have been illegally denied access to phone calls and lawyers. And in the last month, many of the 2,600+ demonstrators who faced arrest for participating in Black Lives Matter protests were also denied access to legal counsel.

This week, NLG Chicago joined a broad coalition of activists and attorneys who are suing the City of Chicago in an effort to stop this practice. Black Lives Matter Chicago, the #LetUsBreathe Collective, STOP Chicago, Ujimaa Medics, GoodKids MadCity, and the Cook County Public Defender’s Office are all co-plaintiffs in the case. 

As #LetUsBreathe Collective organizer Damon Williams told the Chicago Tribune after being held for hours without access to an attorney: “This is a system of disappearance, this is a system of torture… Our institution that we pay to so-called protect and serve, which they don’t do, they hunt and capture, that hunting and capturing is not even done within the very basic laws that we have set up.”  

The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday, charges that “The City of Chicago, through its agents at the [Chicago Police Department], maintains both official and de facto policies intended to prevent detainees from accessing legal representation. 

These policies include: 

 

• refusing to allow people in CPD custody access to a phone for extended periods of time or at all; 

• refusing to inform attorneys where their clients are being held in custody when directly asked for location information; 

• refusing to allow attorneys physical access to police stations where their clients are being held; 

• conditioning telephone access on a client’s waiver of state law and their constitutional rights; 

• and refusing to display the [Public Defender’s] Police Station Representation Unit (PSRU) hotline number in CPD stations so that detainees do not know how to get in touch with an attorney. 

 

The City of Chicago has a long record of condoning incommunicado detention in its police stations. … It has blocked attorneys from accessing clients until after their clients were charged. CPD officers have intimidated detainees from seeking counsel and denied them the use of telephones. And by cutting off access to the outside world, CPD ensures that detainees have no protection from police abuse, including coercive interrogations.”

You can learn more by watching the YouTube video of the press conference held when the case was filed, visiting MacArthur Justice Center’s site on the case, and reading news coverage from WTTW, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Reporter and Block Club.