2024 has been jam packed with organizing and protesting so it’s only fitting that both of our annual celebration awardees are not just exemplary members of our movement lawyering community, they’re also dedicated activists.

This year’s Arthur Kinoy People’s Law Awardee Andy Thayer was once described as “a gigantic pain in the butt for law enforcement” by a retired Chicago Police Deputy Commander in a 2012 Sun-Times profile. For decades, Andy has been a mainstay of Chicago’s social justice movement, organizing campaigns and supporting young activists, all while serving as Loevy + Loevy’s office manager since 2003. As co-founder of the multi-issue, LGBTQ Gay Liberation Network, he has long worked to provide an intersectional voice within the LGBTQ community, helping spearhead the fight for equal marriage rights in Illinois years before “mainstream” activists joined the fight. He has focused on raising issues not popular with corporate gay activists such as support for Chelsea Manning, solidarity with Palestinians, opposition to gentrification, and opposing United States’ many wars. 

NLG Chicago is also excited to honor Rifqa Falaneh with the Trailblazer Award. Throughout 2024, our Mass Defense Committee has worked with Rifqa to support students targeted by their universities for activism in support of Palestine. She is the Michael Ratner Justice Fellow at Palestine Legal where she challenges the censorship, surveillance, and suppression of advocates for Palestinian liberation. She is the founder of Bar None at UIUC Law, a civil rights organization dedicated to uplifting the legal struggles of marginalized communities. In the summer of 2022, Rifqa was an Ella Baker intern at the Center for Constitutional Rights where she worked on Palestine solidarity cases, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and research on aiding and abetting a tort in New York for international crimes. She previously served as President of SJP DePaul and helped re-establish SJP Chicago in 2019.

We hope that you’ll join us on September 28th at Haymarket House to honor these incredible members of our movement lawyering community! 

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As the Democratic National Convention (DNC) came to a close on Thursday, the Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is issuing a postmortem on the police response and the way in which the Chicago Police Department (CPD) facilitated the detention of dozens of protesters. Massive shows of force, brutality, and mass arrests define the police response to protests during the week. CPD conducted a total of 76 arrests from Sunday through Tuesday—two on Sunday, thirteen on Monday, 59 on Tuesday and 2 on Thursday—which resulted mainly in municipal citations for disorderly conduct, but also several people charged with misdemeanors, as well as four felonies. NLG Chicago received reports of several people who were injured as a result of the police melee on Tuesday outside the Israeli consulate. One protestor is in court process and all other protesters arrested this week were ordered released on their DNC related cases.

NLG Chicago received multiple reports throughout the week of arrested protesters needing hospitalization. Four hospitalizations resulted from police abuse, two of which were confirmed by the arrestees themselves, and two were confirmed by CPD Superintendent Snelling in press conferences. One person who was injured by Chicago police on Sunday during their arrest was taken to Insight Hospital, then held in the 1st District until they were released on Monday night. Another protester arrested on Monday was taken to Stroger Hospital, then held in the 12th District, where she was shackled by her legs and arms to a wall so tightly, it resulted in swelling in each of her joints. Two other protesters arrested on Monday needed critical medication during their detention and were hospitalized as a result. Members of NLG Chicago have independently confirmed each of these reports with the arrestees themselves.

During the week of protests, police made the decision to hold arrestees charged with municipal violations in custody for hours at a time, despite having the discretion to cite and release them in accordance with the Pretrial Fairness Act, a state law implemented in September 2023. NLG Chicago also received multiple reports of arrestees being questioned by detectives at Area 3, while lawyers were at the station waiting to meet with their clients.

Notably, NLG Chicago was often obstructed by police from tracking arrestees in custody, unnecessarily complicating a process that NLG Chicago was assured in the weeks prior to the convention would run smoothly. This occurred at district stations throughout the city, but especially at the 19th District at Belmont and Western, where the majority of arrestees were held. NLG Chicago was often unable to confirm arrestees in detention, denied timely access, and not allowed to have private attorney-client phone calls with arrestees in custody. These complications hampered efforts by NLG Chicago to ensure clients weren’t questioned, to check on their well-being, and publicly report accurate numbers of arrestees.

Throughout the week, NLG Chicago staffed a 24/7 hotline, tracked down 76 arrestees, and dispatched dozens of legal observers everyday to numerous actions to support everyone in the streets and parks fighting for justice.

On the second day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the Chicago Police Department (CPD) continued to use massive shows of force—far outnumbering protesters during a Palestine solidarity demonstration at the Israeli Consulate in downtown Chicago—to arrest 72 people. In response to protesters rallying and marching, police provoked confrontations, rushed the crowd, indiscriminately arrested people on the sidewalk, and entrapped groups in order to carry out mass arrests. The Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) received reports of at least two journalists arrested by CPD tonight.

“The repressive police response to a Palestine solidarity protest at the Israeli Consulate seemed preplanned and designed to stifle free expression during the Democratic National Convention,” said Ben Meyer from the Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. “Assurances that the City would respect people’s First Amendment rights during the convention rings hollow next to this brazenly aggressive approach to free expression.”

NLG Chicago deployed more than two-dozen Legal Observers to monitor police conduct and track arrests during tonight’s demonstration. With the help of Legal Observers, NLG Chicago is able to track arrestees during their detention. Arrested protesters were taken to the 19th District Police Station at Belmont and Western.

The Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is condemning the aggressive and, at times, violent response by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) toward protesters at the start of the Democratic National Convention (DNC). CPD’s response includes massive shows of force at multiple demonstrations held so far, with hundreds of police officers lining march routes and surrounding protesters. A total of 14 protesters have been arrested as of Monday night, including two on Sunday and 12 on Monday. Two protesters have needed hospitalization as a result of their arrests by CPD. 

On Sunday, CPD officers followed groups of protesters leaving a Palestine solidarity march down Michigan Avenue, later arresting two activists, one of whom was assaulted by CPD officers during their arrest, resulting in the person’s hospitalization. Another protester arrested on Monday while marching between Union Park and the United Center, where the DNC is being held, also needed hospitalization as a result of being roughed up by CPD. Members of NLG Chicago saw police follow several protesters leaving the Sunday march, arresting them in parking lots and on side streets.

Both protesters arrested on Sunday were held for hours before being allowed to speak to a lawyer, and were not allowed to make private phone calls with attorneys at the police station in violation of CPD policies and procedures and the law.

The Poor People’s Army and a protest encampment in Union Park experienced targeted harassment from CPD when members were prevented from pitching tents in city parks, despite the fact that every day the City of Chicago rightfully allows unhoused people to sleep in tents in public parks.

NLG Chicago is supporting thousands of protesters at the DNC this week by providing “Know Your Rights” trainings for activists and organizers, deploying scores of Legal Observers on the streets to monitor police conduct at protests, staffing a hotline to track and support protesters when they’re arrested, and responding to police stations to offer legal representation.

Yesterday, 65 legal organizations, lawyers and legal workers signed onto an open letter to Chicago Police Superintendent Snelling and Mayor Johnson expressing their grave concerns about recent actions of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and City of Chicago aimed at stopping protestors from demonstrating during the Democratic Convention. The lawyers also took issue with the way in which CPD has violently addressed protestors seeking a ceasefire and justice in Palestine over the past year.  The coalition of attorneys are calling on the CPD and City of Chicago to respect demonstrators First Amendment rights during the convention. This includes but is not limited to allowing protestors to march, providing orders to disperse and giving demonstrators ample opportunities to leave before making arrests as well as calling on the CPD to follow state law and their own policies to cite and release protestors, as opposed to arresting them.

The legal coalition expressed concern about: 1) CPD Superintendent Snelling’s comments that the CPD may arrest peaceful protestors and they took offense at his “gross mischaracterization” describing the 2020 summer protests in support of Black Lives as “rioting,” 2) revisions the CPD made to its mass arrest policy which they contend may further license officers to engage in excessive force with impunity; 3) Corporation Counsel’s efforts to punish pro-Palestinian demonstrators in pursuing convictions for misdemeanors for mere ordinance violations for obstructing traffic; and 4) CPD’s communication of contradictory information regarding where people will be jailed and how they can be located. 

The letter concludes by sharing, “we as a legal community are organized and prepared to ensure that protestors’ rights are honored and respected. If necessary, we will hold the CPD and other law enforcement agencies accountable should they eviscerate people’s constitutional rights.  Please do not force us to do so.”

Legal organizations that signed on include: ACLU of Illinois, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, Children’s Best Interest Project, The Civil Rights & Police Accountability Project of the University of Chicago Law School, First Defense Legal Aid, Illinois Black Advocacy Initiative, Kaplan & Grady, Law for Black Lives, Loevy + Loevy, Movement Law Lab, Muslims for Just Futures, National Lawyers Guild: Chicago, National Lawyers Guild: Loyola, National Lawyers Guild: University Chicago Chapter, Palestine Legal and People’s Law Office.

In a letter sent to the University of Chicago, the Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and more than 150 lawyers, legal workers, law professors, law students, and organizations are calling on the University to drop all disciplinary actions being taken against its students who participated in protests against the genocide in Gaza, and to stop the sanctions it is seeking against the NLG Campus Chapter. 

The University of Chicago has been a historic site of student activism. Students have participated in demonstrations, occupied school buildings, and engaged in civil disobedience in support of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and in advocacy for an end to the Vietnam War. The students are now demanding that the University disclose their investments and divest from all material support for the apartheid state of Israel. They are demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza and an end to Israeli apartheid. 

In response, the University’s administration has threatened students with suspensions and expulsions for participating in constitutionally protected free speech activities. The University also allowed its police force to violently clear the students’ encampment on May 7th. 

In its harsh stance against the students and their NLG Campus Chapter, the University has betrayed its highest principles of freedom of expression and places itself on the wrong side of history once again.