On March 27, the John Marshall National Lawyers Guild put together a panel of four attorneys from diverse public interest fields to discuss their practices and offer advice on navigating law school and developing a career as a people’s lawyer.

The speakers were:

Molly Armour

Criminal defense attorney at the Law Office of Molly Armour.

Emily Coffey

Housing justice attorney at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.

andre douglas pond cummings

Visiting professor at The John Marshall Law School.

Samoane Williams

Policy director at Raise the Floor Alliance.

On Saturday February 24, the John Marshall Law School chapter of the National Lawyers Guild hosted a day of panel discussions concerning the fight against mass incarceration and deportation. This event was part of the National Lawyers Guild’s Week Against Mass Incarceration, during which NLG law school and local chapters across the nation organize interactive workshops, community discussions, film screenings, tabling, letter writing campaigns, banner drops, visits to incarcerated youth, and panels on topics such as solitary confinement, school to prison pipeline, immigration detention, transformative justice, and alternatives to incarceration.

You can check out the schedule for JMLS’ event below:

The NLG platform calls for “the dismantling and abolition of all prisons and of all aspects of systems and institutions that support, condone, create, fill, or protect prisons.” The 2018 theme is the intersection of mass incarceration and immigration detention and deportation.

The Guild is currently engaged in unique and innovative efforts nationwide to alleviate some of the harm inflicted by the prison-industrial complex and immigration regime. The National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NIPNLG) is a national non-profit organization that provides technical assistance and support to community-based immigrant organizations, legal practitioners, and all advocates seeking and working to advance the rights of non-citizens. NIPNLG promotes justice and equality of treatment in all areas of immigration law, the criminal justice system, and policies related to immigration. For 46 years, the National Immigration Project has served as a progressive source of advocacy-oriented legal support on issues critical to immigrant rights.

Other NLG initiatives include the NLG-NYC Parole Preparation Project, the NLG Bay Area Prisoner Advocacy Network, the NLG NJ-DE Prisoner Legal Advocacy Network, and the Guild Notes column, “Beyond Bars: Voices from NLG Jailhouse Lawyers”.  NLG Mass Incarceration Committee and Prison Law Project volunteers respond to jailhouse lawyer members’ letters and send out our Jailhouse Lawyer Manual on an ongoing basis. The NLG Political Prisoner Support Committee provides legal support for and connects Guild members with political prisoners. NLG members are involved in various initiatives opposing policing, criminalization, solitary confinement, the drug war, capital punishment, and new prison construction. The Guild also supported the 2016 National Prison Strike and has been working to  investigate and challenge deplorable conditions in numerous Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison facilities in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

To learn more about incarcerated Guild members, their concerns, and more resources on prison litigation and organizing, please check out the NLG Jailhouse Lawyer website.

 

Resources

Punishment and Policing in the Trump Era

Immigration Guide to How Arrests and Convictions Separate Families

Immigration and Mass Incarceration

Immigration Policy and Planning in the Era of Mass Incarceration

Mass Incarceration and Immigrant Detention

Fact-sheet: Immigrant Detention and Mass Incarceration

Struggles of Using Legal Recourse as a Path Toward Better Prison Conditions

Following the Money of Mass Incarceration

Prison Abolition Syllabus

Are Prisons Obsolete?

Corrections Project PIC Poster

Transforming Carceral Logic

Reasons for Penal Abolition

Joint Statement of Incite! and Critical Resistance

Incarcerated Workers Take The Lead

Documentaries

Broken on All Sides

Visions of Abolition

The 13th

“Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings.” -Angela Y. Davis

The JMLS student chapters of the National Lawyers Guild and The American Constitution Society hosted a symposium on public interest law on Thursday, April 13th, as their final event of the semester.

Six attorneys from diverse public interest fields discussed their practices and offered advice on navigating law school and developing a career in people’s law.

Aneesha Gandhi is a Supervising Attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center’s LGBT Immigration Rights Initiative. She primarily handles LGBT asylum cases.

Dima Khalidi is the founder and director of Palestine Legal. Her work focuses on advocating for and providing legal advice to Palestinian advocates.

Iveliz Orellano is an Assistant Cook County Public Defender and JMLS graduate. She began her career litigating civil rights and police misconduct cases.

Nicole Schult is an attorney at Uptown People’s Law Center. Her practice areas include: fair housing, social security, and prisoner’s rights.

Quinn Rallins is a community and health care justice attorney at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. He began his career as a clerk at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Equal Justice Initiative, and Greater Boston Legal Services.

Steven Saltzman has practiced law for over forty years. His practice areas include criminal defense, police brutality, and employment law.

 

The JMLS student chapters of the National Lawyers Guild, the American Constitutional Society, the Latino Law Students Association, and the Black Law Students Association hosted a Teach-In on Immigration and Sanctuary Cities, featuring Lilian Jimenez.

Lilian Jimenez is Policy Director for Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. she has been a community organizer for over a decade and as an attorney she specializes in an array of public interest areas, including immigrant rights, civil rights, and juvenile justice. Ms. Jimenez spoke on federal immigration policy and Chicago’s Sanctuary City status, which was followed by a group discussion.

On October 26, 2016, The John Marshall Law School chapters of the National Lawyers Guild, the Black Law Students Association and the American Constitutional Society presented a panel discussion and Q&A on the intersection of activism and legal advocacy in the growing Movement for Black Lives.

The event featured speakers from Black Lives Matter Chicago, Black Youth Project 100, Cook County Bar Association and National Lawyers Guild Chicago.