History of the Massachusetts Chapter

The Massachusetts Chapter has been active since the founding of the national organization (see our historical highlights for more details.) Our staff and board work with Chapter members, including law students, to seek justice by:

• Organizing and participating in Community Activism
• Educating the community about their rights through Street Law Clinics
• Representing low and moderate income people and progressive causes through our Lawyer Referral Service
• Networking with progressive legal advocates through our newsletter Mass Dissent
• Providing legal observers at demonstrations and legal representation to those arrested.

Immigrant and Human Rights Work

The Massachusetts Chapter continues to organize and work for social justice and civil rights on a local level. Boston, as the site of the NLG National Immigration Project, has many active members working in the field of immigrant and human rights. Mass Chapter members

• helped coordinate the Massachusetts Campaign for Democracy in Haiti
• sponsored a conference to launch a new project to document human rights abuses against immigrant workers in the Boston area
• sponsored a National Day of Action Against INS Raids
• worked on campaigns involving domestic violence in immigrant and refugee communities, and HIV testing of immigrants
• created and published a much-needed guide for criminal lawyers on the Immigration Consequences of Criminal Conviction
• continue to represent individual immigrants in political asylum cases and work on community-wide coalitions and campaigns to protect immigrants’ rights.

Building Community Resources

The Street Law Clinic was founded in 1989 in response to the Boston Police’s stop-and-search tactics.

We launched the Lawyer Referral Service to help connect Mass. residents with much needed legal services, provided by our members.

Civil Disobedience Defense Committee

• Defended 25 Native Americans and their supporters who were arrested at a police riot on “Thanksgiving” Day in 1997 in Plymouth, Mass.
• Achieved a significant settlement which included the dismissal of all charges against the demonstrators, payment for the erection of a Native American memorial in Plymouth, and payment of the demonstrators’ attorneys’ fees.
• We’ve been legal observers at hundreds of demonstrations over the years and have represented demonstrators protesting everything from welfare time limits to privatization in El Salvador.
• In 2001 we mobilized in anticipation of police riots during a week-long Bio-Devastation 2000 conference and direct actions.

Judicial Appointments

In 1995 the Chapter worked with a coalition of legal and community groups to educate the public about the possible appointment of Charles Fried to the Supreme Judicial Court. This work laid the groundwork for an awareness about the need to promote racial diversity in the selection of state court judges and for the later appointment of Judge Roderick Ireland to the SJC.

Support for Legal Services

In 1996 the Mass Chapter became concerned about devastating cuts and restrictions in the federal budget for legal services. We worked to educate the public about the need to increase state funding to compensate for the federal cuts and coordinated an educational day at which more than 150 Guild members, union activists, and bar leaders made the case for needed increases in funding. As a result of this work, the legislature increased funding for legal services by $2.3 million.

Workers Rights

We have worked closely with Jobs with Justice to support the work of their Workers’ Rights Board and in 1998 held a major fundraiser to help them increase their staffing. We have also worked to educate the public about the problems with the current time limits in which workers have to file workplace discrimination claims and the need to extend them from the current six months to one year.

Representing the Justice for Janitors supporters who participated in civil disobedience

Guild lawyers were responsible for coordinating and providing legal observers for the numerous demonstrations and civil disobedience actions held throughout Boston and for providing representation to the many activists and community leaders arrested during the recently won month-long SEIU Local 254 janitors’ strike. There were more than 48 people arrested during the strike and Guild attorneys now face the task of getting those charges dismissed or resolved over the next month. Please contact Jeff Feuer if you can help out, 617-492-8473.

Events and Publications

The Massachusetts Chapter continues to try new ways of addressing the pervasive attacks on workers, people of color, women, gays and lesbians, the poor, immigrants, and other people, and to protect our hard-won reproductive and human rights. We strongly urge you to join us in the planning and the action. Now, more than ever, we, as progressive lawyers, legal workers, and law students, need to take action on these issues of our day.

• We continue a very successful Fall Lecture Series at area law schools and hold “mentorship dinners” throughout the year.
• Mass Dissent, our newsletter, comes out eight times a year with articles on legal and community issues of interest to the progressive legal community.
• We successfully hosted the Guild National Convention entitled Revolutionizing Justice, Boston 2000. Over 400 Guild members attended the convention and were inspired and challenged by the many speakers and workshops. A special focus on issues of interest to law students brought many students together to brainstorm about ways to make law school affordable.
• In October 2000, many chapter members joined the 200 or so Guild lawyers who attended the International Association of Democratic Jurists’ Congress in Havana, helping to solidify ties between the Guild and the IADL while getting a first-hand look at Cuba’s successes and struggles.