Terrorizing Dissenters at the RNC - National Lawyers Guild

Convention 08
Guild Meeting In Detroit A Huge Success
by Dan Mayfield
More than 400 NLG members and
friends met in Detroit for the 71st annual
convention from October 15 to 19, 2008.
NLG Executive Director Heidi Boghosian
said that the convention met all of her
personal and organizational goals.
As is traditional, the convention began
with several well-attended Continuing
Legal Education (CLE) programs. The
National Immigration Project presented
a day-long CLE on national security
cases and the National Police
Accountability Project put on a day-long
seminar, “Trends in Police Misconduct
Litigation.” The International
Committee held a CLE on “Using UN
Treaties and the Office of the Inspector
General.” The theme of the UN Treaties
would appear over and over throughout
the weekend and was especially relevant
because of the clear violations in the
waning months of the Bush years.
Thursday was mostly a day for
committee meetings. These were meaningful
meetings for many people because
they represent the one time that NLG
members from around the country get to
meet face to face to plan the rest of the
year’s activities. Thursday night was the
opening plenary and we had two major
speakers: Grace Lee Boggs from Detroit
and Daniel Ellsberg from California.
Both were wonderful speakers and
enlightened us with their insights.
Grace Lee Boggs looked back over 75
or more years of socialist activism and
spoke about the need to “think globally
but act locally.” Daniel Ellsberg drew
parallels between his personal history
with the Pentagon Papers and the war in
Vietnam and the current situation and
the secrecy of the Bush White House.
On Friday and Saturday the convention
really got under way with more than
20 workshops aimed at every aspect of
our work from mass defense of protestors
to Native American rights, and from
stopping torture to Freedom Summer.
All of the workshops were well attended
and in several instances the discussion
carried on well after the workshop
was over. As usual, major panels and
constituency panels were held on Friday
and Saturday, and Saturday morning was
devoted entirely to an Anti-Racism
Training and a TUPOCC training.
The early evenings during the convention
were dotted with various receptions:
The International Committee, the
Immigration Committee, the Sugar Law
Center and the Law Union of Ontario
from Canada, organized by former NLG
membership Coordinator Mac Scott.
Several NLG authors held receptions or
book signings, including a special visit by
longtime member David Kairys whose
book Memoir of a Civil Rights Lawyer
recounts his history as a people’s lawyer.
The Daniel Levy Award from the
National Immigration Project was
awarded to the lawyers from the ACLU
of Southern California—14 lawyers and
legal workers who organized the
14 • GUILD NOTES • WINTER 2008