National Forensic League

The National Forensic League is a non-partisan, non-profit educational honor society established to encourage and motivate American high school students to participate in and become proficient in public speaking. NFL is the America's oldest and largest high school speech and debate honor society. Since 1925, NFL has enrolled over 1.3 million students in fulfillment of its motto, "training youth for leadership."

The organization is the central agent for coordination and facilitation of heightened public awareness of the value of speech communication skills, development of educational initiatives for student and teacher training, excellence in interscholastic competition, and the promotion of honor society ideals.

The NFL is one of four national organizations which direct high school competitive speech and debate events in the United States. The other three are the National Catholic Forensic League or NCFL, the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association or NCFCA, and Stoa USA. The NFL Board of Directors meets twice a year for rules revision. It votes on each rule change, which affects the entire high school forensics community.

The word "forensic" is an adjective meaning "of public debate or argument." The word is derived from the Latin word forensis, meaning "of the forum." The sense of the word "forensic" that means "pertaining to legal trials" dates from the 17th century (Oxford English Dictionary) and led to the use of the word "forensics" in reference to legal evidence.