Criticism
From its earliest days the National Lawyers Guild has been the focus of controversy and criticism, primarily from conservatives but also from a certain number of centrists and anti-communist liberals.
In 1944 the Special House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) chaired by Texas Congressman Martin Dies published a brief history of the NLG in its massive and controversial "Appendix — Part IX" cataloging so-called "Communist Front Organizations" and their supporters. This report charged that the NLG, despite being promoted as a "professional organization of liberal lawyers" had proven itself by its actions to be "just one more highly deceptive Communist-operated front organization, primarily intended to serve the interests of the Communist Party of the United States..."
The 1944 HUAC history asserted that the NLG was merely "a streamlined edition of the International Juridicial Organization," a Communist Party mass organization established in 1931. The document charged that "the National Lawyers Guild has faithfully followed the line of the Communist Party on numerous issues and has proven itself an important bulwark in defense of that party, its members, and organizations under its control." Particularly damning in HUAC's eyes was the NLG's reversal of position on the war in Europe after the June 22, 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union by the forces of Nazi Germany, with an October resolution by the previously anti-war organization offering "unlimited support to all measures necessary to the defeat of Hitlerism" and supporting the Roosevelt administration's policy of "'all out aid' and full collaboration with Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and other nations resisting Fascist aggression."
The Guild was singled out again in a 1950 publication of the now permanent House Un-American Activities Committee entitled Report on the National Lawyers Guild: Legal Bulwark of the Communist Party. This document accused the NLG of playing a part in "an overall Communist strategy aimed at weakening our nation’s defenses against the international Communist conspiracy." The report advocated that Guild members be barred from federal employment in light of the organization's "subversive" character.
In 2003, a controversy arose around the case of NLG member attorney Lynne Stewart, who was charged with transmitting "terrorist communications" from prison for Omar Abdel-Rahman, her former client and mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Stewart was ultimately convicted of the charges and sentenced to 28 months in federal prison. The NLG and other groups have steadfastly supported Stewart, condemning the charges and the conviction. NLG Attorney Elaine Cassel stated that "Stewart never provided any financial support, weaponry — or any other concrete aid — for any act of terrorism. No act of terrorism is alleged to have resulted from her actions."
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