Clyde Wilson Summers (November 21, 1918 – October 30, 2010) was an American lawyer and educator who advocated for more democratic procedures in labor unions.

[5] His parents were farmers, and the Summers family moved to Colorado; South Dakota; and Tecumseh, Nebraska, before settling in Winchester, Illinois, in 1929.

[2] The Illinois State Bar Association admitted he was of high moral character and exhibited excellent knowledge of the law, but denied him admission in 1942 due to his conscientious objector status.

[7] In a highly controversial but important decision, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the denial of admission to the bar in In re Summers, 325 U.S. 561 (1945).

[14] As the United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management began holding hearings in early 1957 on organized crime's influence in labor unions, Governor of New York Averell Harriman believed a similar commission should be created to address problems in his state.

Subsequently, Harriman established the Governor's Committee on Improper Labor and Management Practices and appointed Summers chair.

[15] Summers and the committee drafted legislation which eventually became the New York Labor and Management Improper Practices Act of 1958.

His 1952 ACLU report helped frame the legislative proposals the Senate Select Committee considered as its work came to an end.

[19] The draft legislation which Summers helped write was the foundation of the 1958 Kennedy-Ives Bill, which itself was incorporated into the Landrum–Griffin Act.

He submitted the AUD's brief in Hall v. Cole, 412 U.S. 1 (1973), in which the Supreme Court interpreted the Landrum–Griffin Act to permit the awarding of attorney's fees to successful plaintiffs.

[21] His arguments "and the legitimacy his presence in the case lent to those arguments no doubt influenced the outcome of this case..."[22] He participated in two landmark Landrum–Griffin decisions of the US Supreme Court, Trbovich v. United Mine Workers, 404 U.S. 528 (1972) (which upheld the right of union members to intervene in enforcement proceedings brought by the United States Department of Labor) and Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U.S. 560 (1975) (which upheld the authority of federal courts to review the Department of Labor's decision to proceed or not proceed with prosecutions under Landrum–Griffin).