The group was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association (ABA) in protest of that organization's then exclusionary membership practices and conservative political orientation.

[2][3] The group declares itself to be "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system ... to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests.

"[4] During the McCarthy era, Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. and the House Un-American Activities Committee accused the organization of operating as a communist front group.

On December 1, 1936, nearly 25 East Coast lawyers met at the City Club of New York to discuss creation of a new group counter to the conservative American Bar Association.

[1] According to Victor Rabinowitz, head of the NLG in the 1960s, the original membership of the organization came from two camps — established liberal attorneys with a labor-oriented perspective and "a militant segment of the bar, mostly young and sometimes radical".

[4] Following the Nazis' invasion of the Soviet Union, the Guild gave its support to President Roosevelt's wartime policies, including that of Japanese American internment.

[14] Before mid-March 1937, within two weeks of its founding, the NLG formed chapters in New York City, Newark, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, St. Louis, and Chicago.

[12] During the McCarthy era, the NLG was accused by Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. as well as the House Un-American Activities Committee of being a Communist front organization.

The other, led by Osmond Fraenkel and Thomas I. Emerson, supported freedom of speech and press as well as Anti-Fascism (seen at the time as a Popular Front stance, thus pro-Communist).

During the NLG's 1940 convention, newly elected president Robert W. Kenny of California and secretary Martin Popper of New York sought to persuade members to return.

[20] In 1944 the Special House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) chaired by Texas Congressman Martin Dies Jr. published a brief history of the NLG in its massive and controversial "Appendix — Part IX" cataloging so-called "Communist Front Organizations" and their supporters.

"[23] 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.

Contributors to the report were NLG president Clifford J. Durr, Frederick K. Beutel, Thomas I. Emerson, O. John Rogge, James A. Cobb, Joseph Forer, and Robert J.

Other officers included: Hubert T. Delany, Osmond K. Fraenkel, Leo J. Linder, Harold M. Phillips, David L. Weissman, Julius Cohen, and Simon Schachter.

Directors included: Bella Abzug, Gloria Agrin, Michael B. Atkins, Benjamin H. Booth, Edward J. Cambridge, Harold Cammer, William B. Cherevas, George H. Cohen, Frank Donner, Issac C. Donner, Stanley Faulkner, Royal W. France, Nathan Frankel, Doris Peterson Galen, Murray Gordon, Charles Haydon, Lazaar Henkin, Bernard L. Jaffe, H. Leonard King, Rhoda Lakes, Mendel Lurie, Edward J. Malament, Stanley J. Mayer, Basil Pollitt, Samuel Rosenberg, Arnold E. Rosenblum, Barney Rosenstein, Simon Rosenstein, Mildred Roth, Harry Sacher, Arthur Schutzer, Elias M. Schwarzbart, Moses B. Sherr, Kenneth L. Shorter, Leonard P. Simpson, Lorna Rissler Wallach, and Henry R.

[citation needed] In 2005, NLG member Lynne Stewart was found guilty of violating Special Administrative Measures imposed on her client Omar Abdel Rahman and was sentenced in 2010 to 10 years in prison.

[38] In 2011, the NLG defended the Occupy movement in the United States, making use of temporary restraining orders on behalf of encamped activists in an effort to forestall the forced dispersal of their sites by law enforcement.

Their successful outcome is a triumph for the Venezuelan people, especially considering the level of U.S. interference and attempted sabotage of the democratic process, particularly through sanctions and coercive economic measures aimed at producing 'regime change' in Venezuela".

[citation needed] With the Center for Constitutional Rights, the NLG published a revised Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook, and annually distributes thousands of copies to inmates seeking legal information and resources.