NLG Far West Regional Conference (UPDATE)

The Conference is designed to provide legal information and updates concerning and relevant to the NLG Far West Region and its members. The Far West region includes California, Nevada and Hawaii. The Conference will include panels and workshops with topics on current radical legal and progressive issues, and is intended to be useful to NLG attorneys, law students, and legal workers, as well as the larger progressive community.

Saturday Agenda

TENTATIVE PROGRAM
8:00 AM - Registration, pan dulce, coffee

8:25 AM - 8:40 AM - Welcome and Opening Remarks
Welcome: Renee Quintero Sanchez, Far West Regional Vice President
Opening Remarks: Teague Briscoe, NLG-SF President

8:45 AM- 10:00 AM - Workshops I and II
(concurrent presentations)

Workshop I: Student Organizing
This workshop is created and presented by and for radical and progressive law students. Facilitated discussion will include how to start an NLG chapter at your law school, organizing tools and models, transitioning into becoming the “next gen” in the NLG, and more!
Facilitated by NLG-SF Law Student Vice Presidents and Regional Law Student Leaders

Workshop II: The Prison Industrial Complex and Crisis
Join a discussion amongst a group of racially diverse presenters representing a range of philosophies and politics about how to redress the wrongs of the prison system in California. This panel will be presented by attorneys and legal workers who will discuss the current state of California’s prison system, including regarding prison crowding and expansion, issues that formerly incarcerated people face, and current health care litigation. The workshop will also focus on alternatives to incarceration, including a discussion regarding the possibilities, success and challenges of using restorative justice, harm reduction, and other strategies that do not solely rely on litigation.

10:00 AM - 10:15 AM - Break

10:15 AM - 11:30 AM - Workshops III and IV
(concurrent presentations)

Workshop III: Due Process in Removal Proceedings: the Immigration Court Observation Project, with a Primer on Deport Defense

While people across the country are rallying to oppose racist laws like SB1070 and ICE’s S-Comm program, and rallying for real immigration reform, deportations under the Obama administration are at record levels. A panel of attorneys from the NLG Immigration Committee’s Immigration Court Observation Project and a Centro Legal de la Raza’s deportation defense fellow will present a short training on immigration court observation and provide a basic introduction to deportation defense. The workshop is geared toward law students, legal workers, legal activists and attorneys new to immigration law. Experienced immigration attorneys and paralegals are welcome to take part in the discussion.

Workshop IV: The Use of International Law in Domestic Court Cases, Local Municipalities and Human Rights Campaigns
-Presented by the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute

11:30 AM - 12:00 PM- NO HOST LUNCH (Tentative: lunch available for sale at the Women’s Building by La Raza Women’s Collective)

12:00 PM - 12:45 PM - KEYNOTE
Introductory Remarks: Russell Bloom, Executive Vice President
Keynote: “Visioning: The National Lawyers Guild and the State of Human Rights in 2010 and Beyond”
David Gespass, National President

1:00 PM - 2:15 PM - Workshops V and VI
(Concurrent Presentations)

Workshop V: Legal Support and Observing, including Transgender Advocacy

Workshop VI: Ending the Occupation: Flotillas, Boycotts, and Legal Considerations

2:15 - 2:25 PM Break

2:25 PM - 3:40 PM - Workshops VII AND VIII
(Concurrent Sessions)

Workshop VII: Islamophobia and Civil Rights for MEMSA Communities.
This workshop will make connections between Islamophobia and other forms of xenophobia and racism. It will also connect this analysis to the current work of the Coalition4SafeSF (of which NLGSF is part), which is currently pressuring the SF police commission not to revive the defunct SF Intelligence Unit (which spied on pro-Palestine/anti-apartheid groups in the 80s/90s including NLG). The Coalition also seeks to prevent local law enforcement from collaborating with federal agents in profiling and gathering intelligence on MEMSA communities in SF.

Workshop VIII: Foreclosure Defense

3:40 PM - 5:15 - Regional Rap: Making the Connections

5:30 PM- Closing Remarks

5:45 PM - Adjourn