The NYC-NLG has a proud history. For over 65 years the NLG has provided support for the struggles for racial justice, civil rights and workers' rights. The NLG was the first organization to send lawyers to the South to support the fight for desegregation and voting rights; the NLG was the first national bar organization to oppose the Vietnam War.

• In the 60's and 70's the NLG provided legal support to the anti-war movement, the struggle for Native American rights, the women's rights movement, the gay liberation movement, and the struggles for civil rights and black liberation;
• In the 1980's, the NLG provided legal support for anti-nuclear activists and to those supporting liberation in Latin America and the rights of immigrants in the US;
• In 1986, the NLG published the first legal handbook in response to AIDS discrimination and the legal impacts of the HIV/AIDS crisis;
• In the 1990's and into the 21st century the NLG and its members provided the cutting edge strategies in the legal response to police misconduct;

In recent years the NYC-NLG has led the effort to provide legal support for the major anti-war and anti-globalization demonstrations; following the tragic events of September 11th, NLG members in NYC and across the country have joined the fight to stop abuses of governmental power such as those contained in the Patriot Act; and the fight to protect immigrants and racial minorities from scapegoating and racial profiling.