The original VCL (1927-33)

    The original Volunteer Committee of Lawyers was formed in 1927 by nine prominent New York City attorneys, and soon grew to over three thousand members nationwide. The VCL supplied legal expertise to opponents of the Eighteenth (prohibition) Amendment and the Volstead Act. It actively encouraged members of local bar and eventually the American Bar Association to study and take a position on prohibition, When public opinion turned against prohibition, the VCL drafted legislation setting up Constitutional conventions in the states, bypassing prohibitionist state legislatures. After three-fourths of the conventions ratified repeal of prohibition in 1933, the VCL quietly disbanded.

    In its corporate charter, the VCL declared:

   The Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act violate the basic principles of our law and government and encroach upon the powers properly reserved to the states and the people, [and] the attempt to enforce them has been productive of such evils and abuses as are necessarily incident to a violation of these principles, including disrespect for law, obstruction of the due administration of justice, corruption of public officials, abuse of legal process, resort by the government to improper and illegal acts in the procurement of evidence and infringement of such constitutional guarantees as immunity from double jeopardy and illegal search and seizure.

     For more on the original VCL, see a more complete history.