Re: droit de suite

From: <Patsloane[_at_]aol.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 13:48:13 EDT

On 04/03/2000, Carol Cricow <carol[_at_]yujean.com> wrote:
>
> There is hope tho as there are more and more Lawyers for the Arts
> groups. There's one here in Eugene, Oregon and another in Portland
> and a bigger one in Seattle. Lawyers who work in this area should
> look into organizing such a group to help artists. There are
> personal and professional benefits to doing some work pro bono and
> to educating artists as to their rights.
>
> In the meantime, state bar associations will provide lists of lawyers
> who specialize or focus their practices in certain areas if the
> Yellow Pages fail you. It's worth asking.

Carol,

Like any funded entity, VLA requires virtually a poverty level income, which isn't as common as one might think among artists. They do a fine job for a lower income constituency, but I was thinking of a more middle class group that can afford to pay an attorney, but can't find an attorney familiar with that area. On referrals from the Bar association, keep in mind that arts law is highly specialized, as is, say, zoning. I once asked for a referral from the local Bar Association to an attorney who knew zoning and could file an Article 78 proceeding against the Department of Buildings. The best they could come up with was an attorney familiar with Section 8 housing, and who frequently filed Article 78 proceedings although he knew nothing about zoning. That was about as appealing as asking an attorney who specialized in divorce law to get involved in a case about corporate mergers.

Twenty years later, I met an attorney who was also licensed as a professional engineer, and he would have been perfect. But he wouldn't have been available had I known him at the time, as he worked for a city agency. There's as big a gap in administrative law as in arts law. Attorneys who know zoning work either for large developers or municipal authorities. Attorneys who specialize in arts law work for major collectors, and in either case there's little or no incentive for the attorney to get involved with middle class individuals.

One might think there would be a place for the general practitioner who handles a small amount of cases involving arts law. I'd want to consider that only on a case by case basis, and in most cases I'd be reluctant and really prefer a specialist. It's too stressful wondering whether an attorney who knows a certain amount about arts law really

knows enough for the case at hand, and I've no way of determining this
in advance, or in a timely manner.  So I'd rather not take a chance. 
Here, and also in administrative law, it's too bad the Association of

the Bar hasn't established some lower level of certification tailored to the needs of the part time practitioner. If I knew that an attorney had completed, say, a six-weeks course in art law or zoning law or education law, or law in any of a fairly large number of specialized administrative areas, that would at least give me some way of measuring in an area where no criteria are available to me at present. And, yes, I'd definitely go and look myself at the syllabus for the six-week course, to find out what it had covered.

It seems to me that by the time middle class professionals get to an attorney, they've already done limited preliminary research, often from impeccable sources. Art magazines often run articles written by arts attorneys on laws that affect artists; art associations distribute information about these laws, and often hold conferences for artists on arts law; speakers are often well-known attorneys for major galleries or museums, or for agencies like the NEA. With administrative law, the first step is almost always to go to the agency charged with administering that body of law, because one of their responsibilities is to answer questions about their procedures: about what has to be done to challenge an agency determination. They'll give you the answers, right down to venue and what a successful challenge would have to establish. So one usually isn't totally at sea by the time one gets to an attorney's office, and this helps. But the plain fact is that there aren't enough attorneys in this area, and they need an upper-income or corporate clientele.

I think there might be less of a problem with, say, entertainment law, because so many entertainers draw in phenomenal incomes that are well above middle class levels. Pro bono is not an answer, because attorneys can't and shouldn't be compelled to do this. And, as a client, I don't think that getting the best possible representation is consistent with being somebody's charity case.

pat sloane
<patsloane[_at_]aol.com> Received on Mon Apr 03 2000 - 17:51:13 GMT