Re: copyright in legal documents

On Mon, 25 Oct 1999, Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/25/99, Mike Phillips <radiolawyer[_at_]hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > A new client asked me a question this morning that has been asked
> > many times, but I've never had to answer it before. (It's an academic
> > question.)
> >
> > When a client pays an attorney to draft a contract, who owns the
> > copyright to the contract?
>
> Did the client draft the contract? I don't think so. So, the
> attorney is the author, and copyright vests initially in the
> author. See 17 U.S.C. sec. 201(a). (I don't think anyone would
> seriously contend that the contract is a work made for hire.)

I will. A corporate lawyer, working for his or her firm, is an EMPLOYEE, and the work for hire doctrine vests any copyright in the EMPLOYER. Client and employer are not mutually exclusive.

The sort of absolutes that have been discussed are dangerous. 99% of the time the attorney is a contractor, but not always. Legal questions must be posed to an attorney, so that if you are in that 1% exception, you get valid legal advice for your specific situation. It is not acceptable to console the client with the words "well, my advice would have worked for 99% of the clients I work with".

Whether or not the contract could be registered is another matter, and whether one could enforce the copyright still another. On the issue of who the author is, a corporate attorney is an employee, if he or she draws a paycheck and passes the IRS tests for an employee.

Tom Workman
<tworkman[_at_]erols.com> Received on Tue Oct 26 1999 - 14:49:19 GMT