Lawyers Should Volunteer. But Not For The Arts.
This post is going to be very unpopular.
I spent the better part of ten years trying to launch a Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts program in the state of Wisconsin. It didn’t take. For a long time, I considered this a failure. Today I see it as appropriate.
Before going further please let me be clear: I have great respect for lawyers and legal services organizations that assist artists. But my big picture views are changing.
I spent last weekend presenting at a fantastic event: the annual Self-Employment in the Arts conference. Students and early career artists in the visual, literary, and performing arts gather to learn about business. Accounting. Marketing. Business Plans. Networking. Contracts. Copyright. Trademark. The conference unlocks access to entrepreneurial skills that are necessary for establishing and maintaining a career as an independent artist.
Throughout the weekend, the message was consistent: “To succeed as an artist you must succeed as a business.” That’s a good message. And it was being delivered by leaders with impressive credentials in academia, business, and the arts.
In my view the message veered off course, however, whenever those same leaders counseled participants to seek free legal advice. I heard it more than once. People whom I would otherwise describe as brilliant actually encouraged nascent business owners to spin the wheel and make mission-critical legal decisions based on free advice and services.
If it had been a conference for emerging businesses in the tech industry (or food service, or insurance or any other industry) I really doubt panelists would have been dispensing such advice. To the contrary, the charge would have been: “Raise the money; assemble a good team; be prepared to pay for what you need, to accomplish your mission.” Not: “See what you can get for free, and hope for the best.”
Artists are not special, at least insofar as their businesses are concerned. If they want to succeed in business they should approach business just like everybody else. In my view it does them an immense disservice to perpetuate any notion to the contrary. Why should artists even consider free legal advice (much less seek it), when every other business on Earth simply accepts that paying for professional services is a necessary cost of doing business? Have you ever heard of Volunteer Lawyers for the Owners of Laundromats?
Once again: I respect VLA organizations. They provide valuable educational resources. Of necessity, however, most pro bono providers cannot deliver the comprehensive legal services that a start-up business requires. And arts entrepreneurs will never know that, if we keep encouraging them to seek and rely upon pro bono services.
Tough love? Maybe. But the operable word is, “love.” I want to see artistic businesses succeed. For that to happen, arts entrepreneurs must see themselves as the peers and equals of those in other industries. And that means: interview, engage, and pay lawyers who can devote the time and deliver the individualized services that each start-up business needs to succeed.
There are a lot of people in this world who desperately need legal services as a matter of life or death. So I think lawyers should volunteer.
For those people.
