Education > For Clients > VLA Workshops

VLA offers substantive legal and business classes and over a dozen additional outreach events for the arts community and nonprofit arts and cultural organizations throughout the year. VLA’s legal and business presentations included topics as diverse as immigration, estate planning, nonprofit incorporation and tax exemption, contracts, copyright and special genre-specific classes for visual artists, filmmakers and video artists, web designers, musicians and dancers, among others. VLA classes are often an artist’s first exposure to VLA, and play an important role in helping artists and arts organizations identify the important legal and business issues they face, and in teaching them how to protect themselves and their artistic endeavors.

Registration: To register for a VLA class please return the appropriate Registration Form to Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. You may either return the form by mail or fax it to 212·752·6575. No registration will be complete without accompanying payment.

For a schedule of upcoming classes please refer to the VLA Calender available here.

Workshops & Seminars: VLA offers lectures on specific legal topics that are open to both attorneys and creative professionals. For questions or to register for a workshop please call 212·319·ARTS (2787), ext. 1. All workshops are held in the auditorium of The Paley Building, 1 East 53rd Street, Ground Level (unless otherwise noted).

  • Nonprofit Incorporation and Tax-exempt Status
  • Contract Basics for Arts and Entertainment Professionals
  • LLC, “C” Corp, or “S” Corp: Choosing the Right Corporate Structure For Your Arts Business
  • Managers in the Arts & Entertainment Industry
  • Film School for Attorneys: Produce, Write & Direct Independent Feature Films
  • Legal Issues in the Music Industry
  • Intellectual Property (copyright, trademark, patents)
  • Contracts (music, performance, literary, visual art)
  • Legal Issues in Dance (including ownership of choreography)
  • Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA)
  • Digital Media and Intellectual Property
  • Landlord Tenant Issues Affecting Visual Artists
  • Differentiating Employee and Independent Contractor Status
  • Taxes and Financial Planning for Artists
  • Legal Issues in Filmmaking
  • First Amendment: Free Speech, Defamation, Privacy, Right of Publicity
  • Institutional Advancement and Grant-Writing for Nonprofit Arts Organizations
  • Visual Culture and Law
  • Law and Film