Legal Services > For Clients > Pro Bono Legal Services
Pro Bono Placement
After an initial consultation with a VLA in-house attorney, or after an appointment at the VLA Legal Clinic, if you qualify under VLA income guidelines, VLA will seek to place your case with a volunteer attorney through our bi-monthly email case listing. Most cases are placed within 6 to 12 weeks but there is no guarantee that an attorney will volunteer to represent you.
Pro Bono Legal Services in FY 04-05
VLA’s in-house legal activities continued to expand during the past fiscal year. VLA’s staff attorneys personally met with every artist or arts organization applicant eligible for VLA’s in-house or pro bono referral services, except where there were case conflicts. Last year, VLA’s in-house attorneys held over 1,000 consultations with indigent artists and representatives of nonprofit arts organizations. Typically, VLA offers 6 consultations each business day, but we also make ourselves immediately available for urgent matters. VLA staff attorneys successfully resolve more than 75% of matters presented during the course of the in-house consultations. Cases that were not resolved during the consultation are placed on the VLA Case List for placement with a volunteer attorney or are handled by staff attorneys.
The VLA Case List, the list of cases seeking pro bono representation, is distributed via e-mail twice each month. Both nonprofit arts and cultural organizations and indigent artists with an arts-related legal issue qualify for pro bono case placement. For urgent matters, VLA sends special alerts to expedite placement of time-sensitive cases.