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 e-mail case listing. Most cases are placed within 6 to 12 weeks but there is no guarantee that an attorney will volunteer to represent you. We do however make our best effort to place your case with a pro bono attorney.
Pro Bono Legal Services
VLA’s in-house legal activities continued to expand during the past fiscal year. VLA’s staff attorneys meet with every artist or arts organization applicant eligible for VLA’s in-house or pro bono referral services, except where there were case conflicts. Generally, VLA’s in-house attorneys conduct over 1,000 consultations with indigent artists and representatives of nonprofit arts organizations each year. Typically, VLA offers 10 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.
For more information on our pro bono process and requirements, please contact The Art Law Line, 212·319·ARTS (2787), ext.1.