As such, when determining whether to advise on a matter or not, the Centre must exercise some discretion. In exercising this discretion, consideration must be given to at least three factors:
- whether the matter ‘arts related’;
- whether it falls within one of our areas of expertise; and
- whether the caller (or caller organisation) is in a financial situation which would preclude them from obtaining legal advice elsewhere.
How We Assist You
When you contact our service seeking legal assistance we will deal with your enquiry in one of the following five ways:
- in-house assistance by Arts Law’s legal officers or administrative staff
- referral to Arts Law’s panel of lawyers or accountants
- referral to the Arts Law Mediation Service
- referral to an appropriate arts industry body (such as NAVA), another arts advisory body (such as the Australian Copyright Council), or one of the collecting societies (such as APRA, AMCOS, CAL, Screenrights)
- an appointment with a Legal Advice Night Solicitor
Free Telephone Advice Service
Arts Law will provide free initial telephone advice to any caller on an arts-related legal matter where there is no conflict of interest. As a general rule, legal officers will only provide a “one off” telephone advice on a discrete matter. Telephone advice takes on average 30-45 minutes. Subscription is mandatory if the caller requires an appointment with a Legal Advice Night Solicitor, if files are opened, or if they are using the service regularly (e.g., more than once in a 12 month period on the same issue in a given matter or where more than a total of five advices on separate matters have been given to the caller by the Centre). The Free Telephone Advice Service is subject to Arts Law’s Legal Service Guidelines listed above and other policies which will be explained upon contacting Arts Law.
Legal Advice Nights (LAN)
If your enquiry requires Arts Law to review any documentation, our policy requires that you become a subscriber with us and we will process your enquiry as an extended legal advice service or Legal Advice Night. This means we will outsource your enquiry to solicitors that work for us voluntarily or one of the Arts Law lawyers will review it internally, depending on the agreement sent in for review and the capacity of the lawyers at Arts Law.
Once you have subscribed you are entitled to up to 6 consultations with an Arts Law volunteer solicitor. Each consultation is up to 2 hours (though it may be shorter) in duration and we try and limit this service to 1 consultation per month. We can only advise once on an agreement or situation.
Our volunteer solicitors provide their time voluntarily under the pro-bono scheme, and therefore we can not guarantee that we will be able to source a solicitor to advise you, but it is rare that we cannot.
Please contact Arts Law for more information, to determine whether your enquiry is suitable or to make a request for this service. The Legal Advice Night service is subject to Arts Law’s Legal Service Guidelines listed above and other policies which will be explained upon contacting Arts Law.
Services for Indigenous Artists and Organisations
Arts Law has an Indigenous service “Artists in the Black” and two Aboriginal staff are available to assist. Subscription fees for Indigenous users are currently waived to address Indigenous access.Best practice guidelines
Best Practice Guidelines
Organisations outside the arts community (councils, art competition organizers, art related festival organizers, etc) sometimes call Arts Laws for advice on terms and conditions for working with artists, such as terms and conditions of competitions, artists in residence agreements, etc. By advising such organizations, Arts Law would normally be precluded from subsequently giving legal advice to an artist (or writer or performer etc) in relation to those terms and conditions. This is because of the risk of breach of duty of confidentiality and the potential conflict of interest. Please click HERE for more information.
