215-790-3836 ext. 1

To provide legal services, educational programs and community building events for artists, lawyers and cultural organizations.

Income Guidelines: Legal-Lines and ArtFaxes are short consultations. Full Service Referrals are larger projects.
All three pro bono legal services are available only to financially qualifying artists and arts and cultural organizations with an arts-related legal issue. The financial qualifications are: Individual Artists: Annual gross income of $35,000 per year or less if single, with a $3,000 per dependent credit; combined annual gross income of $55,000 per year or less if married or cohabiting, with a $3,000 per dependent credit. Arts Collectives and small businesses are generally treated as groups of individuals for eligibility purposes. Nonprofit Organizations: Annual operating budget of $1 million or less. Liquid asset restrictions also apply.
Geographic Guidelines: Southeastern PA, Southern NJ, and DE.
Clients who do not qualify for pro bono services may request educational materials or reduced-rate referral lists.

By phone: M – F, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. or by web application at http://www.artsandbusinessphila.org/pvla

Legal services and educational programs for individual artists and arts and cultural organizations. PVLA volunteer attorneys provide legal assistance on a wide range of arts-related legal issues, including Administrative/Municipal Law; Arbitration/Mediation; Art and Entertainment Law; Bankruptcy; Censorship/Artistic Expression; Collections; Computer/Technology/Internet Law;
Copyright/Licensing; Defamation; General and Management
Agreements; Immigration; Insurance; Intellectual Property;
International Law; Labor and Employment; Landlord-Tenant;
Litigation; Nonprofit Law; Patent Law; Real Estate; Right of
Publicity; Small Business Start-Up; Small Claims; Tax; Trademark; Trusts and Estates.

Legal-Line is a one-time-only telephone conversation between any artist or arts or cultural organization client and an attorney in a given practice area to discuss a particular arts-related legal issue.

ArtFax is a one-time-only telephone conversation between any artist or arts or cultural organization client and an attorney in a given practice area to discuss a particular short (no more than three-page) arts-related legal document.

In a Full Service referral, PVLA volunteer attorneys provide free legal representation for qualifying artists and arts and cultural organizations.

PVLA provides many Educational Programs, both for arts professionals and as Continuing Legal Education programs for attorneys. PVLA also maintains a large Library of books and
pamphlets on a wide range of legal issues. Through its Board Matching service, PVLA provides attorneys to sit on the Boards of Directors of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations. PVLA’s Speaker’s Bureau program provides volunteer attorneys to speak to students and arts and cultural organizations on a wide variety of arts-related legal issues. PVLA presents the course Arts Management and the Law at Drexel University each year, through which the next generation of arts managers learns the legal aspects of running an arts organization.

Karin Copeland, Arts & Business Council Executive Director

Miriam Dechant, Esq., PVLA Director