So, You Want to Be An Art Lawyer?

June 25th, 2014 in Art Law / Editorials / Education / Feature

This is the second and updated version of my So, you want to be an art lawyer?
blog post, originally posted on December 19, 2009. I am writing this version for
three reasons: one, given how many hits this post has acquired; two, looking back
at the 2008 economic crisis, and three, (and mostly) because of how many
individuals contact me asking me for advise on how to become an art lawyer
(incidentally, just today I received three e-mails from law students asking for this
advise). So, here we go, an updated version with a few new thoughts and
observations. I hope its helpful.
The 2008 economic crisis has not left the legal market untouched. Law schools,
firms, nonprofit legal organizations, and legal practice have all been affected to
some extent. Law schools are seeing a decrease in student enrollment. Law firms
are taking fewer summer associates, and with the overflow of law students many
that would normally go into law firm practice opt for nonprofit organizations, leaving
fewer opportunities for law students.
Increasingly, many law school applicants and current law students (many with
undergraduate studio art or art history degrees) are becoming interested in art law.
This is not surprising, as recent legal battles between artists and artists and art
institutions have attracted large amounts of media attention. Secondly, and
arguably, the art market is at an all-time high, with extravagant amounts of money
floating around a largely unregulated industry. And lets be honest, where theres
money there are lawyers. Thirdly, the cliche still rings true: lawyers second-guess
their current legal careers and think about jumping ship to another law-related
career or pursue a different practice area. Confronted with this existential question,
many lawyers opt for hot or up-and-coming legal areas. Others begin by asking
themselves what makes them happy or what they like to do.
As an art lawyer, I am often asked about my career and if I like what I do. I am also
asked for pointers on how to get where I am. In all honesty, I am unable to give a
precise and succinct answer to these question because I too am perplexed by how I
got here.
So, how do you become an art lawyer? Twelve starting points.
First of all, do what you love, and love what you do. As cheesy as that sounds its
true. You have to have a passion for it, which means that you wont find doing any
of what I mention below to be boring, excruciating, or a chore. In case you didnt
know this, we are in an age of transparency and honesty, and with social media
sites and the Internet the days of being able to fool others and be pretentious are
over. If youre doing this solely so you can hang out with rich and famous artists,
youve got another thing coming. Artists arent stupid; theyll see right through you,
especially when theyre paying you. And, as Ill explain further in number eight
below, youll still be practicing law, so youll have toprimarily love that.

This leads to my second point. Artists dont like to feel or be made to feel that what
they do is a hobby. Artists dont want a lawyer to question their work and ask, why
is this art?, and they certainly dont want to have to convince you that what theyre
doing is art. If you do that youre certain to lose their respect and their business.
Make an effort to understand contemporary art and an artists particular method of
working. Artists are the opposite of lawyers: lawyers are risk-averse; artists are risktakers. This distinction will lead to some difficult but necessary conversations with
artists. You, the lawyer, will be forced to utter a word non-existent in an artists
vocabulary: no!
Third point. Contemporary artists work in diverse media and the good artists (at
least I think so), engage complex and controversial topics. Youll probably have a
traditional painter and sculptor as a client, but youll also have potential clients that
pose unique and challenging legal problems for you. Heres a short list of artists to
give you a taste of what Im writing about. Do yourself a favor and Google them and
youll get a sense of what Im talking about.
(Christoph Bchel, Santiago Sierra, Andrea Fraser, Superflex, Gordon Matta-Clark,
Larry Clark)
Fourth point: In order to better understand artists and their work, you must must
visit art galleries, nonprofit art spaces and museums. Go to art openings, meet
artists and ask them if you can do studio visits. If you like art and are seeking to
support artists, buy art (it can also make a great investment). For intellectually
rigorous projects, I personally recommend the Hirshhorn in D.C. and Dia:Beacon.
Visit Marfa, Texas and view Donald Judds installation and collection of minimalist
and conceptual art. The Power Plant in Toronto is also great, as is the Palais de Tokyo
in Paris. Enroll in a studio art course. This will not only energize the right-side of
your brain, but more importantly it will give you a first-hand lesson in what artists
face each time they go in to their studio. If youre not much into getting dirty or
moving materials around, try taking an art theory or art history course. I suggest
something in modern or post-modern art. Dont have time to take a full course?
Check out your local museums and art institutions for art talks, panels and lectures,
many of them free of charge.
Fifth point. Understand that artists and nonprofit art institutions have unique legal
problems. The learning curve can be high, but certainly rewarding. However, artists
and art institutions also face problems similar to other clients or legal issues you
may have had. Theyll still need written agreements; have entity problems (LLCs,
nonprofit corporations); if nonprofit, have state and federal regulations; they both
need asset assessment and intellectual property rights protection; and they
certainly need insurance. Do some research: some artists and art institutions care
more about the content of their work than they do about the money. Which client do
you prefer?
Keep in mind that the art law field may not be highly lucrative if you focus too
narrowly or are too picky. With this in mind, the sixth point is to be willing to expand
your clientele by having an expansive definition of art. Are you interested in
representing fashion designers, actors, musicians, dancers or filmmakers? Will they

be in a broad range of practice areas and styles, modern or post-modern? Will you
focus solely on intellectual property? Will you represent artists or galleries, or both?
Seventh point. What background interests or experience do you have that could
benefit artists? Think hard and make a list of services you could provide to this
specific clientele. Do you speak a foreign language? Do you have a preferred legal
area of interest (trust and estates, free speech, intellectual property, nonprofits). Do
you have an MBA or other license that could deepen the services you provide for
artists. Do you have an arts background? Where you a graphic designer? Are you a
musician? Where you previously a gallery assistant or with a degree in art history?
Eight. Regardless, and most importantly, youll need to know the law and
strengthen your repertoire. Take classes in copyright and trademark law, property
law, negotiation, mediation, contracts and advanced contract drafting, cyberlaw or
Internet law. How up to date are you in new technology and social media?
Remember, artists are always a step ahead and looking for new means of
communicating and spreading their ideas and thoughts. Mix this with their
background in studio art and art history and youve got a plate full of information to
catch up on.
So how do you start? Point nine: believe it or not the best way to learn is by doing
pro bono or volunteer work for legal organizations such as Volunteer Lawyers for the
Arts in New York City (there are other VLAs in other states, so check to see if theres
one around you). There are also legal clinics affiliated with law schools across the
U.S. that handle cases in art and entertainment law. Check those as well. Keep in
mind that there are many low-income and mid-income artists who need legal
services of all kinds. Many artists graduate from art school with hundreds of
thousands of dollars in student loans, so you wont have to look too hard to find
artists who would love pro bono work from qualified professionals.
Point ten. Speak with other art lawyers and art law scholars and professors. Ask
them what they do on a daily basis and if they like what they do. Ask them about
the boring parts as well, not just the exciting stuff.
Point eleven. Check out these two articles on art law and its practice. Not just
because they both involve yours truly, but because they cover a wide and diverse
array of practices and viewpoints on the field of art law.
The first, Sergio Munoz Sarmiento Merges Art & Law, written by Daniel Grant (who
frequently writes on art law matters), overviews how I came to art law and what I do
now.
The second, The Art of Law, The Law of Art (p. 18) is from Fordham Law Schools
magazine, featuring a lengthy article on some New York-based art lawyers and law
professors. Hope you enjoy both!
So what do you think? Are you ready to make the move? Keep these pointers in
mind, and I hope they work for you. Id be interested to hear what you think about
them or if you have questions I didnt address. E-mail me
at sergio_sarmiento@clancco.com and let me know. Good luck!

Source: http://clancco.com/wp/2014/06/art_lawyer_law_sergio_munoz_sarmiento/
Date accessed: April 3, 2016

Is Law an Art?
DECEMBER 22, 2014CONNAL PARSLEY8 COMMENTS
How should we think of law? This was the question we asked in our last session. It
was not designed to elicit views on the substantive nature and content of law. Its
purpose was to draw attention to a much less discussed and even less debated
issue in the contemporary academy: whether the discipline of law is unquestionably
a social science. True, just as any other social science, law is concerned with human
relationships in a particular society. Yet, it is also true that we speak and think of law
as a subject belonging to the humanities, which historically has included the liberal
arts (originally being grammar, rhetoric and logic), those domains of knowledge
deemed indispensable to the making of a free citizen. This is the perspective we
adopt in this module where we also consider law to be an art.
From Roman times to the Enlightenment, law was defined as ars boni et aequi (the
art of the good and the equal), whilst during the Renaissance, law, as vera
philosophia (the true philosophy), was the queen of the liberal arts. What then I ask,
does law have in common with techn, to use the Greek term for art? How, do the
activities of those engaged in the life of law the legislator, the advocate, the judge
resemble those of the artist? What are the characteristics of law that ally it to the
liberal arts? What, more precisely, has law in common with such subjects as
literature, history, theology, rhetoric, or logic? And, what practices and techniques
does law have in common with these subjects?
Law possesses creative power and imagination, as does art, and is therefore also
closely linked to the notion of artifice. Law imitates through invention and fiction, as
indeed art imitates nature. Through the art of legislation natural relationships
between people are created where there are none, life and personality are
bestowed upon lifeless entities, and our conception of what is natural or not, of
what is just or not, is changed. Without the hermeneutical expertise of the jurist and
the judge cultivated through exegesis, commentary on, and interpretation of the
legal text, neither the systematic acquisition of legal knowledge, nor the
transmissibility of this knowledge and its applicability to the present, would be
effected. If the activities of the jurist and the judge link law to theology, literature
and history, those of the advocate, join law to logic and oration. For it is the
professional lawyer, the advocate, who, if it is to mediate successfully between law
and her client, must persuasively touch her audiences reason and sentiment and
thus must excel in logical argument and the art of public speech.
So what do you think? What does your experience tells you? Is law an art?

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IS LAW PURELY THE TRANSLATION OF THE ETHICAL IDEA OF JUSTICE, OR IS IT
SOMETHING MORE?
COMING SOON
8 thoughts on Is Law an Art?
JEGS2 says:
It would seem that most people would naturally define law as a system of rules that
govern conduct and impose order on society. Such a definition would lend itself to
the description of law as a social science: rules, order and logic are all vital
elements of science. However, law is also a projection of images and seen in this
light shares many of the characteristics of art. One such powerful image is that of
Lady Justice which personifies justice and is used to symbolise objectivity,
rationality and impartiality: the moral force of legal systems. A study of popular
culture indicates that not only does law project images, but that artistic forms are
also frequently used to express the law. There are numerous television programmes
that are based upon law from Silk to Suits, Judge Judy to Law & Order. The trend of
the courtroom drama indicates that there is something about law that aligns itself
more closely with art than science. Indeed, Raffield reminds us that Roman
philosophers emphasised the artistic skills of the advocate and that such skills were
so vital to the conception of law that often judges and lawyers had no legal
knowledge.
The role of the judge is primarily thought of as weighing up competing interests,
evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of arguments and applying reason and
rationality where rules conflict. But in deciding a case the judge is also creating a
narrative. Legal cases are often read as though they are objective facts that can be
observed empirically like a scientist might record data about the world. However,
the common law can also be read as a literature a medium for telling stories about
those affected by the decisions of the powerful.
JANUARY 26, 2015 AT 10:10 PM
CT358 says:
There has been much discussion about the nature of law, whether it is science or
art. While there are arguments for both views, the question is much more
complicated because we would have to clearly define all three terms and what
would mean to say that law is science or art. The general belief is that science is
objective and seeks to explain the world whereas art is subjective and seeks to
express individuality and emotion. The scientist is the one who examines the world
and seeks answers and the artist is the one who expresses himself or a larger group
of people. Traditionally these two are regarded as different because they seemingly
pursue different purposes in different ways. However, further thought on the topic
will prove how problematic is this easy-made distinction.

Both science and art attempt to explain the world but different aspects of it and by
different means. It is empirically false to say that science is objective while art is
subjective because any activity or process that involves human beings is bound to
be subjective, since absolute objectivity cannot be achieved, so it is only a question
of which one is more or less subjective. In this sense both scientists and artists have
the same objectives, to understand and explain the world and human beings are in
the centre of that attempt.
So science and art do not seem to be that different after all and the same applies to
law; it does not have to be either science or art, it can be both. It is science in the
sense that it is coherent and systematic and it is also art in the sense that it relies
on disciplines like philosophy, rhetoric and linguistics to achieve its aims. I think
there are more arguments to support the hybrid nature of law rather than the
limiting one where law is either one thing or the other.
JANUARY 20, 2015 AT 6:15 PM
EL244 says:
In order to effectively respond to the question Is law an art? one needs to first
understand the concepts of Law and Art on their own right. Most importantly one
must discover those qualities of law that could be of similar virtue to other concepts
of Art. Before entering any everlasting and endless concerns on what Law is, we
need to think about it in a more practical way, such as In what ways does law
manifest? This leads us to think about the instruments of law; because law is not
just an idea, but also founds its authority through the existence of a state and of its
institutions. Law in this sense is the Legislation and the following Court decisions,
which at times follow the letter of the written law, while other times they interpret
the latter in a more creative way. Up to this point we have encountered two
aspects, which should be examined under the prism of the term Art; the actual
legislative text and the Court decisions.
To begin with, Art could be considered to be anything that is done in a creative way.
Creative then could be anything made in a new, innovative way, through which this
piece of art is able to achieve whatever its existence is meant to achieve. Both
manifestations of Law mentioned above, use Language either written or spoken to
achieve their purpose. In order therefore to understand which qualities of Law can
be considered Art we need to initiate our reasoning from the study of Language,
Linguistics and Rhetorics. Despite the critisisms and constant disputes found in
academic literature, and even though the Legal Text might seem specific and
concrete, the judicial decisions as well as the influence that lawyers rhetoric exerts
upon judges and jury, is considered a significant starting point to realize the
artfulness of law.
A final point to consider is also the idea of Law in broader terms, understood in the
context of discipline, punishment and social control achieved through subtle and
creative ways, remaining almost untraceable to the naked eye. These thoughts
inspired by Michel Foucault, aim to emphasize the techniques and processes of
normalization as a means of social control, achieved through the Law (through its

authority, force, Language and persuasion) and would therefore set another
interesting point to consider, when we think of Law as an Art.
JANUARY 11, 2015 AT 11:28 PM
ML461 says:
In response to KD 287:
It is sadly ironic that one of the most popular playwrights at the turn of the 19th
Century was condemned in a law court a case of art fighting art. Oscar Wilde was
renowned as an orator, and held observers entranced as he fought his case at the
Old Bailey.
Setting aside any other potential issues, Wilde would have been an object of much
admiration in the ancient classical world, where the skills or the orator were held in
high regard. Indeed, the predecessors of todays jurists were those skilled in the art
of rhetoric, and Wilde would have found great kinship with his ancient literary
brethren.
As mentioned in the post, Wilde was a staunch supporter of the Aesthetic
movement, although perhaps this was not widely known until he chose to publicly
announce it as a consequence of the action brought against him by the Marquis of
Queensbury. Interestingly, the aesthetic movement was one that argued against the
influence of political and social ideology on the very subjects that collectively
formed the Humanities for example art, music and literature.
Whilst the movement was perhaps most prominent in the 19th century across
Europe, it does have contemporary supporters. For example Harold Blum (Professor
of Humanities at Yale University) raised objections to the projection of social and
political ideology onto literary works and considers this is causing an ongoing
difficulties for humanity scholars.
There is much to commend in Wildes stance not only in his fight against
homophobia, but also in his support of aesthetics and that movements fight to
preserve the Humanities in their untained form.
JANUARY 11, 2015 AT 4:13 PM
LB499 says:
To answer whether law is art, it is necessary to answer what is art. But as we are not
doing that, Ill try answering the law question by assuming different concepts of
what art is.
If we are to take art as a form of expression, then it could be said that an advocate
is an artist, as the advocate is using oratory, persuasion skills etc. (similar to what
ML461 said). At the same time, it could be argued that the expression is not
natural since an advocate can only express oneself only in a very specific
environment court room. Also, if we take art as an expression, everything
becomes art, because more or less everything can be seen as a form of expression
(what is expression?).

If we look at art from an aesthetic side, there is the question of beauty. The idea of
beauty is associated with pleasure, so in order for law to be considered art it is
necessary to prove that law in all its shapes is capable of producing pleasure.
If we are to take the institutional definition of art, this means that law cant be seen
as art since art is something which is created by an artist for public appreciation.
Finally, there is the question what is law. Do we look at law as a collection of rules
written (like a constitution), do we include trials into the idea of law? It could be
argued that trials are not part of law, because they are dealing more with what
should be done if law is broken, but not law (i.e. written laws) itself.
JANUARY 9, 2015 AT 8:57 PM
KD287 says:
I am one of those who are made for exceptions, not for laws. In spite of this, Oscar
Wilde imprudently initiated litigation for libel after being accused of posing as a
soddomite. This action led him to proclaim the truth of his love of aestheticism and
of the beauty of a younger man. The venue was the stage of the Old Bailey law
court, London in 1895. He and the barristers both advocates and prosecutors, all of
a high social position, had outstanding ability and experience in the power of the art
of eloquence and persuasion and created fascinating theatre to a large audience in
the court and via the press. The jury was unable to reach a substantive verdict after
the first trial such was the powerful oratory from both sides. But according to the
prevailing Victorian moral ostentation, the logical conclusion of conviction with
gross indecency led to his downfall and bankrupt destitution. It bolstered societys
fear of aestheticisms indecent morals and created an exceptional intolerance of
homosexuality. The Criminal Law Amendment Act had just been passed and artfully
allowed the interpretation that same-sex sexual activity was an offence. Wildes
love that dare not speak its name was spoken; the consequences ended his writing
and his life. He was sadly correct and damned to hard labour for stating that his
love is in this century misunderstood. Wilde left England following his release
from prison for a more societally liberal France. He died in 1900 in the beautiful rue
des Beaux Arts, St Germain des Pres, 6th arrondissement, Paris. Wildes last
residence is not far from the venue for this module and accommodation there is
available for 3,000 Euros for six nights. I acknowledge my reading and use of the
texts by Douglas O. Linder, The Trials of Oscar Wilde: An Account and Antony
Edmunds, Attitudes to Class at the Wilde Trials.
JANUARY 3, 2015 AT 1:20 PM
ML461 says:
Is Law an Art? Yes! Art is a means to express oneself. It can be unique to the
individual, or can be used to portray someone else, and what is art to one person
may not be to another. However, as a means of expression, the term art
encompasses all, and in that sense law is one of many methods of expression. Just
as a writer portrays their art in the written word, and a painter in a picture, so a
lawyer expresses their art vocally.

DECEMBER 31, 2014 AT 8:34 PM

EL244 says:
Hi! Is there a text included in this post? I cannot see anything. If yes, does anyone
know how I can access it? Thank you!
DECEMBER 26, 2014 AT 11:12 AM
Source: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/lawandthehumanities/2014/12/22/is-law-an-art-2/
Date accessed: April 3, 2016