Why is VLA an important organization, particularly in New York City?
VLA in New York is a 35-year-old organization that was founded to provide free representation to low-income individual artists and to nonprofit arts communities. It’s basically a service, just like there are many service organizations for arts in different areas. The arts is a business, and it has to run like a business in order to flourish and thrive. Q: Who are the artists you represent? A: VLA represents a broad range of every discipline imaginable. The big constituency is the nonprofit arts community. In addition, we help individual artists, a lot of musicians. Basically any artist who wants to live or work in the world or put their work into a commercial context comes to us. Musicians typically come because very early in their careers they’ll get slapped with a 30-page contract. Q: What advice do you have for those interested in arts and entertainment law? A: People ask us all the time, “How do I become an entertainment lawyer?” and “How did you get where you are?” When we sit dow
