Maybe Your Art Lawyer Should Have a PhD
Last year, a colleague of mine was interviewed for a podcast. We both practice “law for creatives,” a niche area of expertise that didn’t exist when I graduated from Duke Law in 2010. Two weeks later, I appeared on the same podcast, which was an odd choice for a pod that isn’t actually about IP law, but I digress.
During his episode, my colleague said (and I paraphrase), “You don’t need a PhD to do this job.” He said lawyers educated at fancy institutions are (and I quote) not “innovative,” criticizing them as “academics who find problems” then “stretch what could be a simple project into such a big catastrophe and charge you up and down for it every step of the way.” He said, “There’s a time and space for academics and getting up into the weeds,” but legal for artists is not “rocket science.”
He probably wasn’t talking about me. But it sure sounded like he was.
Honestly, those comments messed with my head.
For a whole year, I tried to prove there was a point in having a PhD, and I went about it all wrong. Mostly, I overcommitted to academic projects outside the firm to demonstrate that my academic training was not a waste of time. I started teaching Art Law in person, rather than virtually. I stopped writing relatable and useful blog posts and started writing thick law review articles. I dumbed down our services, and I watched the clock obsessively. I worried that I wasn’t providing enough value. I apologized to clients for being a nerd, learning about their art practices, and keeping current on the latest developments in copyright law. I became self-conscious about going to a top law school and said weird things like, “Oh, you know, I went to school in Durham.”
Until this week, when I landed in a writing class full of academic exiles. Once again, I am in a room full of PhDs. And let me tell you: it’s a different caliber of conversation. Talking about household labor with someone who has read Karl Marx and Adam Smith hits different. Talking with someone who has read Marx, Smith, Silvia Federici, and Simone de Beauvoir with Kathi Weeks absolutely slaps (as the kids say). Expertise is a differential factor, and this class experience is helping me value and reconnect with my deep expertise.
I don’t know if my colleague needs a PhD to do what he does.
I definitely need a PhD to do what I do.
“I don’t know if my colleague needs a PhD to do what he does.
I definitely need a PhD to do what I do.”
In the photo above, I’m holding two books. Like everything else on our website, this is an intentional choice. These books are linked on our Resources page because they are foundational to our way of practicing law. These books are on the shelf behind me when you meet with me on Zoom.
The book in the back was written by my doctoral advisor, Dr. Kristine Stiles.
Kristine is a scholar of global contemporary art, a pioneer in the study of trauma in art, film, and literature, and the world’s foremost expert in artists’ writings. I began studying with Kristine at age 19. Between undergrad, law school, and my PhD, I spent thirteen years with Kristine, learning how to understand the unusual way artists speak, write, and think.
She taught me how to:
Read journal entries
Understand correspondence
Structure formal and casual interviews
Put an artist at ease
Look at artworks
Talk to artists about their work while standing in front of it
Talk to artists about their work while not standing in front of it
Describe artworks to non-artists
Explain the contextual history of an artwork to the artist who made it
Explain the value of an artwork to a reluctant audience
…and so much more.
I draw on all of these skills in my work every day. Another attorney might say that reading an artist’s emails or evidence is just like reading any other client’s. A paralegal might say they don’t need extra training to perform intake with an artist. Yet, a cursory review of the depositions in Cariou v. Prince will show you exactly how frustrated attorneys and legal staff become with the abstract, circuitous, and frequently neurodiverse linguistic patterns used by visual artists. This frustration is common in all judicial records where visual artists appear as plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses.
Guess how I know that? Yep – it’s because I have a PhD.
To get one of those, you have to read everything written about your area of expertise. Academically, my deep expertise is in copyright law and contemporary art. Practically, it’s about how artists talk to each other as collaborators and competitors when it comes to using each other’s work. That field of study requires reading a lot of artists explaining themselves.
My ability to help artists explain themselves undergirds our contracts, trademark registrations, copyright licensing agreements, and negotiations.
My ability to read journal entries and correspondence is invaluable when reviewing emails, texts, notes, and evidence.
My ability to explain context to artists helps them avoid copyright infringement, express themselves freely, and rely on fair use.
My ability to structure interviews and put artists at ease helps me lead effective client meetings and collect all the material we need for drafts and negotiations.
Robert’s expertise is equally invaluable.
Maybe you don’t need a lawyer with an MBA, but his finance and accounting skills produce our strategic guides, which structure legal services in ways that save clients thousands of dollars.
Maybe you don’t need a lawyer who managed $700 million in revenue at Veterans’ Affairs, but managing the budget schedule for your biggest commission doesn’t phase him.
Maybe you don’t need a lawyer with a master’s in international peacekeeping, who negotiated antitrust deals for Google and T-Mobile. But I’m pretty sure that experience led to a quiet conflict resolution last Thursday. Robert emailed a demand letter from our third-floor office, got on the elevator, and the counterparty agreed to pay before he hit the lobby.
When you work with me and Rob, you benefit from our (fancy, traditional, stuffy) law degrees, but also from our (fancy, traditional, stuffy) academic degrees. You benefit from our work with clients like you, but also from our work with clients unlike you, because we’ve worked for the art institutions, galleries, rich collectors, multinational corporations, property managers, and tech giants on the other side of the table. We know how they think, because we used to do the thinking for them. (We still do, when our values align.)
When you work with Implement Legal, you get top-notch legal service from lawyers with serious degrees and serious experience. You also get art historical perspective, financial acumen, military discipline, art world savvy, and many other influences from our years in high-pressure environments.
Maybe you don’t need a lawyer with a PhD. The field of “law for creatives” has grown immensely since I was the only student at Duke who thought art law was a viable career path. If you want someone with less illustrious experience and expertise, there are many other lawyers to work with. They won’t charge you less or work faster, though. Rob’s financial acumen means we assign the lowest fees we possibly can. I can draft a perfect copyright licensing clause in seconds, thanks to all this education and experience.
We believe artists deserve this kind of exceptional education and experience – the kind that’s usually available only to private equity guys, tech barons, and museum CEOs. Lawyers like us usually work for that kind of client.
But we choose to work with you. We’ll keep choosing you. And we’re always grateful when you choose us.
