California Lawyers for the Arts

California Lawyers for the Arts (CLA) is a non-profit organization founded in 1974 to provide legal services to artists and members of the creative arts community. The first Executive Director was Hamish Sandison, who was a recent graduate of Boalt Hall at University of California, Berkeley and is now a solicitor in London, England, specializing in law and technology. In 1987, Bay Area Lawyers for the Arts (BALA) joined forces with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts-Los Angeles (VLA) to form California Lawyers for the Arts as a statewide organization. CLA is part of an informal network of “Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts” programs that serve artists through state-based organizations throughout the United States.

CLA has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento, and the organization serves more than 11,000 artists annually. CLA has nearly 1,800 paid members, including artists and arts organizations of all disciplines and cultural backgrounds, attorneys, accountants, and teachers.

In its early history, C.L.A. board members and staff worked with state legislators to promulgate artists' rights legislation in California, including the State's Resale Royalty Act (1976) and the California Art Preservation Act (1980).

In 1993, with the help of a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Advancement grant, CLA expanded its mission to include articulating “a role for the arts in community development.” Following this, CLA received the first art-related grant from the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Families. In the mid-1990s, CLA began its statewide planning efforts, including a planning retreat with local arts agencies to include the arts in military base conversion. This work led to both a national conference funded by the NEA Design Arts Program and subsequent projects in Marin, San Francisco, Monterey and San Diego.

CLA has played a major role in enacting legislation for artists’ rights. In 1976, CLA collaborated with Senator Alan Sieroty of Los Angeles to enact the California Resale Royalties Act, which provides artists with a royalty on the resale price of any work of art. California remains the only state in the United States with this legislation. Although the law has been under controversy since its inception, the United States District Court upheld the law in 1978 in an opinion written by Judge Robert Takasugi. The United States Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision in Moreseberg v. Balyon, 621. F. 2d. 972 (9th Cir,), cert denied, 449 U.S. 983 (1980), stating that the Act is “an economic regulation to promote artistic endeavors generally.”

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