Complaint Review: Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts-NY

Far from representing the best interests of artists, the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of New York (VLA-NY) is pathetically ineffectual at best and perniciously harmful at worst to artists and should be avoided under ALL circumstances. As if that weren’t bad enough, the staff and law students are smugly self-satisfied, completely clueless, and willfully and woefully ignorant that VLA-NY is a dangerously useless organization. 

I jumped through all its hoops (filled out its reams of paperwork, had two intake interview, and paid the fees) for my legal matter to be posted on its CaseList. However, at no time did anyone in the organization alert me that due to the nature of my dispute (pursuing a copyright infringement claim against publishers) it was doubtful that a lawyer would take it on (as VLA-MA honestly told me). Consequently, VLA-NY wasted 15 months of my time, or one-half of my three-year statute of limitations.

Not only did VLA-NY waste my precious time, but due to its negligence vetting the lawyers who ostensibly volunteer for it, it actually harmed my claim. Among the law firms that ostensibly volunteer for VLA-NY (but whose lawyers in fact only use VLA to put in their minimum N.Y. State Bar-required annual pro bono hours without getting their hands dirty) are lawyers who represent at least one of the infringing publisher’s, Harper Collins, parent companies, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (and its imprints Avon, Ecco Press, Fourth Estate, Perennial, William Morrow)--a clear conflict of interest.  

In spring 2016, I received an email from junior law clerk Victoria Liu at big N.Y. firm Wilkie, Farr & Gallagher (WFG) who picked one of my claims from VLA-NY’s CaseList. In the ensuing conversation, I asked which one she selected and, learning there was more than one, she requested all of them, explaining that she needed to have the complete picture. I referred her back to VLA-NY, but she insisted that I send them directly to her (which should have tipped me off to her intentions that she refused to go through established channels and made demands.) 

I patiently waited three months—all summer—for her to get back to me only to learn that she declined to help. But the bigger surprise was that she didn’t deem my claims meritorious. I reminded her that no fewer than seven IP lawyers at three international N.Y. firms believed otherwise, but, undeterred, she gave no explanation for her opinion.

Four days later, VLA-NY pro bono coordinator Laura Levin-Dando emailed that it had faith in the firm’s judgment (based on what??) and was dumping my claims--which I had paid for! I cited the seven lawyers and finally convinced her not to. But I needn’t have bothered because in 15 months no other lawyer asked to review my CaseList file.

Because Ms. Liu never stated that she had done a conflict of interest check, I asked her to comply with N.Y. State Bar Rule 1.18 to not “use or reveal” and to delete the confidential materials I provided. She ignored my request. Three emails and six weeks later, after mentioning filing a formal complaint with the bar, her supervisor Eugene Chang ambiguously emailed that they would abide by their “ethical obligations.” 

But if their ethical obligations are not those of the state bar, what are they? I decided to find out and after only a few Google searches discovered the following public information: WFG chairman/partner Richard K. DeScherer, Tinicum Partners co-managing partner Eric M. Ruttenberg, which owns one of the infringing publishers, F+W Media Inc. imprint Tyrus Books are co-board members on no fewer than three investment companies: The Williams Capital Group, L.P., The Reservoir Capital Group, and E&M Advisors LLC. 

WFG has aggressively courted another infringing publisher’s, Penguin Random House (PRH), multi-national parent conglomerate, Bertelsmann. Its three competitors have been White & Case ($10,000 Benefactor contributor), Morrison & Foerster ($5000 Sustainer contributor, Bronze Sponsor), and Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy, all past or current VLA supporters and/or volunteers. (https://vlany.org/support/) DeScherer donates to: American-Scandanavian Foundation where Bertelsmann Media Worldwide director of business development Kjartan Örn Ólafsson is on the board and Metropolitan Opera along with Bertelsmann U.S.A. chief executive Thomas Rabe, among other charities. Just a matter of the filthy rich being rich together? In 2015, WFG attorney Ana M. Alfonso and Tinicum Partners were bankruptcy co-defendants. WFG attorney William H. Gump brokered PRH’s Golden Books acquisition. Coincidence? In 2015, WFG advised shareholders of Bertelsmann subsidiary GmbH on the sale of shares. In 2016, WFG senior corporate partner Daniel Hurstel and Bertelsmann President/CEO Aart de Geus sat on the MARS Responsible Business Forum panel discussion. Coincidence? In 2009, a composer client sued WFG for conflict of interest.

Several more firms that ostensibly volunteer their services through VLA-NY insisted on seeing comparative analyses before committing themselves--and only afterwards did they inform me that they restrict their practices to white-collar corporations, i.e., publishing companies, ONLY. Or, I later discovered, they are counsel to publishers or their parent corporations. Are these firms gathering data for their high-dollar corporate clients, too?   

Do unscrupulous corporate lawyers comb VLA-NY’s CaseList for information they can use to their advantage by alerting publishing companies of potential claims? Do they also share this information with the multi-national conglomerates that own publishers and whose business they want?And does VLA-NY turn a blind eye by failing to vet its pro bono lawyers for conflicts of interest? Don’t take a risk on VLA-NY to find out!