Arts Law Pro Bono Award
Each year the Arts Law Centre of Australia (Arts Law), one of our pro bono clients, gives Pro Bono Awards in recognition of the contribution that volunteers and pro bono lawyers from across the country make to Arts Law's clients.
AGS's National Manager of Pro Bono Services Geetha Nair was the winner of one of the Arts Law awards this year. However the award is really recognition of the very valuable work that is done by AGS lawyers who have been seconded to Arts Law or otherwise involved in the organisation and whose work has assisted many of Arts Law's clients.
Our lawyers on placements with Arts Law have included Snezana Vukovic, Sophie Flaherty, Emily Bell, Donna Robinson and Ramya Krishnan.
Arts Law is a community legal centre established 30 years ago and based in Woolloomooloo in Sydney. It provides legal services, education and resources to artists and arts organisations throughout Australia. Justice Margaret Beasley AO is the President.
The nature of the work that our lawyers on placement get involved in includes providing advice to queries that come in through Arts Law's telephone advice line and other assistance with case work and reviewing and updating some of Arts Law's templates and information/fact sheets.
Past work with Arts Law
In addition to placements, we have undertaken other pro bono activities with Arts Law over the years.
In September 2014 Donna Robinson of AGS Sydney travelled to Central Australia with Arts Law as part of Arts Law's Wills project, a program through which Arts Law drafts wills for Indigenous visual artists in remote and regional areas of Australia.
In 2012, Mieke Dixon, now Director of AGS Darwin, did a joint presentation with Robyn Ayers, the Executive Director of Arts Law on the Personal Property Securities Act (PPSA). The presentation was to clients of Arts Law based in Melbourne. Following this, Mieke and Lee Sai Choo of AGS Perth advised Arts Law on necessary amendments to their sample agreements to ensure that the requirements of the PPSA were satisfied.
Snezana Vukovic and Kate Brophy are on Arts Law's Document Review Service Panel, which involves reviewing of commercial documents and providing one-off phone or face-to-face advice to clients of Arts Law.