Art Law Expert
(He put Art Law on the map!)
Artists’ contracts form the basis of the business of art—it only makes sense to know as much as you can about them. I’ll share my hard-earned tips about how to negotiate them, the basics of valid contracts for sales and consignments, terms that should always be included, and important disclosures you need to make when selling art.
Leonard D. DuBoff is one of the pioneers of the field of art law and a founding member of the law firm The DuBoff Law Group, LLC. His firm represents museums, galleries, dealers, photographers, artists and craftspeople.
His credentials verge on the legendary. He was a professor of law at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, for more than 23 years. He also taught law at the Stanford Law School and at the Hastings College of Civil Advocacy.
He was the founder and president of the Oregon Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts; a special projects coordinator for the National Endowment for the Arts; founder and chairperson of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools, president of the Tigard, Tualatin, and Sherwood Arts Commission; a member of the Board of the Oregon Committee for the Humanities. He was also a recipient of the Governor of Oregon’s Arts Award.
DuBoff has testified in Congress in support of laws favoring artists, including the Visual Artists Rights Act and has assisted in drafting numerous states’ art laws. He has written The Deskbook of Art Law, Art Law in a Nutshell, The Law (In Plain English) for Photographers, The Law (In Plain English) for Crafts, The Law (In Plain English) for Small Business, The Law (In Plain English) for Galleries, The Art Business Encyclopedia, The Craft Business Encyclopedia, and The Entertainment Business Encyclopedia.
His scholarly articles and books are frequently cited by courts and commentators. He also writes columns for Communication Arts Magazine and the Artists’ Magazine.