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Member Legal Services
CARFAC Ontario Member Legal Services
Legal services provided by Entcounsel Law Firm

Legal support designed for your practice

CARFAC Ontario members now have access to legal services designed around the realities of an artist’s practice. CARFAC Ontario Member Legal Services (MLS) is a CARFAC Ontario program with legal services provided by art and intellectual property lawyer Vandana Taxali.

Artists do serious professional work. Negotiating contracts, protecting copyright, and navigating complex agreements are part of the job, and they deserve proper legal support.

The Member Legal Services is currently in its pilot phase; your experience will help shape what it becomes.

CARFAC Ontario

Runs the program, refers members, and funds the Legal Subsidy toward an approved matter.

Entcounsel Law Firm

Vandana Taxali is your lawyer. She reviews, drafts, negotiates and advises, and acts for you alone.

Benefits
Free 15-minute legal triage and a drop-in Artists' Rights Clinic See the clinic ↓ Member rates Shaped around how artists work and get paid, with a written quote before anything begins How pricing works ↓ Legal Subsidy From CARFAC Ontario, toward the cost of one approved matter, if eligible What it covers ↓
Book a free 15-minute triage Submit your legal issue Attend the Artists' Rights Clinic
who it's for 🔒 Members only
  • CARFAC Ontario members (individual, dual, senior, student, and recent graduate artists)
  • Individual Associate and Institutional members with limited scope access

Not a CARFAC Ontario member yet?
Join CARFAC Ontario to access members-only legal service rates, along with other member benefits and resources. Membership starts from $25/quarter.

Become a member

Sound familiar?

“I’ve been sent a contract and I don’t know what I’m agreeing to.”

Contract review

“I invoiced three months ago and they keep saying it’s coming.”

Unpaid fees

“Someone is selling prints of my work and I never gave permission.”

Copyright

“The gallery says the damage happened during installation, but it wasn’t there when I dropped it off.”

Damaged work

You don’t have to let it go, and you don’t have to sort it out alone. Start with a free 15-minute triage.

what it can help with

The legal situations that come up most often in the practice and presentation of visual art, for example:

Contract review
  • Commissions
  • Licensing
  • Exhibitions
  • Public art agreements
  • Studio leases
  • NDAs and collaborations
Drafting
  • Exhibition agreements
  • Partnership agreements
  • Bills of sale
  • Use of likeness
  • Waivers
Demand letters
  • Unpaid fees
  • Copyright or moral rights
  • Return of artwork
  • Lost or damaged work
  • Cease and desist
Consultations
  • Copyright questions
  • Attribution and credit
  • Negotiations
  • Mediations

Associate & Institutional members: contract review for exhibitions, workshops, public programming, and licensing.

How fees and the Legal Subsidy work

Every matter gets a written quote at your member rate, showing any CARFAC Ontario subsidy that applies, so you know what you’ll pay before any work begins.

Fees & subsidy →

Your lawyer works for you

When you become a client. You become Entcounsel’s client only when you sign an engagement letter. Until then, including at the free 15-minute triage call and the Artists’ Rights Clinic, what you receive is general legal information, not legal advice about your situation, and it should not be relied on as legal advice.

CARFAC Ontario funds the subsidy, but you are Entcounsel Law’s client. CARFAC Ontario does not direct the advice, strategy or settlement decisions, and does not see your legal file. Your communications with your lawyer are confidential and, where it applies, protected by solicitor-client privilege.

With your consent, CARFAC Ontario receives only what it needs to run the program, such as confirmation that a matter is open and how much of the subsidy has been used.

Protect your privilege

What you share with your lawyer in confidence is protected by solicitor-client privilege. Sharing the same documents or details with others can put that protection at risk, even before your matter is accepted.

  • Share contracts, emails and the details of your legal matter through Entcounsel’s secure client portal.
  • Be careful about sending legal documents or details of your matter to anyone else. CARFAC Ontario is here to support you as a member, and it’s best to treat the legal details themselves as sensitive.
  • At the group Artists’ Rights Clinic, keep to general questions and save confidential details for your private matter.
Free

Artists’ Rights Clinic

Drop in online with a quick legal question. No cost, no commitment. Bring a clause you don’t understand, a contract you’re unsure about, or a situation you can’t name yet.

It’s a group setting for general questions, so keep confidential details for a private matter after intake. The clinic gives general legal information, not legal advice, and does not make you a client.

Mon5PM ET
Wed5PM ET
Register for the clinic
The Law Foundation of Ontario
Program funding

CARFAC Ontario Member Legal Services is made possible with financial support from the Law Foundation of Ontario.

not sure where to start?
Disclaimer: The Artists' Rights Clinic and Free Legal Triage Call provide general legal information only, not legal advice, and do not create a solicitor-client relationship. All other services are legal services provided under Entcounsel's engagement terms and a signed engagement letter, subject to entcounsel.com/terms. This is a pilot project; services, pricing, subsidy availability and tier structure may be changed, updated or discontinued at any time without notice.

CARFAC Ontario is supported by our members and the following organizations:

          

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