The Firm
The ART LAW FIRM® is a boutique firm representing clients in the United States and internationally in arts, technology, architecture, publishing, corporate law, entertainment, insurance and estates and trusts. The Art Law Firm approach to our clients is analytical thinking, creative solutions and practical approaches, embodied in our registered mark, Successful Strategies for Creative Endeavors®.
The size and flexibility of the practice and its team members and networks assure delivery of accessible, personalized counsel and advice, informed by extensive experience in the art market, and tailored to the client’s unique situation and circumstances. The hallmark of delivery of our legal counsel is informed options for our clients.
The ART LAW FIRM® has unique expertise in business and law, a unique 360° experience in the arts from all perspectives. Primarily transactional, the Firm also handles complex multiparty cross-border specialized litigation, offers strategic consulting services and collections management. Like DARRABY ON ART LAW—the book that founded the field of art law authored by the ART LAW FIRM founder, Alexandra Darraby, the ART LAW FIRM provides clients a comprehensive scope of legal services, and ancillary support, including intellectual property, estates and trusts, corporate and international law, branding and licensing, publicity rights and moral rights, foundation and board formation and tax-exemptions.
The ART LAW FIRM® is structured to coordinate and manage expert staffing through its team of appraisers, IT, conservators, curators, brokers, galleries, and other professionals from a network developed over decades throughout the USA and abroad.
The Principal
Alexandra Darraby is a founder and principal of The Art Law Firm, counsel to creative sectors in the arts, new media, performance, entertainment, fashion, publishing, non-profits, technology, and architecture. A gallerist of contemporary art in all media, Ms. Darraby’s direct experience with museums, collectors, dealers, auctions, curators, boards of directors and trustees, informs the practice to benefit a diverse clientele. Alexandra was named to the national roster of arbitrators by the American Arbitration Association qualified to work as a neutral in commercial matters as well as art. Ms. Darraby is a qualified, acknowledged and court appointed expert in the arts.
As legal advisor to pioneering clients, Ms. Darraby has expertise in innovative strategies on intellectual property, technology, development, production, distribution, and licensing for multimedia and digital media.
Alexandra Darraby was trained at a major national law firm in litigation, corporate law, tax and non-profits and strategic planning. A graduate of Boalt Hall School of Law, she studied in a joint MBA program, earning a J.D. and a Master of Arts from Berkeley.
Ms. Darraby represents legacy projects, foundations and estates and trusts, collections management, intellectual property, and estate audits. Ms. Darraby functions as outside general counsel to universities, foundations, and arts organizations, and as a consultant to governmental agencies on general and diverse matters, including catalogues raisonné, moral rights, rights of privacy and publicity, corporate and non-profit law; international transactions, trade deals and purchase and sale, antiquities and war-era materials, authenticity, risk management, ethics and first amendment. She has served pro bono as counsel to national arts organizations, African American collections and museums and Friends of the Uffizi Gallery in Italy.
Admissions include the Court of International Trade, the Ninth Circuit, the Federal Circuit, the California Supreme Court, and various district courts. Alexandra Darraby is a court-appointed expert, retained by law firms as an expert, and has testified and served as expert witness on civil and criminal matters, including authenticity and art fraud. Ms. Darraby is a mediator, has represented clients in arbitration, and is now herself a neutral named by the American Arbitration Association to its national roster. More info on arbitration
Ms. Darraby represents clients with respect to domestic and international matters involving U.S. Copyright Office, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, the Internal Revenue Service Art Advisory Panel, the USPTO, and cross border exhibitions and loans involving Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The U.S. Department of State appointed Ms. Darraby a specialist in Russia. She Co-Chaired the Intellectual Property Legal Frameworks in the Innovation Working Group for the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. In addition to a master’s degree in East Asia, Ms. Darraby has handled museum and exhibition matters in China, served as a Delegate to China-U.S. SIPO Bar Council, and a co-Leader on Joint Task Force on Comments to China’s Copyright Law Revision.
Thomson Reuters West is the publisher of the Darraby comprehensive legal treatise DARRABY ON ART LAW, VOLUMES 1, 2 & 3. acknowledged as developing the field of art law. More info about DARRABY ON ART LAW
Interviews and comments appear in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Smithsonian, World Report, msnbc.comand others are media sources. She has been a guest and keynote speaker for government, arts and museums in Paris, Madrid, London, Brussels, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Canada, and throughout the United States.
Ms. Darraby chaired the California Bar Association, International Section, and had the unique honor of also serving as Section Chair for California Lawyers Association. She is Chair of the International Section for the ABA Forum on Entertainment and Sports Forum and was elected to the Governing Committee. Alexandra founded and co-Chaired New Media & Content Innovation in the ABA Section on International Law, and served multiple terms as Former Chair of Arts & Museums for the Forum. She served two terms as Chair of International Intellectual Property Committee, and Co-Chaired the Ethics for International Section.
PROFESSIONAL LISTINGS
SuperLawyers™
BEST OF LEGAL LA
Faculty Excellence in Education
Dictionary of International Biography
Who’s Who in America
Who’s Who in American Law
Who’s Who in American Education
Who’s Who of American Women
Who’s Who in the Twentieth Century
Who’s Who in Finance and Business