Riley Grace Borden is a 2L at the University of Washington School of Law. Riley Grace is originally from the Seattle area and continues to live in the area during her studies. Prior to LCA, Riley Grace interned with the Moderate Means Program at the University of Washington; Riley Grace also served as a Summer Associate with Hickman Menashe. This summer, Riley Grace will be a Summer Associate with Sherman & Howard in Denver. Q: Many of our interns come to us with unique backgrounds in the arts. Do you have any personal background in the arts? A: The arts have always been a significant part of my identity, from how I connect with and understand others, to how I find ways to express myself, to how I appreciate, explore, and draw inspiration from the world around me. I grew up studying and eventually performing in professional classical ballet. Studying ballet gave me a deep love for classical music and appreciation for music and musicians of all kinds. Since leaving the professional world of ballet, I have invested more time into other areas of art that I have always enjoyed, including writing poetry, short stories, and longer works, and finding ways to share and increase literacy. I still enjoy experimenting with and learning all forms of dance, and have a soft spot for art history and its ability to widen my and others’ appreciation of existing art. How did you hear about LCA? I went searching for LCA before I knew it existed! I became aware of a range of labor inequities and abuses while I was in the “ballet world,” and I was hungry from the beginning of law school to find an opportunity that would allow me to explore art law and art law’s ability to address and build protections for artists. I also just generally wanted to get a better understanding of the wide-ranging needs of arts clients, I wanted to be close to the arts, and I wanted to be part of “leveling” the law, something I felt was inaccessible to other artists and me when we most needed it, with artists and their needs. When I found LCA, I saw that there was an organization doing exactly this—making the law work for artists, particularly artists of all kinds of backgrounds—and I was immediately hooked. What did you expect? Did anything here surprise you? I expected to be exposed to a lot of different types of legal issues. I knew that LCA assists artists who do not necessarily have specific “art problems,” but instead, artists with a range of issues that every day people encounter. I expected to see “just” housing issues with artists attached, but instead, I saw legal issues that combined housing issues I had seen in my work before LCA, but that involved artists’ unique challenges–such as needing space to practice their instruments and space to create. In general, I was surprised every day while working for LCA. Every call I made gave me startling insight into the increasingly slippery landscape of legal and lack of legal protections that artists are often forced to wade through on their own. I was particularly surprised that what we conceive of as “protections” for work, like copyright, are frequently not enough in a digital landscape, or at least, are only a jumping-off point rather than a blanket protection. I spoke with artists who had gone to great efforts to protect their works, but found that, many years later, their works were still, or even seemingly suddenly, being distributed against their will. Do you have any favorite moments or projects from your time with us? Every moment I received feedback from a client that could be summed up as “I feel heard” or “I feel like this issue I have been dealing with for months is valid” or “this is a first step for me, and I feel more in control of this overwhelming situation” breathed life into me and made me feel so thankful that an organization like LCA exists. I also just savored the opportunities LCA’s staff gave my fellow intern and me to ponder, research, and discuss more conceptual issues in the arts law world. As an LCA intern, I have felt my mind expanding every day. How has your experience at LCA connected with what you have been learning in law school? I took my first copyright class last quarter, and I was constantly quietly applying what I was learning to client situations. I even got to discuss duration rules during one of our staff meetings. In copyright class, we often talked about and focused on celebrities and legal issues faced by celebrities, but I felt fortunate to have, because of my daily work with LCA, many different types of people of varying ages and backgrounds on my mind when I debated the ever-evolving theories and politics of copyright with my peers and professor. LCA also gave me significant boots-on-the-ground experience working and communicating directly with clients. It can be challenging to issue spot and keep a conversation on-track when legal issues inevitably come wrapped in conflict, high emotion, technicalities unique to a specific artform, and sometimes complicated backstories. Yet, as the internship progressed, I was able to begin to fine-tune and be more flexible about my approaches to client conversations. I now feel much more confident in my ability to effectively communicate with clients, even when the client is has a very different background than myself or is seeking assistance in an area I know little about. Did you come into LCA hoping to get experience in a particular area of law? Have your interests changed at all? I hoped to work on some cases that intersected with trusts and estates, and I was fortunate to be able to speak to a few clients who wanted to set up after-life planning for their or their children’s artwork/publications. I am still interested in working in trusts and estates and elder law, but more than ever, I want my work in these areas to intersect with art law. Now, I am also more interested in the increasingly digitized aspects of art, and what the law can do to increase protections for artists faced with an often-exploitative digital space. Along similar lines, I am interested in finding legal avenues to increase older artists’ agency over their work. Finally, I care more than ever about protecting marginalized people’s ability to create art, particularly women. I worked on a lot of cases where women who had high ambitions in the art world felt particularly exploited, and LCA has inspired me to not give up on the law’s ability to protect artists and change this space. What’s next for you? Has your time at LCA helped you to narrow your options? It is more important than ever to me to remain at and work within the intersection of art and law, and particularly to continue to find ways to do work that makes the law more accessible to artists. This summer, I am honored to be working as summer associate with Sherman and Howard in Denver and am excited about this firm’s strong work in trusts and estates. In the further-out future, I plan to continue to do what I can to make the law more accessible to and protective of artists. I still am enraptured by many areas of the law, so I am looking forward to more exploration, gaining more experience, and turning the law into a useful tool that belongs to anyone who needs it, rather than a weapon to be used by few, wherever I possibly can. What value does an organization like LCA add to the arts community? LCA bolsters the entire arts community simply by existing. I have found that most people I know think of “arts law” as something that is inaccessible and “only for the wealthy.” In fact, most everyone is creating art or original, creative, expressive works every day, whether they know it or not, and people’s art and their ability to create art should be protected. LCA cares about all people who are artists, and there is and should be nothing narrow about the word artist, identity-wise, age-wise, socioeconomic-wise, or otherwise. Yet, if legal help is only available to people who have a certain financial status or who feel comfortable walking into a massive law firm, it is easy to get trapped and begin to believe that art or art protections only belong to “some” people. Not every artist, in fact, most artists don’t, have a foundation or a patron, let alone a personal legal team. LCA is the legal team for Illinois’s artists, and LCA makes it possible for art from all kinds of communities and people of all identities to be protected and shared. Which tv-show/movie/song/book have you recently finished that you would recommend? I am so happy to answer this question right now, because I just finished a novel by Lorrie Moore called A Gate at the Stairs that I wish I could share with everyone all at once. The novel, particularly its protagonist’s narrative voice, completely enraptured me. I laughed and cried every other minute reading it, and it was just brutally tender, humbly honest, and genuinely unjudgmental from beginning to end. There are some special books I finish and feel a physical attachment to, and this was one of them. Read it (and anything else by Lorrie Moore)! Recently, I have also been listening to an unhealthy amount of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, and of course, Silk Sonic (such a well-deserved Grammy). Their music never fails to make me and those around me smile, laugh, and dance, and as a law student in a pandemic, I can ask for no more. Also, just today, I listened to Alicia Keys’s “Gramercy Park” for the first time, and was stunned by the vulnerability of the lyrics. The song captures, so simply, and addresses the dilemma of all love-happy, people-pleasers, and I recommend it for a peaceful, empathetic listen. What’s a fun fact about you? I grew up on a farm! I have always been surrounded by animals, and I think I imitated panting dogs long before I formed any sentences. I also have serenaded many a kind, soulful goat. Thank you Riley Grace for all of your hard work as an intern this quarter! Check the website or follow us on social media for future intern profiles and other exciting content. Tags: Intern Profiles, News
