What is Arts Arbitration and Mediation Services?
Arts Arbitration and Mediation Services (A.A.M.S.), a program
of
California Lawyers for the Arts (C.L.A.), has provided alternative
dispute resolution to artists and entertainers since 1980. C.L.A.
started A.A.M.S., which was the first alternative dispute resolution
program in the country to specifically tailor its services for the arts
and entertainment communities, as a natural extension of the
organization's mission to provide preventative education and
appropriate means of self help for artists, who often become involved
in business arrangements without being fully informed of the legal
consequences.
C.L.A. established a special alternative
dispute resolution program for the arts after noticing that disputes
involving artists, performers and arts organizations, while varied in
legal content, may revolve around a set of central themes which would
be foreign in the contexts of other dispute resolution programs.
Recurring themes include the emotional issues involved with the content
of artistic work, credit for work performed and the factors
contributing to the production of the work.
What type of services does it provide?
A.A.M.S. provides counseling, conciliation, mediation,
arbitration,
neutral evaluation and meeting facilitation. The service has program
coordinators at offices in San Francisco (415-775-7715), Los Angeles
(310-998-5590) and Sacramento (916-442-6210) who help artists
throughout the state. These program coordinators counsel clients in the
use of negotiation techniques in order to help them resolve the dispute
for themselves, offer conciliation assistance by communicating between
parties by telephone, regular mail and fax, coordinate mediations by
setting up a meeting at a neutral site with trained mediators or
coordinate arbitrations or early neutral evaluations in accordance with
the rules of California Code of Civil Procedure and rules created by
the A.A.M.S. Advisory Committee. However, A.A.M.S. program coordinators
are neutral and cannot give legal advice or representation.
What kind of disputes does it mediate?
While
disputes with A.A.M.S. are generally arts-related, the organization's
volunteer mediators have helped parties resolve many types of disputes.
A.A.M.S. has helped parties resolve disputes involving landlord-tenant
issues, payment or credit for work performed, ownership of artistic
work or copyright, collaboration or partnership issues and fee
collection.