When you go into law as a lawyer, you’re bound to practice in a certain field. So, you can do trademarks, patents, copyrights, or you can have an object, a field, an industry, and in my case, it was works of art. There’s no secret, you’re good at what you love, and that’s true no matter what you do in life. I’m quite amazed at the extent to which I have colleagues who thrive because they’re musicians, they do music law, they have a passion for fashion, they’ll try to work on these issues, they’re good at computers – so you kind of see, I think it’s kind of the idea of trying to marry passions with law when you’re a lawyer.
My name is Amanda Buttice, a recent graduate of the Faculty of Law, Civil Law section at the University of Ottawa but I’m also a photographer, dancer, and lover of the arts. When entering law school one of my biggest concerns was figuring out how I was going to mix these two realms of my identity. In pursuit of the law, I didn’t want to lose my creative spirit or let go of my passions. I felt that joining the Intellectual Property Law Association was a good first step to ensure this connection and later became president for two years. In my second-year studies, particularly in the of my administrative law class, I learned about the very niche field of law known as “art law” through a guest speaker and from there everything changed for me. Knowing it existed solidified my interest and made me believe my objectives were possible. Within my clinical teaching course taught by Professor Étienne Trépanier I ceased the opportunity to connect with the same guest in order to learn about the field and to inspire other students with particular interests; which brings us here today at the University of Montreal.
My name is François Le Moine, and I’m a lawyer specializing in art and cultural heritage law. I’ve been teaching an art law course at the Université de Montréal for several years now. I practice in the field and am currently completing a doctorate on the subject.
Before studying law, I trained in history, art history and philosophy. So we were very much in contact with works of art. Not just reproductions, but works of art as such, whether in museums or on archaeological dig sites or in heritage buildings undergoing renovation.
It’s a field I’ve found absolutely marvelous. When you first enter a museum, it’s a bit like entering a temple; everything is in its place everything is – but the more you start to dig, the more you realize that ah well maybe there’s a problem with a painting, whether it’s because you don’t really know where it comes from, or a period ago you don’t know where it was, It’s true that it takes you behind the scenes, it’s true that it maybe kills a little of the wonder you might have the first time you visit a museum, but on the other hand, it’s true that these are fascinating stories, stories that are often humanly fascinating. But also, from the point of view of someone who has studied art history, it’s stories that are very rich and that give a whole host of dimensions to a painting.
It’s true that when I started in law school, I wanted to understand how the law dealt with these issues, and in the end I realized that in Canada, there had been very little work done, whether on forgeries, or on provenance; to find out what to do when you have a painting for which there have been thefts or holes and you don’t know where it’s been for a certain period of time. For the import-export of cultural goods, for the control of the black market, and so my objective was to work on these questions in Canadian law because there had been a lot of work done in the United States, and also in France, Italy and the United Kingdom, but here it was something that was relatively recent.
So my firm is called Règle de L’art, and it’s all about cultural property law. In other words, works of art, sculptures, paintings, archaeological objects and all the legal issues that may arise. It’s a one-man practice, I’m the only one working there, but in the end, I very often work as part of a team. If I have a question about tax law, I’ll inevitably have to work with a tax specialist. If I have a job or an inheritance problem, I’ll have to work with a notary, with someone who specializes in the field. Works of art move very easily, so very often these are international cases, so I’m often called upon to work with colleagues abroad in the United States, in Europe for the most part, whether it’s to provide them with legal opinions to make sure a transaction works, to work on a restitution case. So, even if it seems like a rather solitary thing to do, fortunately there are a few of us who are passionate about working on these, on this subject of art law, once again mainly in Europe and North America, and we’re very often in contact. So it’s very stimulating work, and you never know from one case to the next what subject you’re going to be working on and with whom, so each subject is quite new and each case is quite unique.
I think there are two cases I’ve worked on where I was really, really, really happy with the result. Both times probably because there was an aspect of a public interest and so it went beyond a simple private conflict in art law, which is often the case because a table, a chair, an everyday object, well that’s only going to interest the owner period. But when a work of art is returned, it can have a positive impact on the whole community. A few years ago, we successfully negotiated the return of a Norval Morrisseau painting in Thunder Bay. A painting that had been in Confederation College, a college where many young indigenous came for a more technical education, and these two paintings were at the entrance to welcome them. Unfortunately, they were stolen at the end of the 70s and found in Montreal a few years ago. So, they had been missing for a very long time, and we were really happy to be able to send them back, because we felt that we weren’t just giving them back to a legal entity, which was the college, but that they really belonged to the community. So it’s obviously very rewarding to have been able to work on this kind of file, given that we feel that an injustice has been righted, but that it will affect several people, and now the paintings are obviously on display again.
I’ve been extremely lucky, because in my first year of practice I started teaching an art law course, and I’ve been teaching it for several years now, first in Ottawa and now at the Université de Montréal. This may be the 9th time I’ve taught at the Université de Montréal. I think everyone was a little surprised by the success of the course, because at the beginning it was Benoît Moore, who is now a judge on the Court of Appeal, who was interim dean at the Université de Montréal at the time. And so he thought, well, we’ll give it a try, but he was perhaps expecting to have it every 2 years, every 3 years, but not that it would be a regular thing. In the end, it was relatively successful with the students. Obviously, I’m not the one to take credit for it, but the stories are always so interesting, because they’re stories about art theft and looting, and so of course it’s the case law that’s entertaining.
It’s a course that necessarily can’t just be legal, because there are political aspects, there are historical aspects, there are art history aspects, it’s really something quite holistic. And as an art lawyer, you have to listen to someone who wants to make public policy and have a good legal regime, you have to listen to what archaeologists are saying about looting, you have to listen to what art historians are saying about how attribution is done, and that’s the only way you’re going to get a legal framework that holds together. I think it’s interesting for students to be confronted with a law that isn’t linear in any way. Although it’s not a criticism of a course on obligation, a course on obligation is quite, quite logical in a way, and here we’re really in a mosaic of regimes: an object, a painting, a sacred object is not going to be grasped in the same way whether it’s in domestic law, common law, civil law, international law or public law, and so inevitably this, I think, piques the curiosity of students quite naturally, and so I’m very happy to continue teaching it today.
Do what you’re passionate about. I think that’s really what’s important, and once again, whether it’s art or anything else, whether it’s music or fashion. Fortunately, we have a very rich cultural milieu, a cultural milieu that needs legal advice, and so obviously your practice, as far as possible, should reflect your passions, and it’s when you know the people you’re working with, when you know your clients, when you know your institutions well, that’s when you’re going to have the most interesting practices. Obviously, don’t let yourself be stopped by the fact that people tell you that well, the practice doesn’t exist, because that’s what I’ve been told for many years, it’s nice to have works of art, but you’re not in New York, you’re not in Paris, you can’t do that here. So sometimes you have to know how to say no, no, no, you have to believe in yourself, you have to say that, you have to try and think that maybe if there’s no demand for a service, it’s because there’s never been an offer for a service, and so the fact of having this offer is obviously not a career that’s necessarily going to be very linear, that’s necessarily going to be very easy, but I’m not the only one in this situation; the fact of offering legal services that are a little innovative. It’s going to interest clients and maybe they’ll prefer to do business with someone who specializes in that field rather than someone who’s more, who’s more of a generalist, so obviously I think that when you’re in law school it’s hard to see the wealth of careers you can have: public service, private practice, it can be in a big firm, a small firm or solo, in international organizations, and so it’s important for students to ask the questions. Of course there’s the ‘Course au stage’ and It’s not at all a criticism of the big firms, it’s all very well for many people, and these practices can be extremely interesting, but if this route doesn’t suit you, it’s not because you don’t hear about it at university that it doesn’t necessarily exist, so it’s important to get out there, it’s important to write to people who have careers that seem interesting to you, and it’s also important to do your homework, obviously it’s often going to take a little longer to get where you want to go, but in the end, you can be very happy to be doing something you’re passionate about.
