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Apply for Assistance

Decisions concerning which cases receive assistance from ASMP's Legal Action Fund are made by ASMP's Board of Directors. To apply for assistance from the ASMP Legal Action Fund, please have your attorney contact ASMP's General Counsel, Victor Perlman, at the ASMP national office:
    American Society of Media Photographers
    150 North 2nd Street
    Philadelphia, PA 19106
or send email to perlman@asmp.org.

 

Legal Action Fund Request Criteria

The establishment of the ASMP Legal Action Fund has brought many requests for aid from ASMP in the form of financial and/or legal assistance. Photographers should be aware that the following criteria (in no particular order) are considered, among others, in evaluating their requests for legal and/or financial assistance in legal controversies:

  • Quality of the photographer's paperwork
  • Membership in ASMP
  • Overall industry impact
  • Precedent-setting possibilities
  • Nature of the offender's conduct
  • Nature of the grievance

 

We examine the following items:

  • All transactional paperwork
  • Formal written request for aid, including an outline of the claim

 

We also seek the following:

  • Discussion with the lawyer involved
  • Copies of all pleadings
  • What aid is requested and how it will be used
  • Budget for the potential or actual litigation
  • Proposed course of action to resolve the situation
  • Copies of all settlement correspondence

 

Any money paid from the Legal Action Fund will be sent directly to the photographer’s attorneys. If the photographer receives any financial recovery in the case, either through settlement or judgment, ASMP expects to be repaid whatever money it has advanced. Generally, ASMP does not assist in simple collection cases or contract disputes, or in cases where there are already many decisions on the books establishing the law fairly clearly. Also, ASMP does not assist in cases where the only dispute is how much money the photographer should receive. Finally, there is a rebuttable presumption against assisting in cases at the trial level because the results in those cases tend to affect only the parties involved and because the facts of the case tend both to be uncertain and to control the result in the case. ASMP does not seek to promote or prolong litigation, but rather seeks to assure that the outcome of cases involving major principles or practices is fair and favorable to photographers.