Artful practive: Colorado attorneys use their skills to support the arts.

• Author: Siebrase, Jamie
• Position: STATE of the STATE NEWS AND NOTES ON COLORADO BUSINESS

With its 170 diverse members, the 30-year-old Colorado Business Committee for the Arts is all about making connections between the state's creative and business communities through advocacy, engagement, leadership training and programming--including CBCA's newest acronym: CAFTA, or Colorado Attorneys for the Arts. CAFTA launched softly last October, after a decades-old nonprofit with a similar aim went defunct, leaving a void for local attorneys who were interested in doing pro bono work for Colorado creative's.

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"Working in the arts for as long as I have, I'm very aware of this need," says attorney Dave Ratner, founder and principal of the Creative Law Network, and chair of CAFTA's Advisory Committee. "Artists are generally not well compensated in society--yet still need legal services."

Enter CAFTA, a membership-based legal referral service connecting Colorado artists, creative businesses and nonprofits to a growing group of 40-plus attorneys interested in tackling legal issues ranging from trademark and brand registration to employment disputes--even business-related estate planning.

While most of CAFTA's member-attorneys are located in the metro area, the organization's reach has been wide: "This is not just Denver and Boulder," says Ratner, noting that statewide coverage is "an important piece of the puzzle."

If not for CAFTA, artists working...