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What Are Your Museum's Legal Responsibilities?

Date postedNovember 19, 2020
in VAM Community Blogs,

"When asked to sign waivers, we are all faced with at least one of perhaps many questions: What rights am I signing away? Will this hold up in court? What will happen if I do get hurt? The answer to these questions often depends on the state in which you are located. On top of that, the laws of the respective states can often lend themselves to very different answers. In fact, Maryland and Virginia treat liability waivers quite differently."

Does your museum ask visitors to sign waivers before taking in experiences at your site? Read more from attorney Justin Thatch in the blog post, "It is All Fun and Games Until Someone's Eye Gets Poked Out".

Then join us for our next virtual workshop Make the Law Work for You: Legal Responsibilities of Museum Operation on Wednesday, December 2 at 10am as Justin shares more with us about liability issues that museums need to know to keep staff and visitors safe, as well as the organization from legal prosecution. Learn more and register by December 1st.

Updated Executive Order Introduces New Measures to Address COVID-19Date postedNovember 14, 2020 Special Announcement About Our ConferenceDate postedNovember 25, 2020

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  • Job Listing: Accounting & Reporting Manager (Norfolk Botanical Garden) Date postedJune 12, 2025Posted
  • Job Listing: Guest Engagement Associate (VMHC) Date postedJune 9, 2025Posted
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  • Job Listing: Assistant Conservator of Textiles (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation) Date postedJune 3, 2025Posted

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VAM supports over 3,000 members, including individuals, businesses, and institutions ranging from historic houses to botanical gardens, aquariums and zoos, art museums and galleries, battlefields, military museums, historical societies, and more. #vamuseums

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