Casey Summar
Casey is an attorney and national arts consultant working with organizations and artists on organizational strategy, planning, and board development. She serves as Of Counsel with the Law Firm for Non-Profits and an adjunct Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University. Representative consulting clients include the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (New Haven, CT), Santa Monica Cultural Affairs (Santa Monica, CA), Springboard for the Arts (St. Paul, MN), and Joan Mitchell Foundation (New York, NY).
Prior to relocating to Southern California, Casey founded the Tennessee Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in 2005 which later grew to become the Arts & Business Council of Greater Nashville, an arts service organization dedicated to ensuring a thriving arts community, for which she served as Executive Director for over a decade. In that role, she advised the boards and staff of over 400 nonprofits at all stages of organizational lifecycle from formation to operations to transition.
Casey was recognized for this work as the 2016 Nonprofit CEO of the Year for Middle Tennessee. She was also named one of Nashville’s Top 40 under 40 in 2015 and a finalist for the Nashville Emerging Leader Awards in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. She is an alumnus of Leadership Music and a current participant in Leadership Santa Barbara.
Casey serves on the boards of the national Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+), the Carpinteria Arts Center, and the Lois & Walter Capps Project. She recently concluded a term on the Americans for the Arts Private Sector Council. Other highlights from her community service include serving as Chair of the Nashville Arts Coalition, Chair of the American Bar Association Entertainment & Sports Industries Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts Division, and Chair of the Tennessee Bar Association’s Entertainment & Sports Law Section.
Casey received her J.D. with honors from Vanderbilt University Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Belmont University with a B.F.A in Photography. Casey lives in Carpinteria, CA with her husband, dog and cat where she is reconnecting with her passion for large format photography and learning to bake sourdough bread.
