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Several big law firms, working with local legal aid organizations, have formed a pro bono partnership to offer free advice to small businesses in New York that are struggling during the coronavirus outbreak.

Led by New York-founded Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, the coalition, called the Small Business Legal Relief Alliance (SBLRA), is designed to help qualifying small businesses, the self-employed, cooperatives and nonprofits.

It's the latest Big Law pro bono initiative that has several firms working together during the pandemic. It's also geared specifically to small businesses and nonprofits in New York that are seeking answers on a number of fronts. The partnership said attorneys can offer free counsel, during phone consultations, about understanding loan and grant programs, tax, commercial leases, labor and employment, insurance and general business issues.

Organizers of the initiative hope that the legal advice could help some small businesses survive the pandemic.

"For a small business, a day without revenue can seem like a week, and a month without revenue could mean going out of business," said Kevin Curnin, a Stroock partner who helped to organize the coalition.

The coalition, which was announced this month, has a number of heavy hitters from the legal industry participating, including Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer; Davis Polk & Wardwell; Greenberg Traurig; Milbank; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; Morrison & Foerster; Ropes & Gray; Schulte Roth & Zabel; Shearman & Sterling; Sidley Austin; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; and Vinson & Elkins.

Those firms are teaming up with local legal aid organizations such as Volunteers of Legal Services, The Legal Aid Society, Legal Services New York, IMPACCT Brooklyn, New York Lawyers for Public Interest, Brooklyn Legal Services Corp. A, and others to ease some of the pain around understanding complicated legal matters that are now top of mind for many small businesses.  

"The small business community is vital to the city's economic and social health," Dale Charles, director of community economic development at IMPACCT Brooklyn, said in a statement. 

Curnin, the Stroock partner, oversaw similar efforts by Stroock after 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy. He said lessons they learned from previous disaster responses have made this project, while grand in scope and heavy on the lift, possible. 

"The size of the task around us is daunting," Curnin said. "But we have been doing this work for 20 years, and we know the community really well. Small businesses are the pulse of the city."

Last month, several law firms including Kirkland & Ellis; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Goodwin Procter; and Covington & Burling joined with the Lawyers for Good Government Foundation to roll out a national pro bono program with a similar goal of providing free legal services to small businesses, specifically around how to utilize federal COVID-19 stimulus money.  

"The feedback we got back, the lawyers received a rating of nine out of 10," said Jacqueline Haberfeld, of counsel at Kirkland and one of the firm representatives responsible for getting a New York-based pilot for the national program off the ground. "Even though many times they are not receiving good news, the clients were talking about compassion and how grateful they are."

The program, which sees Kirkland as essentially a lead broker to set up state-by-state programs that will then be run by partner firms, is now operational in New York, metro Detroit, Washington state, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. Programs in Connecticut and South Carolina will open in the next several days and between three and five more areas are expected to be up and running within the next couple of weeks, Haberfeld said.  

She said the program currently has 1,300 attorney volunteers between 125 participating firms, up from 23 firms at the end of March. Thus far, they have received over 800 requests from small business owners for assistance, performed 400 consultations to date and have another 400 or so in the pipeline.

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