Law Firm Coalition Launches National Pro Bono Campaign to Support Small Biz
Kirkland & Ellis and others are joining the City Bar Justice Center to roll out a pilot in New York, and the Lawyers for Good Government Foundation will provide national assistance in the effort to guide small business owners on how to access government support.
March 27, 2020 at 07:01 PM
4 minute read
The original version of this story was published on The American Lawyer
A group of 34 law firms, including Kirkland & Ellis, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Goodwin Procter and Covington & Burling, are joining together with the Lawyers for Good Government Foundation to help small business owners make sense of how to secure support through the federal government's COVID-19 stimulus package.
The project is getting off the ground first in New York City, where Kirkland & Ellis pro bono counsel Jacqueline Haberfeld was one of a number of law firm representatives who approached the City Bar Justice Center with the idea of building a program aiding small businesses.
"The City Bar Justice Center in New York is a tremendous resource for New Yorkers of modest means providing all kinds of services in good times and bad. They're the first to respond with services that are created just in time for crises like this," Haberfeld said.
The New York clinic, which is expected to open early next week, will bring together lawyers from at least 26 firms to help guide small business owners in determining what help is available through the package that passed the House earlier Friday, and also assist them in filing for grants and loans available through various federal, state, and local programs.
The goal is then to roll out the program across the U.S., drawing on a model that the City Bar Justice Center established after the 9/11 attacks. Akira Arroyo, who directs the organization's Neighborhood Entrepreneur Law Project, launched what was initially called the Small Business Initiative to help ensure their survival.
"That project has in 20 years since then helped over 15,000 entrepreneurs launch businesses," said City Bar Justice Center's Kurt Denk. "When this crisis hit, she had the know-how already to get this up and running really quickly."
No fewer than 26 firms have expressed interested in participating in the New York City-based program.
Nationally, Lawyers for Good Government Foundation, a nonprofit network of more than 125,000 legal advocates with lawyers in all 50 states, will partner with local nonprofit and legal service organizations and give law firms the resources and tools required to manage the program in each city. Qualifying small businesses with 25 or fewer employees will be offered free 45-minute consultations.
"Our focus is how to scale really huge national and international legal projects, and how to create tech platforms that can be replicated," said Lawyers for Good Government executive director Traci Feit Love.
She said that five to 10 additional cities will be part of the first phase of the national effort, and that they will be launched in the next two weeks. The organization will then assess interest in other locations.
"When we asked law firms to express interest in the program, we asked them to tell us where they can help," Feit Love said. "From that data, we concluded there are at least 30 cities where law firms that already signed up with us were ready and wiling to help. Our initial target was to cover 25 to 50 of the largest cities in the U.S. or confirm that these services were being covered by other groups."
Other firms signing on include Katten Muchin Rosenman; Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel; Steptoe & Johnson LLP; and Cohen & Siegel.
The effort is moving forward in parallel to a similar program launched by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison on Tuesday that aims to make sense of relief opportunities available to individual Americans and small businesses through federal, state and local governments.
According to reports, the COVID-19 stimulus package passed by Congress will include $350 billion in aid to small businesses. This includes up to eight weeks of cash flow assistance to qualifying companies.
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllHolland & Knight, Akin, Crowell, Barnes and Day Pitney Add to DC Practices
3 minute readFrom ‘Deep Sadness’ to Little Concern, Gaetz’s Nomination Draws Sharp Reaction From Lawyers
7 minute readChicago Midsize Firm Will Combine With Miami Boutique To Form Antitrust Powerhouse
3 minute readLaw Firms Mentioned
Trending Stories
- 1Gibson Dunn Sued By Crypto Client After Lateral Hire Causes Conflict of Interest
- 2Trump's Solicitor General Expected to 'Flip' Prelogar's Positions at Supreme Court
- 3Pharmacy Lawyers See Promise in NY Regulator's Curbs on PBM Industry
- 4Outgoing USPTO Director Kathi Vidal: ‘We All Want the Country to Be in a Better Place’
- 5Supreme Court Will Review Constitutionality Of FCC's Universal Service Fund
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250