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Q&A
SBS details partnerships with legal service providers for small business assistance
1:30:35
·
5 min
SBS representatives explain their partnerships with various legal service providers to offer assistance to small businesses, including referrals for those facing litigation.
- SBS works with nearly 40 organizations that provide legal assistance, including pro bono and low bono services.
- Partnerships include organizations like Volunteers of Legal Service (Vols), Legal Aid Society, and NELP, as well as several law firms throughout the city.
- These partners assist with various legal matters such as entity formation, contract review, and intellectual property issues.
- For businesses facing litigation, partners may provide referrals to pro bono or low bono services, though SBS itself cannot directly assist with active litigation.
- SBS relies on these partnerships to provide specialized legal expertise for small businesses, such as educating them on new regulations like the Corporate Transparency Act.
Nantasha Williams
1:30:35
Do you at least have like a referral system?
1:30:38
Like do you have a list of
Kitty Chan
1:30:41
So what we do is we work with pro bono lawyers providing our support.
1:30:46
We are almost 40 organizations that help us with providing legal assistance.
1:30:51
What they do is if someone does need help they will try and find either pro bono or low bono services referrals for them.
1:31:00
But that is the extent to what we are able to do for someone facing litigation.
Nantasha Williams
1:31:06
Okay, so that happens seamlessly like if a business comes and they need an attorney, you will then refer them to this sort of resource that you have?
Kitty Chan
1:31:16
Yes, we work with organizations like Vols, Legal Aid Society, NELP and several firms throughout the city.
Nantasha Williams
1:31:24
Okay, yes interesting I never I mean we always get a lot of advocacy around like tenant rights of counsel but I find like for homeowners and for like now maybe we can just add small businesses.
1:31:39
I mean these legal entities that you're talking about do receive funds from the city but I don't know if they have like a special practice for small businesses, you know what I mean?
1:31:47
Like legal aid, like yes my office refers people to legal aid for like a
Jessica Walker
1:31:53
whole
Nantasha Williams
1:31:53
bunch of things but I'm just wondering if you know if they have specific practices for this work or like what it is it like you just is there any existing relationship or is it that you just know these people may do the work and so you simply No,
Haris Khan
1:32:08
it's very it's significant relationships and with expertise on entity formation, on contract review for business owners, on intellectual property matters.
1:32:16
And so these are in-depth services that we're able to
Nantasha Williams
1:32:19
But you refer people also when they're getting sued, right?
Haris Khan
1:32:23
So those partners, if they're facing litigation, then they'll referrals to low bono or other firms that could assist them.
Nantasha Williams
1:32:30
But they are making referrals.
1:32:31
I know you are testifying that we can't do anything about it or we don't really pre litigation, but I'm just wondering, somebody comes to SBS with an issue, like what do you tell them to do?
1:32:43
Do you say get an attorney, peace out, like or do you say hey here's a list of people you can try to reach out to?
Kitty Chan
1:32:49
So if they ask for a legal consultation we'll actually refer them to one of these organizations, right.
1:32:54
When they meet with them, if it is in a litigation state, they will not be able to assist them.
1:33:00
But what they may do is through their partnerships, they may know someone who again is either pro bono and able to take the case or low bono which is lower cost.
1:33:10
We rely on the expertise of these organizations.
1:33:14
For example, Legal Aid Society, when we need them to do, when we Corporate Transparency Act rolled around last year, they found law firms that were able to help us educate small businesses on that.
1:33:24
When we need to do entity formation, they will find someone who does that.
1:33:29
So we rely on their partnerships to be able to make these referrals.
Nantasha Williams
1:33:33
So do these legal partners have contracts with SBS?
Kitty Chan
1:33:40
No.
1:33:41
So how do
Nantasha Williams
1:33:42
they get funded?
1:33:43
Like if you're referring and you have this relationship, do they
Jessica Walker
1:33:46
you just expect them to do the work for free?
1:33:47
Nonprofits.
Kitty Chan
1:33:49
I
Nantasha Williams
1:33:50
know but like nonprofits still need money to operate.
1:33:54
So I'm just wondering like if you have this robust referral system for pre litigation, let's talk about pre litigation even though I think for the purposes of this hearing we really want to talk about like when people actually get sued when they're not in compliance but like even for pre litigation like you're just referring to people to these like random nonprofits because they do the work but like expecting them to do it from the goodness of their heart even though there's like according to you this like official referral system.
1:34:22
I think it's one thing we have like resources and we're like hey here you go, here's some resources but the way you're describing it is that it's like a formalized program within SBS and if it's like a formalized program within SBS but we're not like funding these non profits to do the work.
1:34:39
That sounds interesting.
Kitty Chan
1:34:41
Yeah so law firms in general and I don't know how they work, they are actually they require their lawyers to do some pro bono work each year.
1:34:50
So they actually court
Nantasha Williams
1:34:51
their Yeah, I'm thinking like for like a scatting, right?
1:34:55
Maybe scatting is like yes, we have to do this percentage of pro bono and so of course they might work with the SBS or they might work with another entity to like assist somebody and we have that system, but the way unless you're telling me you do not actually have a real formalized legal assistance program and then that case that makes sense, you're just kind of referring people, but the way you just maybe I took it as if like you have a direct line, like you can refer people and people can get that help in a way that is like directly connected to what SBS provides.
1:35:26
If you just have a running list and people can just take the list and run with it, I think that's I'm just trying to understand.
Kitty Chan
1:35:33
What we're doing is we're working with Legal Aid Society.
1:35:36
So for example, Scadden
Mercedes Narcisse
1:35:37
is That's I'm
Nantasha Williams
1:35:37
asking do you pay Legal Aid Society?
1:35:39
No, we don't.
1:35:40
Okay.
1:35:41
So how does it work?
Kitty Chan
1:35:41
One of their partners.
1:35:43
So for example, Scadden did a in October they did an entity formation clinic on behalf of SBS through Legal Aid Society.
1:35:51
Oh no, actually I'm sorry it was Vols that actually had that partnership.
1:35:55
So we have this agreement with Vols and Legal Aid Society where they actually are actually taking our referral to them and then they're actually working with their partners to help these people.