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Q&A
SBS explains legal assistance offerings for small businesses
1:28:10
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140 sec
SBS representatives detail the types of legal assistance they provide to small businesses, including help with commercial leases, entity formation, and free legal consultations through their Business Solutions Center network.
- SBS offers significant legal assistance focused on commercial leases, helping businesses understand their rights and obligations in lease agreements.
- They also provide support for entity formation, helping New Yorkers choose between sole proprietorship, partnership, or LLC structures.
- SBS organizes lawyers to be present at events like the Small Business Month Expo for one-on-one appointments and legal consultations.
- The agency provides pre-litigation support but cannot assist businesses once they are in active litigation due to fiscal and operational constraints.
Nantasha Williams
1:28:10
Okay and then a question, so you don't provide there's no legal assistance to small businesses at all, right?
1:28:19
Or you do?
1:28:48
So it's only when it comes to like their leasing, you don't provide legal assistance for other
1:29:29
What if they're being sued?
1:29:31
So like, you know, kind of the topic at the hearing, like, do you provide any assistance there?
1:29:52
So if someone is being sued, how far can you go before you can no longer help them?
1:29:59
Because you said you help with pre litigation, what can you do?
1:30:03
Like give them some advising on what they can do before they then
Haris Khan
1:28:20
We do, we provide significant legal assistance.
1:28:22
Okay.
1:28:23
We provide the assistance focused on the commercial lease commercial leases of businesses.
1:28:29
And that includes understanding their rights and obligations in a lease agreement.
1:28:33
And that means if it's a forty-fifty page document and there's components of it related to storefront improvement or renovations and repairs, we make sure that the business owner before they sign that lease agreement understands who will be responsible for some of those costs.
1:28:53
We do provide legal assistance on other matters as well, including entity formation.
1:28:57
We help New Yorkers understand whether a sole proprietorship or a partnership or an LLC is the right option for them.
1:29:04
We provide free legal consultations through our Business Solutions Center network.
1:29:09
Actually, if New Yorkers are interested in accessing those services, we would love to have them at our Small Business Month Expo, where we're not only just sharing information and sharing flyers, we have lawyers that we've organized to make sure they're part of that experience and folks can schedule one on one appointments with those lawyers at the expo to benefit from legal consultation on a variety of topics.
1:29:36
So unfortunately the city does not have a right to counsel for small businesses, but we do provide pre litigation support and that's the legal assistance we are able to provide generally, but also the commercial lease assistance program which is all pre litigation.
1:30:08
anything before they're sued.
1:30:09
Anything before litigation.
1:30:10
Once they're in active litigation, then we're unable to support them.
1:30:15
Trevor Williams, I will also point out legal costs associated with litigation are very significant, and our current programming already reaches hundreds of New Yorkers through a broad based curriculum and resources on a variety of legal topics.