A group of lawyers in Colorado has banded together to offer free legal advice to small businesses struggling as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keith Trammell, a partner at WhilmerHale in Denver, said the group formed at the beginning of the pandemic with help from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade. Initially, the group of volunteer lawyers was focused on providing help to small businesses that were trying to access emergency funding, but services have expanded as the pandemic has worn on and needs have increased.
The work is pro bono, or completely volunteer based, and Trammell said it is “a group of like-minded souls, trying to help small businesses.”
The organization now offers advice to businesses across the state about a number of issues, such as landlord/tenant eviction, financial insolvency, bankruptcy, employee retention, employee layoffs and contract renegotiations.
Trammell said the organization provides assistance for “the full run of issues that small business owners are confronting to try to keep their businesses open and afloat.”
To find volunteers, Trammell and the organization partnered with the Colorado Lawyers Committee. The committee is connected with a strong network of volunteer lawyers, and Trammell’s group now has more than 200 volunteer lawyers working with 130 clients across the state.
Twice a week, a group of 10 volunteers, including Trammell, have a phone meeting to match clients with lawyers across the state. The lawyers then work on their own time to contact and assist clients.
While the group assists businesses with a wide variety of issues, it does not consult with clients who are fighting public health orders.
“We are advising clients on compliance matters with respect to public health orders, we do not take on representations by clients who want to defy or violate the public health orders,” Trammell said. “But we are advising companies on what the public health orders mean and how they are likely to be interpreted.”
Trammell said the work allows lawyers to see how businesses are being affected by the pandemic and act as better advocates.
“As a group of lawyers, we have started to advocate as constructively, but as loudly, as we can for more financial assistance that’s needed now,” he said. “It’s very difficult for us to do much more than we can to delay what may be, for many, an inevitable business closure. In the end, it comes down to cash. We very much need to see more support coming online for businesses soon.”
To learn more about the group, solicit help or volunteer, visit coloradocovidrelief.org. While the organization tries not to be too selective about the businesses it helps, a majority of the businesses it consults has fewer than 50 employees. Trammell also said a majority of its clients are businesses run by women or minorities.
Trammell said the group expects an uptick in businesses requesting assistance this winter and needs more volunteers.
“Businesses need help, and we need lawyers to help them,” Trammell said.
smarvin@durangoherald.com
