PBA Solo and Small Firm Section COVID-19 Resources Now Available to All PBA Members

During this time of crisis, the PBA Solo and Small Firm Section continues to fulfill its mission to offer the best techniques, methods and procedures for practicing law, as well as to encourage and assist professional colleagues in the resolution of problems common to solo and small firm practitioners. Most of its resources are also relevant to lawyers in other practice settings and cut across substantive areas of practice.

The section’s Listserv is active day and night with question and answer sessions among lawyers. To highlight the value of section membership and the insightful guidance provided about legal practice during COVID-19 crisis and at all times, the section has pulled together some of its Listserv’s recent “golden nuggets” to assist lawyers who are not members of the section and to encourage them to join the section.

• ‘Gold’ from the Solo and Small Firm Section Listserv.

Here are four blog posts by section Chair-elect Jennifer L. Ellis to assist lawyers who are new to working remotely:

• A Word about Zoom for Lawyers
• Lawyers and Employees Working from Home: General Concepts
• Starting From Step One: Working from Home
• Tool Lawyers and Others Can Use to Work From Home
• Working From Home – Internet Connections
  

Here are four articles by Kelly Phillips Erb, a Senior Contributor for Forbes Media LLC and a member of the Solo and Small Firm Section:

• Overwhelmed? Plain Talk On the Paycheck Protection Program for Small Businesses Affected by COVID-19
• Working From Home? Your Home Office Expenses Are Probably Not Tax-Deductable
• What You Need to Know About Applying for a COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL)
• What You Need to Know About the New Tax Credit Meant to Help Businesses of Practically Any Size Keep Employees on Payroll
  

Here are two brochures developed for the section by PBA Law Practice Management Coordinator Ellen Freedman, Immediate Past Chair Kim Lengert and House of Delegates Chair and Section Treasurer Deni Morton:

• Closing Your Practice: Meeting Your Ethical Obligations to Clients
• Emergency Planning for Death and Disability (and other things we don’t like to do): Meeting Your Ethical Obligations to Clients

Many other resources helpful to all lawyers already exist and are available to section members on the section’s webpage.

PBA Solo and Small Section members are invited to join the section’s Listserv. Members post questions and receive answers about issues impacting their practices and their clients. Here is a sampling of issues recently addressed on the Listserv:

• Creating a Home Office
• Getting Help Under the CARES Act
• Getting Documents Signed and Notarized During COVID-19
• Handling Local Government Meetings during COVID-19
• What is Essential Under the Governor’s Order

Not a member of the PBA Solo and Small Firm Section? Section membership is free for one year, provided you are currently a PBA member and you have not been a member of the section for five years or more. Click here to get started.

If you are not currently a PBA member, click the “Join” button at the top of the webpage. If you need assistance, call PBA Member Services at 800-932-0311.