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Small Business Legal Assistance

Program Summary

The Small Business Legal Assistance program matches small business owners with attorneys for a no-cost, hour-long consultation. After the consultation, the business and attorney can decide if they want to continue with a paid relationship. This program is not available to parties entering or in active litigation.

Volunteer attorneys are available to address common legal issues, such as: 

  • bankruptcy
  • contracts
  • employment
  • government benefits
  • real estate

Use of and access to this website and the links contained do not create an attorney-client relationship between OEDIT and the user or browser, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship between any of our partner organizations and the user or browser.

Lawyers can sign up now to participate. Small businesses can apply through the Small Business Development Center network or Mile High United Way. More details are provided in the "How to apply" section below.

Overview

Type: Consulting

For: Small businesses and lawyers

Application period: Rolling

OEDIT division: Small Business Development Center and Minority Business Office

Lawyers are willing to address these legal issues. You will need to identify one of these areas you would like to talk about in your consultation.

  • Bankruptcy: Chapter 7, Chapter 11, creditor claims, avoidable preferences, automatic stay
  • Contracts: entity operating agreement, standard sales agreement (Bill of Sales), vendor/supplier agreement, restrictive covenants, limitations on computer and internet use, leases, general business contracts, government contracts
  • Corporate formation and governance: sole proprietorship, partnership (GP, LP, LLP, etc., agreement), LLC/PLLC, operating agreement, corporation (C-Corp, S-Corp, Public Benefit Corp, PC), bylaws, shareholder agreement, founder agreement, joint ventures, mergers, due diligence, asset/equity sale, liquidation, dissolution, consents, resolutions, minutes, succession planning, employee ownership
  • Government benefits: small business tax credit program (until program is concluded); Economic Injury Disaster Loan and Grant (until program is concluded); SBA Bridge Loans; 7(a) Loans; 504 Loans; veterans benefits; FEMA
  • Insurance: general/types of insurance (general liability/professional), coverage, compliance, claims, settlement, COBRA
  • Intellectual property: copyright; patent; trademark; right of publicity, trade secrets, right of privacy
  • Labor and employment: employment contracts; workers compensation; employee ownership options (equity Incentives, profit sharing, etc.) disability; employment compliance; disciplinary actions; trainings; personnel advice; employee handbooks/manuals/policies and procedures; investigations; Title VII discrimination/retaliation/harassment
  • Loans and grants: short-term financing; intermediate/long-term financing; government guaranteed financing; government direct financing; community development block grants; equity financing; grant eligibility/application; grant reporting/compliance
  • Real estate: COVID-19 protections, income discrimination, warranty of habitability, security deposits, bed bugs, mobile home park act, subsidized housing, forcible entry and detainer (FED) aka eviction
  • Taxation: Income tax, self-employment tax, excise tax, property tax, sales and use tax, estimated tax, employer credit for family and medical leave, deductions, farmers and ranchers, opportunity zones, corporate methods of accounting, employer deduction for certain fringe benefits, state and local income tax

This program is designed to primarily serve small businesses with 10 or fewer employees. To qualify for free legal assistance, businesses need to:

This program is for existing small businesses. If you are beginning to legally form your business, please seek support from our Small Business Development Center network as this program is unable to help newly forming businesses. 

To apply, small businesses must have a relationship with the Small Business Development Center network or Mile High United Way to be referred to participate. These organizations may also be able to support small businesses with additional technical assistance.

To apply:

  1. If you are not already a client, request a consultation from your local Small Business Development Center or the Mile High United Way (Mile High United Way serves Denver metro area clients).
  2. The consultant will escalate your request to this program if your business needs legal assistance.
  3. You will complete a brief form to tell us about your business.
  4. Our team will work to match you with a volunteer attorney. 
  5. If a match is made, an email will be sent to your business and the assigned lawyer. We ask that both you and the lawyer respond to the email within 2 business days, allowing extra time for holidays or scheduled leave

Please note, completing the application does not guarantee that we will be able to match you with a lawyer. It may take up to a week before you are contacted by an attorney and if no attorney is able to assist you, we will let you know as soon as we can.

If we are able to match you with a volunteer lawyer, no attorney-client relationship shall exist between you and the Small Business Legal Assistance program or you and any of the sponsoring organizations. Any attorney that agrees to assist will offer one hour of no-cost legal consultation. Please be aware this program is limited to one hour and attorneys are unable to provide free services after that one hour. 

Attorneys will be asked to select the organization they are affiliated with. If you are not a member of one of the following organizations, please designate "Colorado Lawyers Committee." 

After you register as a volunteer attorney, you will be periodically matched with inquiring business owners. We will rotate through the list to make sure that no lawyer is contacted more than once before the entire list has been cycled through.

When matched, both the business and attorney will be sent an email making the introduction. We ask that both the business and the lawyer respond to the email within 2 business days, allowing extra time for holidays or scheduled leave. No attorney-client relationship will exist between a small business client and any of these sponsoring organizations. 

Sign up to be a participating lawyer

This program was created from the previous Colorado COVID Legal Relief program. These partners served over 300 small business owners through Colorado COVID Legal Relief. The partners felt it was important to create the Small Business Legal Assistance program to ensure small businesses have access to these resources on an ongoing basis. 

Colorado COVID Legal Relief was a joint effort of several organizations:

We are currently identifying other partner organizations to work with us to identify and develop additional legal resources. If you are interested in joining us, please contact the program manager below.

Contact

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