10 things SMBs should be doing right now CLE

Okay. So we will start. Good afternoon, everyone, and I apologize for some technical issues we had in getting this up and running, but Nick tells me we are good to go. So to start, since this is a legal presentation and you knew this was going to happen, a disclaimer. The views I'm about to express are not my firm's. They're probably not my own even, but it's not to be construed as legal advice for which you should seek direct legal counsel. So where are we? We're in a new reality. The new reality has lots of ramifications, but for purposes of analyzing legally how things play out and what SMBs should be thinking about, we're really looking at a couple of major factors. One, the shift of the workforce to remote work. Two, a dramatic surge in layoffs. Three, massive demand destruction. Four, similarly massive supply chain uncertainty. And the word of the day really is uncertainty because we don't know how long this is going to last and we don't know the extent of the slowdown that's happening and is likely to worsen, which means that a number of the kind of tools in the legal and business, you know, tool shed are not really deployable in the way we would in normal times. What I encourage clients to do, I've given it an acronym, RIA R squared. So, the first R is reassess. Which basically means take your business plan and whatever it was describing a month ago, throw it out the window and rerun it with some very dramatically different assumptions around revenue, focusing on where expenses can be changed, but you've got to update your plan. And I'm sure businesses across the country are doing that. The next thing you've got to do, the I is inventory. Figure out your third-party relationships, suppliers, customers, landlords, employees, creditors. Just get a sense of who you're interacting with, who you're depending upon, who is depending on you. And in addition, inventory relevant government programs, which seem to be increasing every day at both the federal and state level. The A is for analyze. The key is how much flexibility do you have? What's your ability to redeploy or modify existing relationships? Next, the next R is respond, which means identify third-party relationships that can be modified and reach out to them and start modifying those agreements. And obviously on the governmental side, start applying for, for the relevant forms of aid. And the final R, R squared, is really kind of the most critical one. It basically means this is going to be an ongoing process. You're going to have to revisit the first 4 steps constantly. This is a rapidly changing environment, and you're going to need to reassess things pretty constantly. Nick, I'm seeing that I've lost video on my end. So I'm gonna ask you if you could share the deck as we move to page number 5 of the deck.

Try and click it because I'm still seeing your deck.

I don't think it's gonna advance.

Okay. I will share mine.

Nick, let me know when it's shared.

Should be shared. Is it shared on your end? Assure safety first.

Yeah, I've been timed out of mine, so I'm going to proceed on the oral side and just ask you to update the the slides.

Sure.

So, yeah, if you can go to assure safety first, that would be great. Okay, so the reality is this slide has shifted in importance fairly dramatically since I even put it together in the first draft, because a large amount of the decisions around employee safety have already been made by governmental authorities. And as a result, you have a lot less discretion in running your business than you did even a week or two ago, depending on where you live in the country. That said, you know, make sure you know the relevant regulations. Are you an essential service? What does that mean? What parameters is to put in place? And if you do require workplace business and it is an authorized use, figure out what you can do to reduce employee risk. Consider other mitigation measures like taking employees. My, my benefits partner Tom White, who is a great resource for a lot of different points, highlighted to me a code, Section 139 of the tax code, which allows employers to provide employees with tax-free, what are called qualified disaster payments. And these are payments that are, you know, can even at the extreme be unrelated to work but are costs that relate to the disaster. And certainly, to the extent that employees are incurring cost in terms of establishing bandwidth and getting more extensive IT structures at home, to the extent that the company is not providing them but the employees have to go out of pocket, these are clearly costs under Section 139. That should be considered to see whether they can be provided to employees on a tax-free basis. Next slide, please. George, can you hear me? Yes.

Just real quick, I'm moving the slides. They can see them. Also, just to let everyone know, there is a raise hand option if they have a question, or they can type them in, and I'll let you know, George, if that happens.

Good. Thank you. And again, I apologize for the connectivity issues on my end. Okay, so this is the era of work from home, and a lot of transitions to work from home were very abrupt, and we're kind of making it up as it goes along. But the reality is that people should be looking at their existing policies and figure out what needs to be tweaked given the new reality. Is there a dress code around conference calls? Are there certain hour— you know, changes in the hours where people are expected to be on call? People are probably using internal chat groups a lot more extensively than they did before. Do you want to put further policies in place or parameters around that to avoid, you know, claims of abuses? You're having people use the same hardware that they'll be using now more extensively than they did in the past for mixed business and and personal use. Again, give your policies a review and make sure everybody has the guidance and everyone's on the same page on expectations around work from home. Some things have just changed. There, you know, the, the I-9 employment eligibility requirements, for example, require in-person inspection. Those, those obligations have been, have been changed and tweaked to reflect the current environment so that some inspection is done remotely and some is followed up later. Similarly, you know, visa applications often state a place of location. That's now shifted. You should consult with immigration counsel to identify changes that need to be made to visa filings. And then there's the overall question, you know, a lot of us are able to create fairly secure IT infrastructures in our place of work. Yes, we have remote workers today, but, but The percentage of them is much greater and extends to different people within the organization, job functions that perhaps weren't previously performed externally. So you need to review your company's security procedures, your IT policies, particularly with sensitivity around things that are governed by HIPAA, by GDPR, by, by the CCPA, the new California privacy legislation. There's been some push to defer implementation of that. But as of the last time I checked, which was a couple of days ago, nothing has come down the pike. So those obligations are all there. And more importantly, many of you in the relevant industries have made contractual obligations to customers that you'll observe those requirements. So make sure that your IT security and your IT policies are up to that challenge. And the same thing in the other direction, make sure your suppliers have done the same. You know, particularly give an eye towards your IT suppliers, so your HR and benefits suppliers who are handling a lot of personal information, and a lot of their personnel are now sitting working remotely, which is a change from the normal way business is performed. Okay, next slide. The reality is there are going to be a lot of layoffs. That's going to be across almost every industry. The only question will be extent. You want to do it in a thoughtful manner, both because it's the right thing to do in terms of the employees, but candidly also because if you do it the wrong way, it can result in claims down the road. Nick, I just want to make sure we're on the same page. Are you on page 7?

Or develop game plan for employee termination.

Yeah, yeah, right. So the first thing you have to do, and this falls into the inventory context, is, you know, employees that you're looking to let go, make sure you get all their employment documentation and figure out what, what they're owed on termination. So you're looking first of all at notice periods, uh, you know, even though, you know, we have employees at will, many employment agreements provide a minimum notice period. You want to make sure you have those teed up. If you have, you know, contractual severance obligations or even a company policy that has informed employees of a severance practice, those can be binding wage obligations just like, you know, the weekly wage. Issues of benefits continuation at a minimum, you know, employees by statute will have a right to purchase COBRA for healthcare for as long as the company is around. Accrued vacation time is another wage obligation once it's accrued. Employees that have options will have issues around vesting and exercise periods. And we're— to some extent with some tradeoffs, there is at least on the exercise question some degree of flexibility, though it's not without consequences. And just keep in mind that under most standard agreements, the situation we're in now is likely to be considered— if you have to terminate somebody, you know, terminating that person without cause or with good reason, it would be, you know, in most situations quite difficult to try to recharacterize this as termination for cause in some way and, and seek more favorable termination terms for the employer. If possible, just because it's, it's, it's a nice way from a legal perspective to close off a legal relationship, perhaps consider offering some additional amount of consideration in return for you and the employer signing mutual releases. It just creates a clear, a clear break and ends potential legal liability down the road. Create a plan of how you're going to communicate terminations, who's going to communicate terminations, and how terminations are going to be conducted. You know, it's one thing when you terminate an employee every few months and it's a one-off situation. When you're doing larger terminations, just the logistics of how they get the news, how their equipment is safeguarded, how, you know, they're asked to depart the facility, all those logistics become much more complicated when you're having, unfortunately, to lay off larger numbers of people. The WARN Act generally requires notice of terminations for large-scale layoffs. The current situation is likely to trigger one exception to that requirement, though we haven't gotten express guidance yet, but that's the betting. If you are considering terminations of more than 50 people, worth double-checking that guidance hasn't come down. People ask me what's the difference between termination and a furlough, and, you know, in general, they're, from a legal perspective, identical events in the sense that, from a legal perspective, both of them result in unemployment, and a furloughed employee can go and file for unemployment. You know, with a furlough, there is at least some expectation that there'll be some, you know, some good faith effort to rehire. But analytically, it does get treated as a termination. You know, if you're employing— and a lot of small businesses do this for convenience— your employees through a PEO, professional employment organization, like a TriNet or an Insperity, make sure you coordinate terminations with them because it is an employment— a co-employment situation. You've set up, and, you know, they have as much of a say as you do in terms of the logistics of termination. And I know from experience working in the past, they have their own processes of how they want to handle it, and quite frankly, it's a, you know, generally well-thought-out professional process, and it's probably, you know, worth it even if you didn't have to, to consult with them just to get the benefit of those learnings. You know, we're going to have situations and it's going to be, you know, the guidance isn't there yet, but people that are here on visas and lose their job, and we now have situations where some of them may not be able to return because of this health crisis to their native situations. These are points of sensitivity and to work through with counsel to see what, you know, what solutions can be offered. But unfortunately, there are going to be a lot of tough situations. And also, if you have employees that employees to take loans against 401(k) plans, you know, those loans will become due around when the employment ends. And so some sensitivity around that is important. Next slide. Next.

Yeah, it's on. I didn't leave.

Sorry. Okay. So, the small piece of good news is that the federal government is injecting, you know, a fairly significant amount of money, probably not enough for the problems we're facing, but certainly a significant amount of money to at least try to ameliorate some of the things that are going on. For SMBs, one of the primary programs that they could take advantage of is the, is the payment, a Paycheck Protection Program, which essentially is a loan that is forgiven if you don't lay off employees. And I've mapped out on this, on this slide, which will circulate after the call, some of the different criteria of the program. It doesn't preclude you from filing for other programs like the SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, but it does impact your decision— should hopefully impact your decision on whether to terminate somebody or not, because really, you know, this is designed to shield you from the payroll cost of somebody you wouldn't you would have otherwise terminated. And this is just one program. There are a bunch of other ones out there, and I suspect that within the next couple of weeks we'll see even more programs. The other thing not to overlook is every state is creating their own programs. I know that New Jersey, through its economic development agency, has come up with several programs with— as an employer, both for your business and for your employees. You know, you really should do aggressive searching for any available programs. And, you know, keep in mind this is government funds you're dealing with. So, it should go without saying, but important to say anyway, you have to be honest. You have to fill out the information accurately. Failure to do so and if you accept aid under false situations could have serious consequences. So, you know, this is a time to be very careful as you're filling it out. Okay. Next slide. Number 5 is avoid employment law mistakes. And, you know, these are a handful of very common things that companies, when they're struggling, do that can get them in trouble. So to be clear, employees, even if they— even if you both agree it's voluntary, employees cannot work for free even for a day, even for an hour, ever. That's just a violation of the wage laws and is off the table. Similarly, you can't compensate them solely with equity in place of any wages. You can't pay them late. You can't pay them a reduced rate that they didn't know about in advance. Accrued vacation time is considered wages, as is contractually required severance. So these are things, even as your company unfortunately is getting down to fumes, these are things you need in the bank. These are obligations you need to be able to pay. Now, an employee can agree prospectively, in other words, for future work, that they will work at a lower rate. Minimum wage laws still apply, and handling of it, you should consult with counsel just to make sure it is done in the proper fashion. Other practices that you see in times like this: one, it is really almost impossible to hire unpaid interns unless there's an academic, unless there's an academic credit that's being offered. You know, a lot of people are dying just to get work experience to put on their resume, but it is in fact illegal to do so. And in fact, the company, the kind of the poster child for this phenomenon in 2008, and it happened a lot, was Condé Nast. And they lost a large litigation on this point, which kind of gave everyone else religion. And then there are some temptations to move people to 1099 status. There are a host of issues around employing somebody on their— who is being paid on their own tax ID on a 1099 basis. And for purposes of this call, because I could give probably a 20-minute seminar just on this point, suffice it to say that moving people to 1099 status is more likely to create more problems than it might appear that it solves. Nick, I'm about halfway through. Are there any questions you want to float by me?

No, I haven't seen any pop up in the chat.

Q&A.

No hands are raised.

Okay.

If anybody has any questions, just hit the raise hand button on your bar at the bottom.

Yeah, no, I've been booted off the call. I'm going to actually try to relog in again. I want to continue the presentation. Okay, if you can go to 6, real estate, page 10.

Got you.

Okay. So, the real estate market is going to be an interesting dance going forward. You should contact your landlord for all ventures. Payment is going to be a problem. And, you know, the earlier you start these conversations, the better. The environment is likely, at least in the short term, to be a little more lenient than it might be in normal times. And so, you know, not that I think a lot of these disputes are gonna end up in court, but in the back of their minds, landlords will understand that, you know, these are not the attractive fact patterns to take tenants into court. And also there are governmental actions in place looking for rent deferrals and things like that. When you do reach out to your landlord, to the extent that they're able to negotiate concessions, it's important they be documented. Previously, I had a client who believed he had reached an accommodation with the landlord on rent and had actually paid several months' rent but didn't have documentation around it, and the landlord then disclaimed any knowledge. It was an oral discussion, and when push came to shove, not only did he disclaim and he claimed that the partial payment constituted non-payment of rent and triggered certain penalty clauses in the lease agreement. So, it's important to document all the terms of modifications. And landlords may say, "Hey, you have eligibility for SBA funds, and before we give you concessions, you know, you should maximize those funds." And again, those are discussions that are going to be had. I will talk about force majeure in a little bit greater detail in a minute. But some real estate agreements will have force majeure clauses. Force majeure clauses are read very literally. So, it'll depend on the exact wording of your force majeure clause to depend whether you have any relief that you might be entitled. A lot of agreements have— Real estate agreements in particular have time is of the essence language, which in normal times tells the parties that if there's a— if performance is late, it's an incurable breach. And, you know, and so the agreement has been breached in a way that can't be remedied. In this environment, and courts may show more flexibility, so if you're supposed to vacate a property because of the time of essence clause, you may get more flexibility. I could clearly see that in situations where, you know, there are things in the property and, you know, under the lockdown rules, you can't go and remove things from property. Okay. Next. Next slide.

Got it.

Manage your customer and supplier risk. So you have these contractual relationships. You have a lot of rules that are set forth between the parties in agreements. There are things you can do with new agreements that will reduce your risk profile. So, you know, if until now you've been a net 60 type of supplier, now might be the time to go to net 30 or even less. Get more rigorous about your credit verification procedures. And for those that you believe are at risk, and that'll be a much larger group than we believed a month ago, you know, seek advance payment or letters of credit where necessary, particularly in situations where you have a hard cost of performance. So if you're a SaaS business and it's just a question of turning on and off more software and your incremental cost is very low, you can maybe gamble a bit more on creditworthiness. But if you actually are incurring hard costs, if you're a manufacturer, and so you're buying things to make the things your customers are getting from you, that's a situation where you really don't have the luxury of of allowing much leeway except for the really top customers. Now, if you deliver something to a customer and they haven't paid you, there are some rights for reclamation even with an insolvent customer, but that's something you should consult with, with counsel. Now, in terms of your suppliers, the Uniform Commercial Code with respect to the sale of goods. And there are similar legal concepts for other types of contracts like the sale of services. You do have the right to adequate assurance of performance. So if you have a supplier that you believe is on shaky ground, you have the right to send them a letter saying, you know, we hear you're on shaky ground. Are you going to be able to fulfill your obligations in the timeframe set forth in the contract? While you're waiting to hear from them, you can actually freeze performance on your end. And if they're unable to give it to you, you have the right to terminate the agreement. And, you know, if they give it to you and it turns out to be fake, that in all likelihood will result in you having more damages if you make a claim against them. But the most important thing is just to put suppliers on the line and to get feedback. Most of your suppliers, regular conversation will give you that sense of whether they're going to perform. And this is a tool you have, a formal legal tool, if you're not getting that satisfaction. And this is a time, if you haven't as part of your general business practice, to diversify suppliers, identify potential second source. And if you're in a relationship where, where the other side has exclusive exclusivity where, you know, you can only buy product X from them. This is a time to talk to them about at least creating a window to allow you to get the second source during this period. Next, next. You got it. Okay. Force majeure is a term that you're going to hear a lot of. It's a French term. It basically means unnatural force. It's kind of the unexpected things that happen in contractual performance that nobody anticipated at the time that the contract was drafted. In normal times, it is very hard to get excused from a contract. So force majeure contract— force majeure clauses are read very literally. So if you say a force majeure is defined as A, B, or C, and situation D arises, which is somewhat similar but not exactly A, B, and C, at least in normal times, courts won't enforce a force majeure clause. So they're going to read it very tightly. And when you don't have a force majeure clause that applies, there are two other alternative legal concepts that, that might be used to make a claim to protect yourself. Or you might find that your customers use to protect themselves. The first is frustration of purpose. So, in other words, because of the current situation, the goal of the contract essentially can't really, you know, take place. And so, the reason for the contract was, you know, completely and fully frustrated. So, you rent out a restaurant for a birthday party. And since people are, you know, unable to come to the restaurant, you know, the— and if you haven't paid yet for the restaurant, you might claim frustration of purpose in that the supplier is no longer able to provide you what was the basis of the contract, which was a venue for a celebration. Another doctrine which is closely related is impossibility. And impossibility basically is what it implies, that, you know, performance has become impossible. So, for example, if an area is physically locked down and you can't get trucks in and out, so performance because of a government act, because, you know, of a hurricane or whatever, has made performance impossibility. You know, that becomes a basis, a defense against performance. The term is going to get thrown around a lot in terms of contract negotiations and renegotiations. You know, in normal times, you really— you know, force majeure cannot be used in normal times, even if in situations where performance has become a lot more expensive or a lot less profitable. My sense is, is that courts will show more flexibility for those cases that actually make it to court, and that there will probably be at least some more give and take around force majeure clauses. What you should be doing is really going back to the inventorying process I discussed earlier. Is identify the key contracts, look at their force majeure language, and then figure out what, you know, in situations where you want to claim a force majeure, is the language supportive? Does it, for example, expressly talk about pandemics? And if not, if the force majeure clause doesn't squarely cover you, can you make an argument based on frustration of purpose or impossibility, that you should get relief. And the flip side of it is you may have suppliers and, you know, who are critical to you. You should see what their— what, you know, what benefits they get from the force majeure clause in your agreement with them and figure out whether they might potentially have a claim based on frustration of purpose or impossibility. The point is, both in terms of your customers and your discussions with them, and your suppliers and your anticipation of their performance. For critical contracts, obviously you don't do this for every contract in the arsenal. You want to have a sense of where things stand in terms of the ability to claim force majeure. Next. Okay. There is going to be a lot of renegotiation. Obviously, nobody can be forced to renegotiation, but that's just not smart business. I would encourage for important contracts that you don't wait. You know, companies are likely to get swamped with requests for renegotiation. And my sense is, given where the economy is likely to go, that progressively over time, they will have less and less resources with which to be flexible. So, you want to get in there early. In my experience, the most common points of negotiation and tradeoff is, you know, price, the duration of the agreement, the minimum commitment level, and payment terms. And there's kind of a balloon effect here because in some situations, you know, pushing on one might blow out the other. So, for example, you want to reduce price, the supplier might come back to you and say, Yeah, that's fine, but then I want to increase our agreement by an additional year. Or you want a lower price, I want to raise the minimum commitments, or maybe I'll keep the minimum commitments what they are for the next 6 months, but in the out years of the contract, I want to change them. So, you know, this will be candidly horse trading, and you'll have to understand kind of what your bottom line is, what your affordability points are, what your cost of performance is. And factor all those in that horse trading. When you document these amendments and waivers, it's really important to distinguish between measures you take as a one-off waiver to say, okay, normally you're obligated to do this, but for the next 6 months you only need to do Y, and then we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming. As opposed to a situation where, you know, particularly if it's something like we're increasing the length of the contract, now we're actually creating a long-term amendment to the agreement. And again, document everything. The other thing you want to be careful about is you don't want to create a situation where the other side might claim that you've committed what is called anticipatory breach where you give them a very justified belief that you're not going to be able to perform going forward. Again, you don't want to do that unintentionally. Obviously, if you're not able to perform and you're starting a negotiation to revise, you know, then that's not the type of case we're talking about. But we're talking about a situation where you have the agreement in place, but you— in your conversations with them, you provide enough feedback about what, how things are, you know, what's going on that they have a bona fide belief that you basically have told them you can't perform. So, it's a very tough balance in terms of communication, but at the outside, that's something you want to be concerned about. Next, please. Some of the losses you're about to face may be covered by insurance. There are two types of insurance policies: first-party policies, which are direct liability that you incur— direct damage, I'm sorry, that you incur— and the other is third-party policies, which cover actions by third parties against you. It is a good idea at this point And, you know, it's beyond the scope of this program to kind of go through each one of these categories of insurance. You know, and obviously some of them like business interruption, the concept would seem relevant here, but the devil is in the details and every insurance policy is in what is covered and what are carve-outs to the coverage. So, this is a— this is something you should do with your insurance agent to understand, you know, what— excuse me— what are your potential claims under your exact phrasing of your policies. The final point, particularly for those of you, you know, who have outside investors in your company, and if your company really is kind of on the edge, is what's called tail coverage for D&O insurance. So D&O insurance is insurance that covers officers and directors, and if a company goes out of business, in certain situations, if there could be potential for claims against the directors and officers, so you can borrow— you can buy what's called tail coverage for the company, which will insure the directors and officers after the company has been wound down. And if your company unfortunately is heading in that direction, that is something that you should look into. Next. Okay. So, the presentation was entitled 10 Points. We've covered 10 points. Did want to cover insolvency when things really— and all the other points don't get you to a good space. So there are 2.5 forms of insolvency that are likely to be relevant. There's Chapter 7, which is liquidation, which basically means the company is shut down, its assets are sold off, and the story ends. There's Chapter 11, which is called— which is also known as a reorganization. And in that situation, the court approach appoints a trustee to work with the company to negotiate deals with debtors where they accept some percentage of payment from what they're owed in return for releasing the company. And at the end of the day, you know, the company is alive to fight another day. Now, it's, you know, if you're gonna, attempt Chapter 11, this isn't a situation where you run the company down to zero because at that point the creditors really have no incentive but to shut you down under Chapter 7. This is a situation where you want to retain funds that at least can cover most of the obligation, significant part of the obligation, so that you have the ability to try to negotiate with debtors and not have you put out of business. The reason why I said there are 2.5 forms of insolvency, very recently, Subchapter 5 of Chapter 11 was passed. I believe actually unrelated to this crisis, but good timing. And it applies to small business debtors who are— debtors who have unsecured debts of under $2.7 million or so. And the main difference from Chapter— from a full Chapter 11 is this process is streamlined. It's faster and it's less expensive than a regular Chapter 11, which can take years. A— the company continues to operate during that period, but it's not a comfortable existence. And Subchapter 5 seems to be something that resolves itself in a matter of months. One other point about insolvency: never run the bank account down to the point where you don't have money for taxes that are due or wages. In some situations, that can result in liability to directors. Next. Some broader points. Communicate. You know, this is an environment where everybody is hurting. You're not gonna be the only one delivering bad news to your customers, your suppliers, your landlords, your creditors. They're hearing it from everyone, and likely they're delivering it to everyone. So, there's a natural tendency when you have bad news to spin it or, you know, share it with as few as possible. Again, you always have to apply judgment, but I think communication is the key here because the earlier, you know, your external stakeholders, partners can see, you know, what's coming from you, it gives them more ability to mitigate their damages. And to the extent you have those lines of communication and you're getting that feedback, and they might be falling short, you get the ability to mitigate your risk. And, you know, if you have— again, if you're a company that's taken money from investors, you know, this is not the time to hide news from your board. You should be very candid with them. Use them as a resource, especially if they've gone through several cycles. They can be very helpful to you. You know, there's always a temptation to package things when you present it to the board. This is a time to give them the unvarnished truth, as much information as you can so that they can be as useful as they can. Next. And one final point on communications and how you conduct yourself in this in this time period. You know, when it seems like the sky is falling, which is certainly the mood of the day, you know, the survival instinct takes over and you feel like you have to act quickly and you feel you have to take necessary steps. And that's all true, and in a lot of cases it's going to be unavoidable. Again, I think people will by and large understand that you're kind of doing what you have to do and that this isn't your first choice. But at the end of the day, you know, this is also a time when reputations are either made or broken. So, you know, maintain your integrity, show as much empathy as, you know, as the situation will allow. Obviously, there'll be some some hard choices where you just don't have a more palatable alternative to offer. You know, communicate it in a way that shows you understand that, you know, a lot of these decisions are impacting people and their lives very directly and at a time when they can ill afford the news you're delivering to them. And I think that, you know, people remember and they have a long memory. And, you know, the people who really, you know, go above and beyond in this environment will be remembered, and the ones that decidedly don't will be remembered as well. And with that, I appreciate everyone listening to this webinar. I wish you and your family safety and security in these very unsafe and unsecure times. Nick, you can go to the last slide. Actually, the next one. I've written several other articles. Some of them are more venture company-focused, but a lot of the content will apply to all SMBs. Next slide, please. And finally, on this last slide, you have my contact information, and please, if you have kind of a one-off question that you think could benefit from my input, Please don't hesitate to ping me, and I'd be happy to email or chat. Thanks and stay safe.

Thank you everyone for attending. Just a heads up, you'll be receiving an email from me later with this attached presentation. I'll also be requesting your bar number. Once I get that back, we'll be able to send out those certificates for the CLE course. Thank you all for attending. We'll be holding classes or CLE sessions every Tuesday and Thursday, and you can check our website out for future classes. Everyone have a good day.

All right.