(Remote) Business As Usual at Gottlieb & Gottlieb
Foremost on everyone’s mind is COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus. Restaurants and gyms are closing down, Mayor DeBlasio is contemplating a “Shelter in place” order, and some parents have asked us what our plans are at Gottlieb & Gottlieb.
The first thing we should all remember is that your child’s health comes first. That should be a greater priority than one year's tuition or the next couple of months of instruction. This is something especially important for our clients who have medically fragile kids.
Next, try to keep calm and follow the general advice given by governments or credible media outlets. They have access to scientific data and create best practices. They can help parents figure out what's indicated by the progression of this outbreak — as well as what they shouldn't do because it's overboard, it's unnecessary, or just unhelpful.
What is Gottlieb & Gottlieb doing about COVID-19?
We are still working, and business is carrying on as usual. We're still moving forward on everybody's cases and we're still applying pressure to the DOE.
Out of an abundance of caution, we are working remotely when possible. That doesn't mean that there will be any interruption in our services because our servers are cloud-based, which means we can access them from anywhere. Our office line had been rerouted to our cell phones so that we can still take calls.
Unfortunately, there are currently more questions than answers about the future, however, we're doing what we can to mitigate the effect on our clients and their cases. For example, we're reviewing and working through language to put in our stipulations that will challenge reduction in settlement if a private placement has to close due to COVID-19 related precautions. In the event that we have to push back against a reduction in a settlement offer toward tuition, we aim to have the documentation to be able to squash that.
Despite our efforts and continued work, our clients might encounter some delays because our counterparts at the impartial hearing office may be absent and don't have the ability to work remotely in the same way that we do. We want our clients to know that delay won’t be coming from us. To learn more, please contact us.
Jonathan Gottlieb
Partner
195 Montague Street
14th Floor
Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
Jonathan@GottliebFirm.com
(646) 820-8506