CORTLAND — Josephine Yang-Patyi in May expanded her four-year-old Syracuse law firm to a second office in Cortland. 

With the addition of the Cortland office — which is located in the McNeil Building at 17-29 Main St. — the Yang-Patyi Law Firm has added attorney Scott Leuenberger as of counsel. Both attorneys are concentrating on serving business communities outside the larger upstate New York cities. 

Yang-Patyi moved from New York City to Syracuse in 1999, with a focus on representing small businesses and continuing-care service providers, hospitals, and health-care providers in their asset recovery and collection efforts.

Yang-Patyi, principal attorney, is a commercial litigation lawyer with extensive experience in asset recovery and financial restructuring. She represents continuing-care service providers, hospitals,  and health-care providers in collection, asset recovery, and compliance matters in Supreme Court, Surrogate’s Court, Bankruptcy Court, and before administrative agencies. Yang-Patyi regularly handles litigation in cases involving creditor’s rights, commercial/business disputes, contract disputes, fraudulent conveyances, fraud, estate administration, employment discrimination, non-compete and unfair competition matters, and construction matters. She has successfully conducted non-jury trials and administrative hearings and handled appeals in state and bankruptcy courts and before administrative agencies throughout New York state for more than 20 years.

Leuenberger is a business law attorney with extensive experience in a wide range of commercial matters, including entity formation, drafting of contracts and agreements, and closely-held and family-business succession planning. 

The Yang-Patyi Law Firm’s main office is at 2700 Court St. in the town of Salina, near the Syracuse city line.

ALBANY — Businesses from qualifying industries can still apply for assistance from the New York Forward Loan Fund for COVID-19-related costs and expenses.

Those qualifying industries include agriculture, construction, food services, retail, education services, manufacturing, and transportation, the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Aug. 4.

Cuomo has announced that more than $2.3 million has been awarded to support 61 businesses and residential landlords through the New York Forward Loan Fund. 

Of the 61 loans, 54 were provided to minority- and women-owned businesses (MWBEs), 10 loans were offered to residential landlords, two loans were awarded to veteran-owned businesses, and one loan supported a nonprofit organization. 

About the fund

The New York Forward Loan Fund was created to provide working capital loans to small businesses. It focuses on MWBEs, small residential landlords, and nonprofit organizations that did not receive funding from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans. 

The fund continues to accept and process applications; to date, more than 9,300 eligible applications have been received, and more than 60 percent which were from MWBEs. 

Eligible small businesses and small residential landlords can apply for a 60-month, no-fee loan with a 3 percent fixed interest rate; while eligible nonprofits can apply for a 60-month, no-fee loan at 2 percent fixed interest. The maximum loan amount is $100,000. Loan funds can be used for working capital including payroll, operating and emergency maintenance, property taxes, utilities, and costs associated with refitting physical space to follow social-distancing guidelines. 

More information is available online at nyloanfund.com. 

Seven banks have pledged support for the New York Forward Loan Fund, including Buffalo–based M&T Bank (NYSE: MTB); London, England–based HSBC; New York City–based Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), and San Francisco, California–based Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC). Additionally, the fund has received philanthropic commitments from the BlackRock Charitable Fund; Citi Foundation; Ford Foundation; and the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation. 

The New York Forward Loan Fund was established with support from Bethesda, Maryland–based Calvert Impact Capital. The New York City–based Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is administering the fund, and Connect2Capital, which is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is hosting applications.