By MATT CHANDLER
Buffalo Law Journal

When President Barack Obama put pen to paper and signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law in February, the stimulus package came with great hope and expectations.

Cities, towns and businesses across the country anticipated large windfalls of cash available for a wide array of projects and proposals, all aimed at offering a shot in the arm for the fledgling U.S. economy.

But questions loomed - chief among them, would the process of navigating the bureaucratic red tape and endless regulations make securing stimulus funds near impossible?

Phillips Lytle LLP formed a team consisting of seven attorneys who each had a specific area of expertise to learn the ins and outs of the ARRA.

"That group of attorneys works together to understand the law, and monitoring the projects and regulations that are coming out," said Morgan Graham, a partner in the firm and head of its energy practice group.

"The biggest challenge was to be able to learn how to navigate the funding landscape to assist the clients. There are a number of layers of government involvement, and many companies or clients simply don't have the time and resources to identify those programs that could be of assistance to them."

Raymond Reichert, a partner with Jaeckle Fleischmann & Mugel LLP, said he too is seeing a lot of demand for stimulus funds among his clients, who are primarily nonprofits charged with providing housing for people with low incomes, the elderly and homeless people.

"The (stimulus) money is being used to fill gaps in funding for these projects," he said. "These are gaps that normally we would fill by selling tax credits, but the tax-credit investment community has really dried up over the last couple of years."

Reichert said that drought has left such groups to seek out alternate means of funding - specifically, with TCAP, or Tax Credit Assistance Program money.

"The TCAP money is certainly flowing," he said. A project in Rochester that Jaeckle Fleischmann is working on, for example, involves a $30 million building that Reichert says is "going to get a lot of TCAP money."

Graham said the Phillips Lytle stimulus team identified seven key areas where they see both an availability of funding and a need among the firm's clients:

• Health care
• Energy
• Banking/finance
• Telecommunications
• Job/workplace training
• Construction
• Environment

Though much of the early stimulus funding has focused on infrastructure and public-works projects, Graham says the firm is doing a lot of work with energy clients as well. He estimates that statewide, Phillips is working with roughly 40 clients in various stages of securing stimulus funds.

"There are two or three different areas where we have been able to help clients," Graham says. "One is to identify areas within the stimulus act that they may be able to find an opportunity for funding. The other major area is when a client has already identified a project and submitted it for funding, and where we come into play is that they have to demonstrate that the project is shovel-ready. There are very fixed and hard deadlines to secure that money, and if you don't meet those deadlines, that money is pulled back and the project no longer qualifies."

To that end, Phillips Lytle has worked to streamline the process for clients and ensure that the often-complicated timelines and regulations are met.

While most lawyers we spoke with agreed that the process to secure stimulus funds is a slow-moving, labor-intensive endeavor, they said that labor is beginning to bear fruit in Western New York.

Last month, Gov. David Paterson announced that $7.4 million in stimulus funds has been awarded for projects in and around Erie County. Those projects include a $2.2 million award to replace two highway-ramp bridges in Tonawanda, an example of the infrastructure portion of the act that is expected to dominate the first year of the funding.

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, sees an additional benefit coming out of the funding.

"We will be able to put New Yorkers back to work and create jobs to strengthen our community," she said.