Exciting Changes Afoot at SmallGovCon

This a guest post by Shane McCall, attorney at Koprince Law LLC and editor of SmallGovCon.

As readers of this blog may know, we at SmallGovCon have been contributing to and reading Bill’s blog for a number of years. We wanted to inform you of some changes at our firm and our blog. Steven Koprince, the founder of Koprince Law LLC and SmallGovCon, has recently decided to move on from actively practicing law and he’ll also be stepping down as editor of our blog. For more information about the exciting things Steve has cooked up for his future plans (which will include working in the federal contracting sphere and slowing down a little), please read his post. We’ll definitely miss him, but he’ll continue to provide insight and guidance for the firm and SmallGovCon.

Rest assured, we will continue to be contributing important posts to Federalsmallbizsavvy.com on into the future. At SmallGovCon, we’ll continue to provide timely legal updates, easy-to-understand explanations, and lively commentary on the federal contracting realm. So, who’ll be taking over Steve’s duties as blog editor? Why, that would be me, Shane McCall. I’ve been practicing law since 2010, and I’ve really enjoyed the chance to flex my non-legal writing muscles some at SmallGovCon since joining Koprince Law. I’m looking forward to taking over the blog editing reins from Steve over the next month.

The other attorney-authors and I at SmallGovCon will continue to provide the latest and greatest in useful, easy-to-follow government contracting updates, with an emphasis on items important for small business contractors.

With that in mind, here are some things that we’ve commented on, but we’ll be watching closely and writing about more at SmallGovCon in 2019. Stay on the lookout for updates and commentary on these matters and many others.

1. Small Business Runway Extension Act. Will Congress listen to the drumbeat of displeasure and amend the Act to remove the negative impact on those businesses that have had declining revenues by allowing businesses and SBA to run the numbers under both three-year and five-year look-back periods? Will the SBA listen to Congress and enforce the five-year lookback period for size-based receipts standards?
2. Section 809 Panel’s Recommendations. We’ve written a lot and grumbled some about the Section 809 Panel’s advice, which, among many other things, ranges from eliminating most small business set-asides for DoD acquisitions to changing the “once 8(a), always 8(a)” rule. We also know that the Section 809’s panels advice has worked on some issues (read my update on changes to $1 coin regulations to maintain currency with the rules in this area). But it’s unclear how much sway the Panel will have over more substantial DOD procurement matters.
3. Limitations on Subcontracting Updates. The limitations on subcontracting will undergo some major revisions in 2019, including a newly-effective DoD class deviation and the FAR Council’s long-awaited proposal for a comprehensive overhaul. These changes will clear up some of the confusion resulting from having different sets of rules for limitations on subcontracting found in the FAR and in the Small Business Administration’s regulations. But surely questions will remain.

We’ve enjoyed appearing as guest authors on Bill’s blog, and we’re glad to continue to do so. Please head over to SmallGovCon for updates on these hot-button issue for 2019, as well as many other topics.

Shane McCall is an attorney at Koprince Law LLC. He assists small businesses in navigating the federal government contracting world by advising on FAR and SBA issues. He regularly litigates bid protests, as well as size and status protests before the SBA. He assists with contract administration issues, including claims. Shane also drafts agreements including joint ventures, and subcontracts. Shane’s writing can be found at SmallGovCon, and he’s appeared in Contract Management magazine.