CALGARY -- A Calgary law firm has launched a hotline offering free information for Calgarians during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our staff, from senior lawyers to the front office, got together to brainstorm ideas on how best to help and respond," said Cyndy Morin, a principal at Resolve Legal Group.

“If local Calgary brewers can retool their lines to make hand sanitizer, we can reorganize and use our skills to provide free interim legal help.”

The firm’s free telephone line at 1-844-446-6622 is being manned 24-hours-a-day by lawyers on rotating shifts.

And in its first week, the hotline has been inundated with calls from a cross-section of the community, including employers who have to lay off employees and don’t know their obligations; working parents without childcare who have paid in advance for services to seniors who have no personal directive should they need medical help.

“Some of the stories coming in are heartbreaking. We want to provide some relief by having a real person, a trustworthy person, on the end of the phone line,” said Morin.

The service is aimed at those who have been laid off or are in dire financial circumstances and lawyers have information on government COVID-19 benefits and the application process.

And Morin stressed the lawyers answering the phones will provide legal information, not advice.