Cultivated Compendium

This is a freelance piece I recently wrote for the Rochestser Business Journal:

As much of the working world embraces working from home due to COVID-19, Marisa Zeppieri says she feels a little bit of betrayal that previously many employers refused to provide that accommodation to people with disabilities or chronic illnesses.

“It’s archaic thinking that all positions happen in this 9 to 5 structure,” says Zeppieri, an author, speaker and founder of the LupusChick nonprofit providing support to other people with Lupus.

“You have many people with chronic illnesses or disabilities who are talented but there is no physical way that they can come into office 100 percent of the time, 9 to 5,” Zeppieri says. “With COVID, for me, the whole thing has been bittersweet. In one sense, I am really excited about these great changes that will hopefully impact people who are disabled and chronically ill. You also get a little hint of betrayal when you’re told so often that positions available in your line of work have to be 100 percent in the office but then you see” how employers migrated their workforce to work from home in just a few days due to COVID-9.

Zeppieri says that the number of positions that are now available remotely compared to a year ago are “unbelievable,” and she foresees a lot more opportunity for people who are disabled, chronically ill or have other reasons to work from home.

“If you are disabled or chronically ill you have to ask yourself was it just they didn’t want to go the extra mile” when these kinds of flexible work options weren’t as widely available before, Zeppieri adds.

Calvin Eaton, the founder of 540WMain, a community-based organization that promotes justice for all and who has fibromyalgia, says he does feel optimistic that people with disabilities and chronic illnesses will benefit from a shift in workplace culture that finds that having people work from home is working out fine.

“I do think that there is a lot of ableism that goes on professionally,” Eaton says. “I am happy that tone is changing. The fact it took a pandemic to force us to have real conversations about this speaks to the barriers to how much further we have to go in this culture to see disabled individuals as whole people who bring value and experience.”

Jeiri Flores, a local disability rights advocate who works for an area university, says that being able to work from home every day has had several benefits for her disability.

Flores, who uses a power chair to get around, says that there are multiple reasons that being able to work from home has improved her life.

“During this COVID time it has really canceled out a lot of issues I have had navigating my workday,” Flores says.

Wintertime is the “prison season” for her, Flores says, because she can’t guarantee that her home and her workplace entrances will be adequately shoveled for her to be able get in and out.

Flores also says that she is at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and it’s important to be able to work from home at this time to protect her health.

Flores also says that transportation for many people with disabilities is an issue because there is limited public transportation in the Rochester area and she has to pay for someone to drive her to and from work because she does not drive. Working from home and meeting with people over Zoom also has been a relief because she is not having to travel to multiple meetings at different sites during the day and paying a great expense to do so, she adds.

“Everything for people with disabilities is super expensive,” Flores says. “It’s called the disability tax.”

Flores said that she also thinks she works harder from home than she ever has in the office.

Allowing employees to work from home and to work feasible schedules has shown employers that employees with disabilities and chronic illnesses “are still able to be vibrant and efficient members of their workforce,” Flores says.

Some employees had “already decided and deemed what people with disabilities can do,” Flores says. “You wouldn’t allow me to have this accommodation because you couldn’t see what I could bring to your company. Now that it is your only solution, now that you see (working from home) in a whole new light, you’re impressed and think that this can be your new norm.”

Flores notes that opening up work-from-home options and flexible hours will change the opportunities for people with disabilities to become employed. She notes that many people with disabilities are living off disability payments, which typically only pay $800 or $900 a month.

“It’s really about leadership pushing themselves to think outside of the box,” Flores says. “It’s about pushing the envelope on what traditional work looks like.”

Luke Wright, a partner at Harter Secrest & Emery who practices in the area of labor and employment, says that “sometimes employers would look at requests to work from home skeptically. There may have been some skepticism about productivity and employers thought some of the essential functions of the job need to be in person. A lot of employers have been surprised how easy the transition has worked and how many employees are able to maintain productivity without physically being in the office and how alternatives have been found for many of the functions thought to be essential.”

Wright also notes that the increased openness to have employees work from home or have flexible hours also may benefit people who want to work from home due to their family situation or their caregiving responsibilities.

Eaton says that opening up workplace culture to allow working from home on a regular basis and allowing for flexible hours is not just about diversity and inclusion but a matter of equity and justice.

“When organizations are starting to really look internally and say, ‘What are our values? Who are we excluding?’ Sometimes the way you’re being as an organization can be so one dimensional and you’re in tunnel vision,” Eaton says. “The disability community has huge spending power. When you look at it across sectors, genders, races there are people who are not part of the conversation until they need to be. If these folks were included at the table, reached out to, we know it will behoove these organization to tap into that sector. They will buy the product. They will buy the service. They will support the organization.”

Amaris Elliott-Engel is a Rochester-area freelance writer.

Here is a recent piece I wrote for the Rochester Business Journal about the benefits of continuing education despite the demands of busy personal and professional lives:

When Pamela Black-Colton, the executive director of admissions & student services for University of Rochester’s School of Education, was earning her MBA at night, she never went anywhere without her textbook. She would use any spare minute she could find to keep up with her homework.

Black-Colton is not alone in the local area in noting the challenge in balancing an existing career and other responsibilities like a family with continuing education.

But local educational leaders and students say that the challenge can be met.

David Kunsch, program director of St. John Fisher College’s MBA program and assistant professor of strategy, says that he also earned his master’s degree part time at night.

It’s important to set aside the nights you are not in class or one of your weekend days to keep up with the demands of a part-time program like the MBA or the Masters of Science in management offered at St. John Fisher, Kunsch says.

Being able to juggle work and continuing education, whether it’s a degree or some other form of training, “boils down to determination and dedication and discipline,” Kunsch says. “If you don’t have those three things, it’s going to be a tough go.”

Having an understanding partner helps a lot too, Kunsch adds.

Aparajita Verma, a Rochester-based MBA student at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Saunders College of Business, has been working at local startup, Phello, while attending school. Verma agrees with Kunsch about the importance of having a strong support system in terms of family and friends. “Whenever you are down, they are the people you need to go to,” Verma says.

Verma also says it’s important to keep in mind that the most successful people did not get to their level overnight. “You have to realize it all comes in phases,” she says.

Lindsay Christensen, a mother of two from Geneva who is studying mechanical engineering at RIT, says that the key to her success is time management.

“A lot of times I am left with not being able to start homework or study until after my kids go to bed,” Christensen says. “The sacrifice of sleep really is crucial at this point. The biggest thing is I am very determined and want this for my life and my kids’ lives. I am determined to get my degree and start a profession and be financially stable and happy for our future.”

Christensen also recommends that students consider undertaking some of their continuing education first at a local community college as that was a money saver for her.

Nicole Viggiano, director of the Greece Central School District’s Office of Community Education, recommends that students get their plans in place before they begin their continuing education and know what their schedule is going to look like and what the expectations of their coursework is going to be. The office offers programs in adult education, workforce development and community programs like cooking.

It also is essential to communicate ahead of time with course instructors about other life responsibilities like family duties, Viggiano says.

Diane Ellison, associate vice president of RIT’s graduate, international and part-time enrollment services, recommends that students who are worried about how to juggle continuing education and existing responsibilities sit down with school administrators before assuming that nothing can be adapted for their situation.

She notes that RIT offers certificate programs as well as graduate degrees such as a newly developed graduate program in business analytics. There are short-term programs in which there is an in-person component for one week and the rest is done online, Ellison adds.

Black-Colton suggests that students first take a course as a non-matriculated student to test if they are ready to take a more intensive graduate degree or certificate.

Black-Colton and Kunsch both note that their programs are designed for students to be able to work and take classes at night.

Local educational leaders and students also say that rising to the challenge of working while undertaking continuing education is worth the challenge.

Black-Colton said the value of attending school while working professionally cannot be overestimated because “the things you learn you can put into practice right away, versus things seeming more theoretical until you get into the field.”

Verma says that being in the classroom alone is a safe cocoon. But working, while studying, means “you don’t know what is going to happen in the next hour. You have to be multitasking. You have to be pushing yourself to be better the next day,” Verma says.

Black-Colton also says that, in the crucible of continuing education while working, students often form a group of friends that they never would have met otherwise.

“It really expands your world view,” Black-Colton says.

Undertaking continuing education while still working is a signal to employers that someone is a “cut above in being able to manage a number of things at the same time and do well in all of them,” Kunsch says.

Christensen says that she was miserable working at the job she had before going back to school even though she was paying her bills and things were fine for her family financially. But there is a way forward to juggle the financial burden of college and having a family and a career, she says.

“A lot of people get stuck in their routine and think it’s too late to change it,” Christensen says.

Here is a recent story I wrote for the Connecticut Law Tribune about changes to the law for corporations and LLCs that went into effect earlier this year:

While Delaware remains the hub of corporate law with a large number of publicly traded companies choosing to incorporate there, Connecticut is aiming to compete with the state and other large commercial jurisdictions, as recent reforms have been made to state laws governing corporations and limited liability companies.

Corporate law practitioners say these changes to Connecticut’s LLC and corporations law are part of the state’s effort to compete in being friendly to businesses and to entice corporate lawyers to advise their clients to incorporate in Connecticut.

When the Connecticut Uniform Limited Liability Company Act went into effect July 1, it was the first major update to Connecticut’s laws about LLCs since 1993. And major changes to the Connecticut Business Corporation Act went into effect Oct. 1.

These reforms are “mostly for the benefit of lawyers,” said John H. Lawrence Jr., a partner at Shipman & Goodwin in Hartford and a member of the American Bar Association committee that promulgates the model law on which Connecticut’s corporate law is based.

“Clients spend very little time focusing on these kinds of issues,” Lawrence said. “These are really tools to make advice on business matters easier and clearer. A lawyer has to have confidence that Connecticut will be as up-to-date as Delaware or New York or any other big commercial state.”

Before Connecticut adopted the new LLC law based on the Uniform Law Commission’s model law, “it was difficult to recommend to clients that Connecticut be the jurisdiction where they formed their LLCs if they were looking for outside investment,” said Matthew H. Gaul, a partner at Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessy in New Haven and a member of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Business Law Section committee that vetted the model law.

In terms of attracting corporations, Lawrence said Connecticut’s adoption of the latest changes to the ABA’s Model Business Corporation Act will make it competitive with other commercial jurisdictions.

The new Connecticut law allows corporations to correct prior “defective actions,” which is something Delaware law allows, said Lane T. Watson, a partner with Day Pitney in Hartford who represents companies in mergers and acquisitions and venture capital financing, and on other issues.

The most common situation in which a corporation has taken a defective action is when more stock has been issued than the articles of incorporation authorized, Lawrence said. That could scuttle a company’s effort to go public because some stockholders would not be able to sell their shares, Lawrence said.

The new law also allows companies to require that lawsuits regarding internal corporate matters be heard in Connecticut courts and thus prevent forum-shopping by plaintiffs, Lawrence said.

New legislation also allows corporations to eliminate a board of directors member’s responsibility to disclose when he or she has an investment opportunity that would be of benefit to the corporation, Lawrence noted.

The change in the law “eliminates a complicating factor in what is a national and international economy” to obtaining investments from venture capitalists, Lawrence said.

Connecticut corporations also can now undertake “two-step mergers” without getting the approval of shareholders, Watson said. Delaware law allows two-step mergers, in which an investor who accrues enough stock can gain control of a corporation. Once an investor’s control is in place, the investor merges the corporation into a new entity, even if other shareholders object.

Allowing two-step mergers without shareholder approval is seen as another way corporations can be acquired, giving businesses a reason to incorporate in Connecticut and not elsewhere, Watson said.

Marcel Bernier, a partner with Murtha Cullina in Hartford, was an active proponent of updating the LLC law in Connecticut. He said adoption of the model LLC law will make the state more competitive with other states. One benefit of adopting the model, he said, is that Connecticut judges and lawyers will be able to look to case law that has developed in other states to develop Connecticut’s own version of the law.

That’s important, Gaul said, because Connecticut previously had only a few court decisions involving LLCs, and there were gaps concerning the fiduciary duties of LLC members.

“Investors really don’t like uncertainty,” Gaul added.

The new LLC law also extends some concepts from corporate law into the realm of LLCs, Watson said. That includes a ban on LLCs making distributions to members if doing so would make them insolvent, he said. It also includes allowing LLC members to bring a “derivative” lawsuit claiming there has been a breach of fiduciary duty on behalf of the LLC itself, he said. The old statute was silent as to whether a member of an LLC claiming there has been a breach of a fiduciary duty may file that claim directly or on a derivative basis, Bernier said.

As a result, there have been conflicting Connecticut Superior Court decisions on whether LLC members may bring derivative lawsuits.

The new law also allows for LLC operating agreements to alter the duty of loyalty or the duty of care, which Bernier said is important to encourage investment. The new law also allows for the complete elimination of the duty of loyalty.

Allowing the parties to have the liberty to enter an operating agreement that changes these fiduciary duties will encourage hedge fund managers and other venture capitalists to invest in Connecticut LLCs knowing they are “not more exposed to liability than their comfort level,” Bernier said.

Another legal change, albeit from almost four years ago, also will encourage businesses to form LLCs in Connecticut, Gaul said. Following Connecticut’s enactment of the Connecticut Entity Transactions Act on Jan. 1, 2014, Connecticut LLCs are permitted to change into Delaware corporations, Gaul said. “That matters, because most venture capitalists want to be investing in Delaware corporations,” he noted. That means corporate practitioners can advise their clients to form their LLCs and attract investors in Connecticut, while retaining the option to eventually incorporate in Delaware.

Here is another recent article I did for the Rochester Business Journal:

Rochester may be known as a leader in imaging and optical science, but a lot of people don’t know about its active presence in medical clinical research by standalone facilities and area hospitals.

Dr. Scott Feitell, a cardiologist and director of heart failure for Rochester Regional Health’s Sands-Constellation Heart Institute, notes that even though it’s not a large city, there is a lot of clinical research being undertaken in Rochester, especially because of the presence of the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology.

“Clinical trials are another piece in my toolkit that I can offer patients,” Feitell says. “Even though these treatments are not yet FDA-approved, they can benefit (patients).”

Dr. Matthew Davis, the medical director of Rochester Clinical Research, came to Rochester in 1996 because of the city’s reputation for research. As a clinical researcher, Davis says he gets to see the process new medicines go through, from early testing to, in some cases, fully marketed treatment options.

Rochester’s clinical research sites are often part of a network of such facilities around the country and sometimes even around the world. Their data is funneled into large databases from which conclusions can be drawn based on results from thousands of test subjects.

Clinical researchers in Greater Rochester are currently exploring solutions to things like cardiac problems, cancer, influenza, migraines, depression and other major mental illnesses. All of these studies are enrolling participants. In a few years, some of these studies could result in drugs and devices coming to market to help with such problems, local clinical researchers say.

Solving heart problems

Feitell says there is a lot of good medicine on the market for heart problems. However, patients with heart disease still often end up in the hospital, and their health problems wind up being very costly, he adds.

“The role of research is really looking at patients who come into the hospital with acute heart failure,” Feitell says.

In one study, Feitell and other researchers around the country are testing Entresto, a 2015 U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved drug, in comparison to another heart drug, enalapril. They’re trying to see how patients respond to Entresto when they receive the drug while in the hospital for acute decompensated chronic heart failure, or the sudden worsening of the signs and symptoms of heart failure.

In another study, Feitell and other researchers are looking at parallax, a potential drug for cardiac patients suffering from heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, or whose hearts beat normally but their ventricles don’t relax as they should. Feitell says that there are not any FDA-approved drugs to help patients with this condition.

“All of the trials so far to date haven’t demonstrated good outcomes,” Feitell says.

A third trial Feitell and other researchers are working on is testing the safety of omecamtiv mecarbil in patients with heart failure. The hope behind this drug is that it will increase the strength of the heart muscle, Feitell says.

The brain: ‘the final frontier’

Dr. Sarah Atkinson, director and principal investigator at Finger Lakes Clinical Research, a standalone research facility that conducts clinical studies specializing in the central nervous system, says that, in comparison to the heart, “we really don’t understand the brain. When we talk about the heart, medicine knows a tremendous amount about the heart. The brain, in some ways, is the final frontier in the human body.”

FLCR is currently conducting studies of treatments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia.

Atkinson, a psychiatrist, says that the medical industry does well with treating overt symptoms of central nervous system problems like delusions and mood swings. The next stage in central nervous system research, she says, is looking at problems with cognition.

“When you’re talking about cognition, you’re talking about the ability to make decisions, the ability to acquire new information, to make judgments, to process information,” Atkinson says. “Those are the parts of the brain that are affected by serious mental illness.”

One study FCLR is currently participating in is sponsored by Axsome Therapeutics and is examining treatment-resistant depression, Atkinson says. Solutions already exist for many people with depression, but the next step is to research treatment for people who do not get relief from existing depression medications, she says.

“What other aspects need to be looked at for people to live full and engaging lives?” Atkinson asks.

Targeting cancer treatment

Dr. Paul Barr, an oncologist who leads the clinical trials program at the University of Rochester’s Wilmot Cancer Institute, says that cancer therapies are getting more targeted because of research. There are fewer side effects, and treatments can attack cancer cells and leave the rest of the body alone, he says.

“As our understanding of the disease gets better, our therapies are getting more targeted,” Barr says.

UR is both leading its own cancer trials and participating in clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies or cooperative groups of researchers, Barr says. Barr focuses on treating patients and researching treatments for lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Just four or five years ago, the primary treatment for those types of cancers was chemotherapy, but now there is a second generation of drugs like venetoclax and ibrutinib that can be taken orally and allow certain patients “to have a near normal quality of life and near normal life expectancy,” Barr says.

Another large area of research is a type of immunotherapy called chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy in which a patient’s own immune cells are removed from the body, modified to more effectively fight cancer and are then reinserted in the body, Barr says.

All cancer patients should have a discussion with their oncologists on whether clinical trials might be right for them, Barr says. Participation in clinical trials is not just for patients at the end of their fight with cancer, and treatments in a clinical trial could be the best option, he says.

Vaccines, migraines and more

Rochester Clinical Research is conducting many migraine studies in conjunction with Dr. Joseph Mann, a neurologist well known for his work on headaches and migraines. One study is looking at a device that is approved for episodic migraines and testing whether it would be effective for acute migraines, Davis says.

Kathleen Ebeling, one of the clinical research coordinators at RCR, also says there are medical devices that could produce exciting developments. One study is looking at a device that subjects wear on their foreheads to treat their active migraines. Another study is looking at the interaction between a medical device test subjects wear on their bodies and its interaction with a smartphone app, Ebeling says. Test subjects can tailor their dosing by going into the app and answering questions.

“The idea is, based on their input into the app, that the device will make adjustments to their medications,” Ebeling says.

If the device comes to market, it could let treatment become very personalized, Ebeling says.

RCR is also doing several vaccine studies that Davis says “are very exciting.”

One study is looking at avian influenza and another is looking at the development of a universal flu vaccine that would be good for five to 10 years, Davis says.

A third study is looking at whether a vaccine could prevent infections from the bacteria clostridium difficile, or c. diff., Davis says.

Infections from c. diff. cause diarrhea in senior citizens staying in nursing homes and hospitals, and “it’s costing healthcare institutions millions of dollars a year to keep this under control,” Davis says.

Some 29,000 people die from c. diff. each year, and more than 500,000 people contract it, according to Davis.

Amaris Elliott-Engel is a Rochester-area freelance writer.

Here is a recent piece I wrote for the Rochester Business Journal:

The Rochester region is open for business for women-owned enterprises, and several local female business leaders report that they have been able to find success for their companies no matter what type of industry they work in.

“The (Rochester business) climate is on fire for women,” says Lauren Dixon, chief executive officer of Victor-based ad agency Dixon Schwabl.

Dixon says that unlike some other communities, Rochester is “super-supportive of women and women-owned businesses. The mentoring and support that is going on in this community—in many other communities it is not going on to the extent that it is here.”

Tracy Scalen, president and co-owner of Rochester-based supply company Regional Distributors, says that women-led businesses can’t expect favoritism. At the same time, she says women-led businesses are not meeting prejudice, for example, because a majority shareholder at Regional Distributors is overseeing finance, human resources and receivables and payables.

“Our customers don’t care that I am a woman,” Scalen says. “They care that they get the best product at the best price with the best service.”

Christine “Chris” Whitman, the current chairman and CEO of Rochester-based package-fulfillment company Complemar, agrees.

“Rochester is very open,” she says. “There is a desire on the part of many companies to be able to find minority- and women-owned businesses to be able to provide services. I encourage both minorities and women to think about being entrepreneurs.”

While there is generally a positive climate for women-owned businesses in the Rochester region, some local women business owners say that they still face hesitancy from some quarters on doing business with them.

Sitima Fowler, co-CEO of Fairport-based Capstone Information Technologies, says that as a woman in the technology world “you have to prove yourself and show you do know what you’re talking about. That’s OK. I’m ready to work twice as hard as everyone else.”

Fowler’s spouse and co-CEO, Michael, once filled in for her on a sales call at the last minute. The potential customer indicated thankfulness that Fowler, an Indian-American, hadn’t been the one to make the call out of concern that she would have a thick accent and could not be understood, she recounts.

The lesson Fowler says she learned was that “there are people out there who are afraid to call us because they don’t think they understand us.” As a result, Capstone, which provides IT and cybersecurity services to small and medium businesses, started branding with both of the Fowlers.

Fowler, who is an electrical engineer by training, said that when she joined Capstone as co-CEO in 2006 her charge was to grow the business. She knew how to use project management to solve engineering problems, but she didn’t know how to make the phone ring with new business. So she studied up on marketing and sales, and she collected testimonials from clients as well. She developed a strategy of email blasts, social media posts and going to network events. Slowly and surely, Capstone grew to join the top 100 businesses of Rochester.

Fowler advises women to seek out the mentorship of other women and to launch their businesses without worrying if everything is perfect with them.

“Don’t worry if your product or service is 100-percent perfect,” Fowler says. “The hardest part is getting someone to buy it. Even if your product or service is halfway baked, once you start selling it you’re going to figure out how to sell it.”

Whitman agrees with Fowler that the tech world, in particular, has prejudices about women’s capacity to lead such businesses. But she thinks women can surmount that because success breeds opportunity.

Women entrepreneurs need to focus on the one thing they need to do to deliver effective results.

“If you’re bringing a solution to the table, companies will work with you,” says Whitman, who has grown several businesses throughout her career. She became CEO of one supplier of equipment for semiconductor and date-storage companies and led it into a successful acquisition by a competitor. As a partner in investment firm CSW Associates, Whitman also has invested in several tech startups and now is the CEO of Complemar in order to turn around the company.

Some women-owned businesses experience mixed results with the usefulness of being certified as a women-owned business, which qualifies them for the portion of New York State government contracts dedicated to women-owned and minority-owned enterprises.

David Scalen, vice president and co-owner of Regional Distributors, says that some women entrepreneurs who thought they would get a “marketing lead from their WBE status” probably have been disappointed. Regional Distributors has found that many of its competitors have figured out a way to skirt the state regulations regarding women-owned and minority-owned businesses, he says.

In contrast, Dixon says that becoming certified as a women-owned business has helped out Dixon Schwabl “by leaps and bounds,” including getting contracts involving the New York State Fair, for the del Lago Resort and Casino and for the World Canal Conference.

Another challenge for women-owned businesses is the balance between work and family, local business owners say, especially because many of their businesses are family-owned.

“The biggest challenge of running a woman-owned business is really striking that balance and not beating myself up if things don’t go as planned,” Dixon says. “If you have a bad day, there will be a good one tomorrow.”

Tracy Scalen says that her business wants its employees to put their families before work, adding that she and her husband have a saying: The top three things for every Regional Distributor employee should be God, family and work.

“If we’re number three on the list and they do the best when they’re at work, we can’t ask for more,” she says.

Amaris Elliott-Engel is a Rochester area freelance writer.

My latest piece for the New York Law Journal:

Despite efforts to reduce the number of people entering New York City's criminal justice system for low-level crimes, the number of women arrested for misdemeanors has not been reduced at the same rate as for men, according to a new report.

The study, by the New York Women's Foundation and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice's Prisoner Reentry Institute, found that 42,886 women were arrested for misdemeanors in 2014—a 7.1 percent drop over the previous five years.

In contrast, the number of men arrested for misdemeanors fell by 10.3 percent to 182,403 over the same five-year period, according "Women InJustice: Gender and the Pathway to Jail in New York City."

Even though people think of men when they think of mass incarceration, women are involved in the criminal justice system too, said Ana Oliveira, president and chief executive officer of the Women's Foundation.

"The first step to solving the problem is to bring it to light," she said.

The report concluded that city officials need to take gender into account if they want to reduce the number of women entering Rikers Island, which has faced intense public scrutiny over conditions at the facility and treatment of detainees.

For example, the report found that women are likely to become involved in the justice system because of "experiences of violence, trauma, and poverty. Women of color, particularly those from low-income communities, are disproportionately arrested and incarcerated."

Women in the justice system also have higher rates of mental health problems than men do, the report added.

As policymakers debate whether it would be a good idea to close Rikers, Alison Wilkey, policy director of the Prisoner Reentry Institute and author of the report, said reform efforts should focus on the fact that the 600 women or so who are held at Rikers on a daily basis spend two weeks or less in detention.

"What's the purpose of disrupting someone's life and putting them in jail for two weeks?" she asked.

The report offers several ways to reduce the number of women entering Rikers.

Because the majority of women are held pretrial, one recommended reform is reducing the use of cash bail and fully secured bonds in favor of programs with supervised release or increasing bail funds. "For many New Yorkers, any amount of cash bail imposed results in de facto detention," the report said.

The city soon will offer the option of posting bail online, part of a larger effort to reform the bail system and reduce reliance on cash bail.The program is set to begin this spring (NYLJ, Nov. 2).

Obstacles to posting bail contribute to about 12,000 unnecessary jail stays each year, according to a release from Mayor Bill de Blasio's office. The Center for Court Innovation found that, in 2014, friends and family were able to post bail immediately in less than 14 percent of the 48,816 disposed cases in which bail was set above $1.

Another recommended reform in the Women InJustice report is delivering reentry programs to women detained at Rikers for short periods of time. Even though 60 percent of women stay at Rikers for less than two weeks, "short stays can cause significant harm, disrupting families, childcare, and health care, or leading women to lose their benefits, employment, or places at shelters," according to the report.

Housing also has been identified has the largest problem facing women in the New York City justice system, the report found.

My latest piece for the Connecticut Law Tribune:

Legislation that would provide a wholesale update to Connecticut arbitration law for the first time in a half-century, an effort that's failed several times already, recently received a hearing in the General Assembly and appears ready to gain traction.

Advocates of adopting the model "Revised Uniform Arbitration Act" (RUAA) are hoping that 2017 will be the year the legislation will finally be passed.

By the count of Barry Hawkins, the bill has been introduced four times since the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws promulgated the law in 2000.

Hawkins, a partner with Shipman & Goodwin who testified in favor of the bill on Monday on behalf of the Connecticut Bar Association's Alternative Dispute Resolution Section, said proponents of the bill have made tweaks to address concerns of the groups that were opposed to the bill in the past.

For example, labor unions were concerned that the proposed law would affect their collective bargaining agreements and their grievance processes, Hawkins said. The proposed law makes it clear that collective bargaining agreements are excluded, he said.

Other opponents were concerned that the law would pre-empt punitive damages, but advocates have made clear that—just like Connecticut's current arbitration law—judges and arbitrators still have the ability to award punitive damages if the law provides for it, said Hawkins, who also is a member of the Uniform Law Commission and helped draft the RUAA.

"Hopefully all the opposition has been satisfied," Hawkins said.

Houston Putnam Lowry, a lawyer with Polivy, Taschner, Lowry & Clayton who also testified in favor of the RUAA, said he thinks the legislation may have legs this year because House Rep. William Tong, one of the co-chairmen of the Judiciary Committee, has expressed an interest in enacting legislation to make the state's legal environment friendlier to businesses.

Tong previously introduced an omnibus bill that proposed adopting a version of the Delaware Rapid Arbitration Act, but the Bar Association's ADR section asked Tong to consider support for the RUAA instead, Lowry said.

The Delaware law prevents parties from designing the arbitration process they want to use, while the RUAA fills in the gaps in arbitration agreements that parties have already agreed on in principal, Lowry said.

Tong did not respond to a request for comment.

Harry N. Mazadoorian, an arbitrator and a senior fellow at Quinnipiac University School of Law's Center on Dispute Resolution, said the time is ripe to reform Connecticut's arbitration law because the state is in a fiscal crisis and Connecticut courts are facing budget cuts.

"This is the one time we don't want to discourage arbitration as an alternative to our courts," Mazadoorian said.

One of the advantages of the RUAA is that it would explicitly put on the books that arbitrators are empowered to grant preliminary relief, including provisional remedies, Lowry said. Right now, prejudgment remedies are authorized only by case law, which has put a "judicial gloss on the statute," Lowry said.

The law also would require arbitrators to disclose "facts which might call the arbitrator's impartiality into question," Lowry said in his written testimony.

The RUAA also provides default positions if parties have not already addressed those positions in their arbitration agreements, Mazadoorian said.

The bill enforces arbitration agreements contained in electronic documents, he added.

Raphael L. Podolsky, public policy advocate for Connecticut Legal Services, proposed an amendment to the RUAA that would prevent the use of "rights enforcement disabling clauses" in all consumer contracts, whether they are enforced through the courts or arbitration.

Podolsky said in his written testimony that such clauses restrict consumers from getting punitive damages, fail to provide for the waiver of fees and costs for consumers who can't afford them, and force consumers into forums that are geographically distant and more costly than their home state courts.

Podolsky also said applying the amendment to consumer contracts that are enforceable through arbitration or through the courts would avoid a Connecticut version of the RUAA being deemed pre-empted by the Federal Arbitration Act.

The proposed amendment is based on something similar in New Mexico, Podolsky said.

Hawkins and Mazadoorian both said they think the proposed amendment Podolsky raised would run afoul of the FAA itself.

Most alternative dispute providers have built-in protocols against unfair consumer arbitration provisions, Mazadoorian said. For example, many providers won't accept consumer cases requiring consumers to travel from Connecticut to Washington in order to pursue their dispute, or won't accept cases requiring substantial sums in arbitration fees, he said.

If enacted, the RUAA would go into effect Oct. 1.

Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted the RUAA.