Category: Uncategorized

PLEASE NOTE THE NEW LOCATION!

September 30, 2015

Execution – the art of getting things done!
Presented by Joe Campolo, Esq.

With the summer behind us and four months left in 2015, it’s time for business leaders to put in the extra effort and make the final push across the finish line.  Join us as Joe Campolo speaks to today’s business leaders, encouraging them to finish the year strong. Following up on his popular “Bleed to Succeed” presentation in which he compels Long Island professionals to set goals and develop plans to reach them, it’s now time to look at the progress you’ve made and what is left to do to complete your plan for 2015.

EVENT DETAILS:

8:30am – 9:00am
Arrival and Breakfast

9:00am – 9:45am
Presenting Speaker

9:45am – 10:00am
Q&A and Discussion

REGISTRATION: All events are FREE but registration is required. Complimentary breakfast will be served.

LOCATION: Courtyard Marriott Ronkonkoma located at 5000 Express Drive South,  Ronkonkoma,  New York  11779. Our meeting will be located in the Fire Island Conference room downstairs.

On November 10, 2015, the HIA-LI will be hosting a executive breakfast event entitled, “A CEO’s Perspective: What it Takes to Thrive in the LI Economy.” Joe Campolo will be moderating the panel of CEO’s who are also recipients of the 2016 HIA Business Achievement Awards. Visit hia-li.org for more details.

By Joe Kellard, Long Island Business News

Marc Alessi keeps wearing many hats. A former state assemblyman and Long Island Power Authority board member, Alessi helped launch and finance startup companies across various industries, including the biotech, information technology, construction and real estate sectors. He co-founded the investment group Hampton’s Angel Network and is a past executive director of Long Island Angel Network. He helped establish Accelerate Long Island and serves as chairman and founding CEO of its portfolio company, SynchroPET. We spoke to Alessi after he joined the Ronkonkoma-based law firm Campolo, Middleton & McCormick in June as a member of its corporate and real estate practice groups.

 Why did you decide to join forces with Campolo, Middleton & McCormick? I decided to join Campolo, Middleton & McCormick because of their reputation as a firm that is entrepreneurial and flexible when dealing with startup enterprises. It is important to not only service companies that are more established with their needs, but we also need to help companies that are just starting out and are in their infancy. When a company is pre-revenue, you need to give them patient advice to help them grow. Sometimes you need to delay billing so that what little capital a startup has does not just go to initial legal fees. This firm has a track record of finding a way to make things work and to help companies at every stage grow.

How will you assist entrepreneurs of small to midsized companies in your new position with the firm? Entrepreneurs need a broad spectrum of support. An attorney is not just someone who drafts corporate documents or a contract. An attorney in this area needs to intrinsically understand the business and be able to act as a sounding board on a host of issues. So, primarily I act as a trusted adviser to entrepreneurs. Sometimes they call me when they just want to flesh out their thoughts, their long-term planning.

How did you get involved with tech startups? I have always been an entrepreneur and liked starting things, having started my first company at 19 years old: a painting franchise to help put me through school. I hired over 18 employees, ran payroll and taxes and marketing. In college, instead of pledging a fraternity, I started one. I love making something from nothing. However, I turned my attention to politics and, for 10 years, applied the skills of an entrepreneur to the political arena. While serving in the legislature, the consummate entrepreneur in me came out. I gravitated toward policy areas that would help create an incentive for investments in startup enterprises in New York State. I met with venture capitalists, angel investors, and tech transfer personnel at our state’s top research facilities and took their advice on what policies we could put in place at the state level to help grow an entrepreneurial ecosystem on Long Island and across the state. I then realized that I had no interest in staying in politics, and that I needed to get back into the private sector and be hands on in starting businesses, as an entrepreneur and as an attorney.

What are some of the businesses that you’ve helped launch and finance? SynchroPET, In Between Jobs, Buncee, and Grieve Your Taxes have been the most recent. I decided to launch SynchroPET, a biomedical device company that has licensed three patents from Brookhaven National Lab for a new way to build positron emission tomography devices for both small animal and human medical imaging. I raised the angel round of funding and built the team that is now bringing the company’s first devices to market. I don’t take a salary from SynchroPET; my job is to grow the company and increase the value of the company for both our employees and our investors. I still maintain my law practice and a consulting practice, where I help small to midsized companies with the experience I have gained within Long Island’s emerging startup entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Are there changes to laws or regulations that would help Long Island tech startups compete more effectively with their counterparts in New York City? I think there could be some changes at the state level that would benefit the entire ecosystem of our region including New York City, like founder’s tax credits. Instead of competing with New York City, we need to complement New York City. The one thing that every entrepreneur on Long Island needs is greater access to capital.

How has your involvement with various entrepreneurial endeavors made you a better attorney? I have first-hand experience with the everyday obstacles that an entrepreneur has to struggle through. Sometimes an entrepreneur does not need law advice. They just need advice from a good listener who takes the time to understand their business, and has been in their shoes before, as opposed to a service provider looking for more billable hours.

What have you learned as a three-term assemblyman that has helped your legal background? I learned not only how to argue the law, but how to change it. What people don’t realize is that our democracy still works, though of course, it can work better. A group of everyday people who have an issue with a law that is affecting their personal lives, their businesses or their community can band together and create change. I have seen it time and time again, and I have participated in it. It is very empowering.

Tell us about the civil legal services you provide as an adviser to the nonprofit Nassau/Suffolk Law Services. My first experience with Nassau/Suffolk Law Services was as a volunteer when I was attending law school. I realized that there were so many people in our community that did not have access to decent legal representation. Everyone thinks that if you are poor you can get a lawyer appointed to you. But that is only in criminal cases. There are so many people locked into bad situations, whose lives are close to ruin, that have to navigate the legal system alone. Nassau/Suffolk Law Services tries to change that. I joined their board of advisers because of the experience I had as a volunteer, and the need I witnessed as an elected official.

How did you end up working with the East End Arts Council? I became involved with the council first when I served in the state assembly. I felt a number of their programs had a very positive impact on the quality of life in our community, so I did everything that I could to support them. After I left office, they asked me to serve on their board. Now I serve as an adviser; I try to help them operate and fulfill their mission as efficiently as possible while finding new ways to spread the arts to all residents living on Long Island.

http://libn.com/2015/08/11/qa-with-marc-alessi/

By Christine Malafi

Last year, I discussed circumstances under which a volunteer may be considered an employee for the purposes of the Fair Labor Standard Act.  As discussed previously, the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) requires both public and private entity employees to be paid minimum and overtime wages. The question of who qualifies as an “employee” under the FLSA is not as simple as you would expect. Last year, we discussed the 2014 opinion of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Brown v. New York City Department of Education, as to when a public volunteer may be considered to be an employee entitled to wages.

Earlier this month, in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc.,[1] the Second Circuit Court of Appeals provided some parameters as to when an intern must be a paid employee. The Court opined that the focus should be upon whom is receiving the primary benefit of the internship (the intern or the entity), and laid out seven factors to be weighed and considered in determining whether an intern must be paid as an employee:

1. The extent to which both the intern and employer clearly understand that there is, or is not, an expectation of compensation (any promise of compensation, express or implied, suggests that the intern is entitled to wages);
2. The extent to which the internship provides training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including clinical and other hands-on training;
3. The extent to which the internship is tied to the intern’s formal educational program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit;
4. The extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments (i.e, following the academic calendar);
5. The extent to which the duration of the internship is limited to the period in which the intern will receive beneficial learning experiences;
6. The extent to which the intern’s work compliments, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees, while providing significant educational benefits to the intern; and
7. The extent to which both the intern and the employer understand that there is no entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship.

No one factor is primary to determining whether the intern must be paid under the law for his or her work. Every factor need not point in the same direction, and the courts may consider other relevant evidence (beyond the above seven factors) in determining who is the primary beneficiary of the relationship, and hence, whether wages to the intern are required.

The decision in Glatt serves as an important victory for employers, as private employers now have been given parameters under which to determine whether an intern must be paid under the FLSA.

[1] Nos. 13-4478-cv, 13-4481-cv (July 2, 2015).

By Joe Kellard, Long Island Business News

When discussing one of the most popular programs attorneys attend for continuing legal education, Mary Ann Aiello, dean of the Nassau Academy of Law, painted an image of a seasoned lawyer in court shuffling through hundreds of legal papers, while his younger counterpart pulls up the same documents with a quick search on his laptop or iPad.

Of the 160 programs the academy provides for attorneys to acquire the New York State-mandated credits they must earn every two years, courses on technology and social media have become the rage. While the academy, an arm of the Nassau County Bar Association, has noticed a need for more skill-based and practice management programs, Aiello said, increasingly more lawyers are asking for and attending tech and social media programs related to all areas of their profession, from criminal cases to electronic discovery to online office policies.

“A lot of attorneys feel that they don’t have the updated electronic skills that many young people have,” said Aiello, an attorney who organizes programs for the academy.

Even recent law school graduates are taking these programs, if only to keep up with the latest developments and their applications to law, Aiello said.

Patrick McCormick, a partner at Campolo, Middleton & McCormick in Ronkonkoma and an officer and CLE lecturer at the Suffolk Academy of Law – the educational branch of the Suffolk County Bar Association – also finds that a diverse cross-section of lawyers are taking many technology and social media programs. These technologies impact every facet of law, he said, from lawyers selecting juries to juries on break using Google to investigate the case.

“It used to be if we had a law suit, I would ask the other side to give me all the paperwork you have on it, and he’d ask the same of me and we’d move on,” said McCormick, who has practiced law for 28 years. “Now you have privacy issues: what to do with a person’s cell phone and text messages and the posts they put on Twitter and Instagram, and that area of law is developing almost every day. So there’s a need for it and lawyers are asking for it.”

Before they retain a client, more lawyers are asking what on their social network pages may come back to undercut or destroy their case. Aiello recalled a case when she was retained to represent a woman whose under-aged niece claimed she pushed her down a flight of stairs. Within a day of her fall, the girl took to social media and made accusations.

“The girl who made the accusation posted on her Facebook account: ‘I’ll show my aunt, that (expletive.) I told the police she pushed me down the stairs even though she was nowhere near me when I fell,’” Aiello recalled. “So attorneys have to be aware of and advise their clients of this, because, we’re really living in a fish bowl now.”

The state deems it essential that attorneys earn CLE credits to continue to practice law, to gain the necessary knowledge and skills to competently represent their clients and to comply with the New York State rules of professional conduct. While state rules do not mandate that attorneys have any level of technological knowledge, the New York State Bar Association declared in its recently revised guidelines that knowledge of how social media works should be a core skill for a state attorney.

“A lawyer cannot be competent absent a working knowledge of the benefits and risks associated with the use of social media,” the instructional guideline states.
Newly admitted attorneys are generally required to take at least 16 credits in each of the first two years of practice, after which they are mandated to take a minimum of 24 credits every two-year cycle. At least four credits must pertain to law and professionalism.

Omid Zareh, a chair of the Nassau County Bar Association’s ethics committee, recently presented a CLE program entitled “Avoiding Ethical Problems in the Internet Age,” which he said was well attended and sparked a lively, spirited discussion on acting ethically online.

“There’s been a tremendous amount of interest for these types of things,” said Zareh, who suggested the ubiquitous uses of smart phones are primarily driving this trend.

Among the issues raised at CLE programs that Zareh has hosted pertain to the appropriate professional use of Facebook and Twitter and representing oneself as a specialist, when there are specific guidelines about this.

“If you’re saying you’re a specialist without actually having gotten a specialty from a recognized entity, then you’re really just saying: I think I’m a specialist and I’m just going to tell you I am,” he said.

Another hot topic is third-party endorsements on LinkedIn, the professional networking site, and whether attorneys should leave or take down those that don’t pertain to what they do. The state bar’s other new or expanded guidelines posit that attorneys should take responsibility for the accuracy of third-party endorsements posted on their social networking profiles and to correct misleading or inaccurate information.

“A lawyer may not passively allow misleading endorsements as to her skills and expertise to remain on a profile that she controls, as that is tantamount to accepting the endorsement,” the report reads.

http://libn.com/2015/07/06/lawyers-are-taking-to-tech/

Joe Campolo, Managing Partner at Campolo, Middleton & McCormick, LLP talks with LI News Radio 103.9 FM host Jay Oliver about his latest Op-Ed piece published in the Long Island Business News, “Six leadership lessons I learned in the Marine Corps.”

Watch a clip of the interview here.

On January 1, 2003, Article 10 of the Public Service Law, which provided a fast track regulatory system for the siting of major electrical generating facilities (i.e., those with a rated capacity of 80 MW or more), lapsed.  Prior to that, to avoid having to go before a Siting Board and the extensive public review process required by Article 10, which included review of environmental impacts and required applicants to put up money to help the public intervene with expert help, private companies that wanted to construct so-called peaker plants (whose output would be used primarily during peak hours), would propose facilities which purportedly had a rated capacity of 79.5 MW.  Exempt from the Article 10 Siting Board practice, LIPA’s approval of the peaker plants was subject to the State Environmental Quality Review Act (“SEQRA”).  Invariably, LIPA would declare itself to be the lead SEQRA Agency, and would always issue a negative declaration (meaning that the project could be approved without first having to prepare a Draft Environmental Impact Statement).  Much to the consternation of the public, LIPA would approve the location of these peaker plants wherever LIPA felt was a convenient location for LIPA, without any meaningful environmental review.

Because local municipalities could now directly control applications for the siting of electrical generating facilities, few if any base load power plants (which provide electricity 24-hours a day) were approved after Article 10 lapsed.  On August 4, 2011, the Governor approved the Power New York Law of 2011, which he had proposed to provide one-stop review of any electrical generating facility with a rated capacity of 25 MW or more. New Article 10 is power neutral, meaning it applies to any electrical generating facility rated at 25 MW or more, regardless of the source of the proposed power (petroleum based, solar, wind; are all covered).

A little known provision of the Power New York Law is Section 173, which defines the applicability of Article 10 to Public Authorities like LIPA. Article 10 fully applies to all “major electric generating facilities which any such authority builds or causes to be built.”  However, “For generating facilities which are not major electric generating facilities, none of the above named authori­ties shall be permitted to serve as lead agency for purposes of environ­mental review pursuant to the provisions of the environmental conserva­tion law.”

Why did the Legislature declare that LIPA could no longer serve as lead SEQRA agency for minor facilities (i.e., those with less than 25 MW rated capacity)?  The Assembly Committee debate (June 22, 2011) makes clear that the Legislature did not want LIPA to do what it did previously with regard to siting of peaker plants – declare itself lead SEQRA agency and approve them wherever LIPA wanted without requiring meaningful environmental review.

Does this mean that the Legislature exempted LIPA from SEQRA altogether when it adopted Section 173 in 2011?  Clearly, it did not.  Article 8 of the Environmental Conservation Law (SEQRA) was not amended to limit LIPA’s SEQRA obligations. Nor did the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) amend its SEQRA regulations (6 NYCRR Part 617) to change whatever LIPA’s SEQRA obligations may be.

Published elsewhere in this CMM Newsletter is the author’s Blog:  “The Towns Must Step Up Environmental Review of Commercial Solar Projects in Suffolk County Because They Can’t Rely on LIPA to Do It [and LIPA Must Stop Approving Power Purchase Agreements In Violation of SEQRA]”.   Briefly, even though LIPA cannot serve as lead SEQRA agency when commercial solar electric projects with a rating less than 25 MW are proposed, it remains an involved SEQRA agency.  As such, LIPA may not approve Power Purchase Agreements for any such solar facility (a SEQRA action) until the Town, as lead agency, completes its SEQRA review and either requires preparation of a DEIS, or determines that a DEIS need not be prepared.

Unfortunately, LIPA ignores its SEQRA obligations, and approves Power Purchase Agreements for commercial solar electrical facilities without waiting for the lead agency to complete SEQRA review.  As convenient as LIPA and the developers may find ignoring SEQRA to be, if anyone challenges the approvals by means of an Article 78 Petition, they run the risk that the approval will be declared null and void, and the application process will have to begin all over again.