Category: Uncategorized

By Adina Genn

Keep cell phones and keys off the table. Limit yourself to one alcoholic drink. And dress appropriately.

Attorneys meeting with clients must know proper form for not only the courtroom but also the dining room. And while much of this is common sense, it never hurts to brush up on etiquette.

That was the thinking behind a recent Campolo, Middleton & McCormick event. The law firm, with headquarters in Ronkonkoma, recently invited its 35 attorneys to a three-course dinner at St. George’s Golf & Country Club in East Setauket. The theme? Basic manners and etiquette tips for business and formal events.

Although the interactive evening was lighthearted and fun, it did fit in the firm’s mission of training and investing in its employees.

And when it comes to best practices, understanding etiquette is “equally important” as other training, said Joe Campolo, the firm’s managing partner.

It’s the kind of training Campolo went through as a student at Fordham Law School, but when speaking with CMM attorneys, it turned out that no one had gone through similar training. But the coaching, he said, would go a long way.

“We’re probably not going to ever win a client over because we have great manners, but we certainly could lose a client if we’re a bunch of slobs,” he said.

Certainly, if breaking bread is the opportunity to build business, good etiquette only furthers the cause.

The training comes at a time that Campolo calls “the casualization of society” where diners sometimes show up to fine restaurants in shorts and flip-flops. And while he wasn’t aiming to “re-create Downton Abbey,” the event provided the opportunity for the firm’s colleagues to bond, laugh and get a refresher on the basics of decent manners.

For example, when it comes to hosting a meal out, consider your guest’s tastes and travel time, and avoid places that are cramped, crowded and known for their slow service, said Joan Jerkens, the owner of Melville-based Act As If Etiquette & Protocol, the evening’s etiquette expert. If you’re the guest, respond to the invitation and consider scoping out the location in advance.

And, she cautioned, be on time.

Diners who aren’t sure about table settings are not alone.

“As I attend business lunches, there’s a lot of confusion,” Campolo said. “People drink water from a glass someone already drank out of, or eat bread that’s already been eaten – it gets awkward.”

Jerkens recommended an acronym: BMW (bread plate on the left, main-course plate in the center, water glass to the right). The breadbasket should get passed clockwise. And when finished with utensils, rest them on the plate, never on the linens.

As for talking shop? Wait at least until after the order has been placed, if not until the main course. Focus instead on small talk, Jerkens said. Not surprisingly, ordering non-messy food is recommended.

And when it comes to drinks, less is more, she noted, recommending no more than one drink.

But that doesn’t mean no alcohol. And it never hurts to know which kinds of wines go with which dishes. Samantha Macleod, the evening’s wine expert, shared some helpful tips. For example, if you’re having a dish with mushrooms and truffles, consider a Pinot Noir. For fatty fish, or fish in a rich sauce, Chardonnay is a good go-to, while light fish dishes pair well with Pinot Grigio.

Champagne goes with anything salty, while Cabernet Sauvignon works well with steaks or chops. And Malbec and spicy barbecue sauces are a recommended combination.

And there’s no need to order a $200 bottle of wine. Rather than try to impress with a hefty price tag, look to make your guest comfortable, with enjoyment being the main focus.

When it comes to struggling over who is going to foot the bill, as host, you can make that challenge a nonstarter by giving your credit card in advance to the maître-d’ to pay the bill, Jerkens said. That way the restaurant settles up with you, and the bill never arrives at the table prompting an awkward moment. But if you intend to split the bill, make it clear when first making plans to get together.

And if you’re the guest, order in the middle price range, Jerkens said.

While cell phones should be off the table, if you do get an urgent call, leave the table and area, Jerkens said. But that triggers the dilemma: what to do with the napkin on your lap? Fold it (covering any soiled spots) and put it on the left of your plate – never on the plate itself.

As for making introductions – for instance, if dining with a client, and the firm’s managing partner stops by the table to say hello – introduce the person you want to honor first, which in this instance is the client. And while standing up during an introduction shows good manners, those at the table should “at the very least, put the utensils down,” Jerkens said.

Choosing the proper attire can also create challenges, which is where Janine Giorgenti, the owner of Giorgenti New York, a custom clothing shop in Garden City, offered tips. Dress for the size you are now, rather than waiting until losing that extra 10 pounds. If it’s a day where you have multiple events on your calendar, consider which requires the most formal attire and dress for that occasion. And remember, even if you aren’t seeing clients that day, dress as though you are: Clients may still be coming into the office, and it’s key to look professional.

Keeping with the evening’s interactive theme, the attorneys had the chance to set the table, so they could garner a better understanding of place settings. They also had an opportunity to ask questions. And there were contests and prizes, which included etiquette books.

“There was huge team building, and the feedback showed how much they learned,” Campolo said.

Jerkens agreed, noting, “Everyone walked out with a little more knowledge.”

Read it on LIBN.

View photos from the event here!

APPLICATION LIBI AWARDS 2017

CMM partner Christine Malafi will present at “Law School for Insurance Professionals” on the topic of “Legal Procedures and Nuances that Impact a Claim.”  Her presentation will help insurance professionals understand how procedural hurdles such as collateral source, contribution, offset and pre/post judgment interest affect claims in comparison to substantive steps faced in litigation such as IME results, appealing judgments, and a bankrupt insured.  The program promises insights and updates on current legal issues that the savvy insurance professional won’t want to miss!

Program co-sponsored by the Insurance Federation of New York, Inc., the New York Insurance Association, and the New York State Bar Association.

Program Details:

September 27, 2017, 8:30 a.m.

Inn at Fox Hollow, 7755 Jericho Turnpike, Woodbury, NY

Learn more and register here.

By Mitchell H. Pally

Published in Long Island Business News, July 17, 2017

Mitchell H. Pally is an MTA board member representing Suffolk County.

As the Long Island Rail Road enters a summer of 2017 with significant challenges from a variety of issues, including the extensive repairs being undertaken by Amtrak at Penn Station, it may be difficult to envision a much more efficient and safer system, unimpeded by various infrastructure impediments.  However, if we can all get though the current short-term frustrations, the longer term will provide such a system.  There are significant improvements on the way which will lead to a much more constructive relationship with our customers.

As many may be aware, but cannot see, the new east side access connection to allow the LIRR to move trains directly to Grand Central continues on its path to completion.  Deep under the current Grand Central Terminal, the LIRR is building a brand new station which will increase the capacity by 40 percent and allow our customers to go directly into Midtown Manhattan rather than the current trip to Penn Station and then to Midtown.  The new rail line is now being built through Sunnyside Yard in Queens to allow the current LIRR service to connect to the rail tunnel at 63rd St. and then travel underground to the new station.

In addition to this new station and service, two major track programs are either under construction of just about ready to go.  First, for those of us who use the Ronkonkoma line, a new second track is being built between Farmingdale and Ronkonkoma to allow for increased and more flexible service on this branch.  In addition to the tracks themselves, the entire signal system in this corridor is being upgraded and a new station is being developed at East Farmingdale to be incorporated into a new transit oriented development being designed by the Town of Babylon.  When fully completed in 2019, the new second track will allow half hour off-peak service on the Ronkonkoma line, a service already provided by the LIRR on other lines in the system.

Second, the decision to build a third track between Floral Park and Hicksville, one of the most congested areas of the system where four lines congregate, is currently in the hands of the MTA capital program review board, having already been approved as part of the 2015-19 MTA capital plan by the MTA board.  As a result of state funding and bonding requirements, the Capital Program Review Board was created to ensure that all MTA priorities were in line with the needs of the entire state.

Currently the review board has before it a comprehensive amendment to the 2015-19 plan which not only includes funds for the third track but also for significant rail and subway improvements throughout the region, improvements which will also be allowed to proceed or not to proceed by the vote of the review board.

The board can only vote up or down on the entire amendment, it cannot pick and choose individual projects to vote up or down on.  Hopefully, the third track will be allowed to continue, for it includes not only the new track but a complete overhaul of the signal and track systems in the area.

From a safety perspective, numerous smaller track and signal projects are being undertaken by the LIRR to coincide with the major signal work being performed by Amtrak in and around Penn Station and Sunnyside Yards.  In addition, the LIRR is well on its way to meeting the 2019 deadline for installation of positive train control on all of our lines to ensure that the most up-to-date safety features are incorporated in our entire system.

I have had the honor and privilege of being a member of the MTA board representing Suffolk County for the past 12 and have seen times of both great service to our riders as well impediments which have negatively impacted the LIRR’s ability to provide safe and efficient service.  I strongly believe that Long Islanders are both resilient and patient during these very frustrating times and will understand the long-term gains which will occur for the current short-term frustrations.

All of us want to provide the best and most efficient and safest system possible and I firmly believe that we are on our way to accomplishing these goals.  We only ask for your understanding during these difficult times.

Read it on LIBN.

Twenty years after famously losing to Deep Blue, chess champion Garry Kasparov says that it’s time to embrace AI and its liberating potential

By Garry Kasparov
April 14, 2017
The Wall Street Journal

It is no secret that I hate losing, and I did not take it well. But losing to a computer wasn’t as harsh a blow to me as many at the time thought it was for humanity as a whole. The cover of Newsweek called the match “The Brain’s Last Stand.” Those six games in 1997 gave a dark cast to the narrative of “man versus machine” in the digital age, much as the legend of John Henry did for the era of steam and steel.

But it’s possible to draw a very different lesson from my encounter with Deep Blue. Twenty years later, after learning much more about the subject, I am convinced that we must stop seeing intelligent machines as our rivals. Disruptive as they may be, they are not a threat to humankind but a great boon, providing us with endless opportunities to extend our capabilities and improve our lives.

Many of the great early figures in computer science dreamed of creating a machine that could play chess. Alan Turing published the first chess program in 1953. A computer to run it didn’t yet exist, so he flipped through pieces of paper to run his algorithm, a “paper machine” that could actually play a recognizable game of chess.

It took much longer than most early experts thought it would for machines to challenge the best human chess players. But by the early 1980s, it was becoming clear that it was only a matter of time before ever-faster hardware would crunch positions fast enough to do the job. It turned out that a computer did not need to mimic human thought to play like a chess grandmaster.

Deep Blue didn’t think like I did about which move to play any more than a calculator needs a pencil and paper to perform long division. The ingredients are similar—a combination of memory, evaluation and calculation—but while a grandmaster uses experience to focus on the most relevant factors, the machine grinds through every possible move for both sides, going deeper and deeper with each pass.

During my 20 years at the top of the chess world, from 1985 to 2005, chess-playing machines went from laughably weak to the level of the world champion. It was a startling transformation to experience firsthand, and it was impossible not to feel unsettled, even threatened, by their rapid progress.

These are the same sensations that many are feeling today, as intelligent machines advance in field after field. Few people will experience the dramatic, head-to-head competition against a machine that I experienced, of course, but the sensation of being challenged, surpassed and possibly replaced by an automaton, or an invisible algorithm, is becoming a standard part of our society.

Speaking from painful personal experience, I would suggest that this is the wrong frame of reference to approach the issue, and it is having a negative influence when we desperately need more optimism. The “human versus machine” narrative rose to prominence during the industrial revolution, when the steam engine and mechanized automation in agriculture and manufacturing began to appear at large scale. The story line grew more ominous and pervasive during the robotics revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when more precise and intelligent machines began to encroach on unionized jobs in manufacturing. The information revolution came next, culling millions of jobs from the service and support industries.

Now we have reached the next chapter in the story, when the machines “threaten” the class of people who read and write articles about them. We see headlines every day about how the machines are coming for the lawyers, bankers, doctors and other white-collar professionals. And make no mistake, they are. But this is good news.

Every profession will eventually feel this pressure, and it must, or else it will mean that humanity has ceased to make progress. Waxing nostalgic about jobs lost to technology is little better than complaining that antibiotics put too many gravediggers out of work. The transfer of labor from humans to our inventions is nothing less than the history of civilization. It is inseparable from centuries of rising living standards and improvements in human rights.

What a luxury to sit in a climate-controlled room with access to the sum of human knowledge on a device in your pocket and lament that we don’t work with our hands anymore! There are still plenty of places in the world where people work with their hands all day, and also live without clean water and modern medicine. They are literally dying from a lack of technology.

There is no going back, only forward. We don’t get to pick and choose when technological progress stops or where. People whose jobs are on the chopping block of automation are afraid that the current wave of tech will impoverish them, but they also depend on the next wave of technology to generate the economic growth that is the only way to create sustainable new jobs.

I understand that it is far easier to tell millions of newly redundant workers to “retrain for the information age” or to “join the entrepreneurial economy” than to be one of them or to actually do it. And who can say how quickly all that new training will also become worthless? What professions today can be called “computer proof”?

Many jobs today didn’t even exist 20 years ago, a trend that will continue and accelerate. Mobile app designer, 3-D print engineer, drone pilot, social media manager, genetic counselor—to name just a few of the careers that have appeared in recent years. And while experts will always be in demand, more intelligent machines are continually lowering the bar to creating with new technology.

Compare what a child can do with an iPad in a few minutes to the knowledge and time it took to do basic tasks with a PC just a decade ago. These advances in digital tools mean that less training and retraining are required for those whose jobs are taken by robots. It is a virtuous cycle, freeing us from routine work and empowering us to use new technology productively and creatively.

Please register here for a cocktail party, interview, and book signing with Garry Kasparov to benefit the Human Rights Foundation on June 7, hosted by CMM International.

CMM is pleased to announce that Donald J. Rassiger, an experienced corporate attorney with significant in-house experience, has joined the firm as Counsel.  Having served as Chief Legal Officer of four companies and created the General Counsel role at three of them, Don brings the management perspective to all matters he handles.

Don focuses on corporate matters and transactions.  He has significant experience drafting and negotiating numerous contracts including construction, IT, financing, teaming arrangements, and joint ventures, and has successfully closed dozens of M&A deals.  Don has maintained a particular focus on the construction industry, where he has represented clients on all sides of the table including owners, developers, general contractors, subcontractors, engineers, architects, construction managers, and program managers.  His corporate work also includes numerous financing transactions including sale/leaseback, lines of credit, and debt/equity financing.

A resident of Huntington Station, Don previously handled corporate finance matters and commercial transactions for LiRo Group and KeySpan (now National Grid).  Immediately prior to joining CMM, Don served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Elecnor Hawkeye, LLC, part of a worldwide conglomerate providing engineering, development, and construction of projects relating to utility infrastructure, new technologies, and renewable energy.

A graduate of College of the Holy Cross and Fordham University School of Law, Don serves on the Board of Directors of the Joe Namath Celebrity Golf Classic for the March of Dimes as well as on the Executive Board of the Crab Meadow Men’s Club.  Don can be reached at drassiger@cmmllp.com or (631) 738-9100, ext. 347.