Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com August 10, 2015 • Hartford Business Journal 3 Continued By Stan Simpson I t wasn't until years after she became a lawyer that Tiffany L. Stevens saw the irony of being born in Auburn, NY. The suburban town is home to one of the country's oldest and most notorious prisons — the Auburn Correctional Facility. The expansive maximum-security building is located in the center of town on State Street. In 1890, Auburn was the site of the United States' first execu- tion by electric chair. Many of its prison- ers were placed in solitary and made to perform prison duties in silence. Stevens, spe- cial counsel at the McCarter & English law firm in Hartford, is a real estate and corporate attorney. Before graduating from UConn Law School in 2003, she attended Villanova, majoring in political science and English. "I kind of struggled with the idea of whether to go to law school or whether to get involved in government,'' said Stevens, born in 1975. She ended up doing both. As co-founder of the Connecticut Innocence Fund, Stevens is in the business of raising money for wrongly convicted and exonerated state inmates so they can better transition to society. The money is actually a bridge loan, repaid to the fund, after the exonerated inmates are awarded damages from the state. The funds are normally handled by the exonerated per- son's lawyer, which ensures that the Innocence Fund gets reimbursed. Founded in 2011, the Innocence Fund is the only one of its kind in the nation. The Connecticut Bar Foundation invests the money, currently about $60,000. Community Partners in Action, a Hartford-based pro- gram that serves ex-offenders who re-enter society, distributes the loans. The money is disbursed in small increments — anywhere from $700 to $1,200 — to pay for such things as rent, transportation, food and health care. So far, about $47,000 has been loaned to four people; about $11,000 has been repaid. Stevens and her colleagues would like to see the Innocence Fund concept duplicated across the country. She has received inqui- ries from Innocence Project representatives at several conferences. Besides the money, Stevens said the key to the program is providing a support system for the exonerated to navigate their new normal. Each person who receives funds is assigned a mentor and there is a team of volunteers to assist with finances, job-training and life skills. "Our goal has really been to teach these individuals how to manage money before they receive this large grant from the state," Stevens said. "It's about teaching them how to manage it, invest it, how to save it, how to go through day-to-day life and preserve what they received for this horrible wrong that they endured." Stevens has been with McCarter & Eng- lish since 2007. In 2005-06, she served as a law clerk with judges Lubbie Harper, a noted defense attor- ney, and George Stoughton, a former prosecu- tor. The clerking experience "showed me some different areas of the law and that you could have an impact outside of your actual job." While she was (and still is) enamored with corporate and transactional legal work, "I was definitely interested in the criminal jus- tice system and how to make improvements in the big cities and Hartford. In the end, I wanted to do some things that would really help Connecticut cities." Around the time she joined McCarter & English, Stevens met James Tillman, a Con- necticut man who served 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. Tillman was ultimately exonerated via the Connecticut Innocence Project. McCarter & English housed the Innocence Project, a division of the public defender's office, in its 36th-floor office on Asylum Street in Hartford. Stevens negotiated the $5 million settlement the state paid Tillman for his wrongful incar- ceration. She also provided expert testimony for what would become the state's new wrongful conviction compensation act, passed in 2008. Kenneth Ireland, another wrongfully Stan Simpson Stevens helps wrongfully convicted earn their just due FACES OF BUSINESS Lawyer Tiffany Stevens stands inside McCarter & English's boardroom overlooking downtown Hartford. Stevens raises money to help wrongfully convicted and exonerated residents get back on their feet. P H O T O | P A B L O R O B L E S www.kelsercorp.com 111 Roberts St, Suite D East Hartford, CT 06108 860 610 2200 How secure is your network? www.kelsercorp.com/cybercrime Employees, not firewalls are the #1 threat vector.

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