50 | OCTOBER 10 • 2019 

business SPOTlight

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MANUFACTURING-
CENTERED CENTREPOLIS 
ACCELERATOR NOW OPEN
Lawrence Technological University — 
joined by the city of Southfield and 
the Michigan Economic Development 
Corporation — cut the ribbon on its 
new manufacturing business acceler-
ator Oct. 4. 
The Centrepolis Accelerator is 
6,300 square feet of state-of-the-
art business assistance for physical 
product developers and manufac-
turing companies, a unique niche 
among business accelerators in the 
Detroit area. 
Clients will include manufacturing 

startups and existing companies 
looking to move up to the next level 
in product innovation. Services will 
include access to office space, 
co-working space, workshops, men-
tors, business planning services, and 
laboratories and equipment for digital 
product design and prototyping, 
as well as virtual reality and mixed 
reality labs.

Ransomeware is malicious 
software designed to block 
access to a computer system 
until a sum of money is paid. 
These kinds of cyberattacks 
are on the increase and experts 
warn they’
re likely to become 
more common.
Here are some guidelines 
from the FBI to ward off a 
ransomware attack:
 • Make sure employees 
are aware of ransomware and 
their critical roles in protecting 
data. 
• Back up data regularly 
and verify the integrity of 
those backups.

 • Secure your backups. 
Make sure they are not con-
nected to the computers and 
networks they are backing up.
• Patch operating system, 
software and firmware on 
digital devices.
• Ensure antivirus and 
anti-malware solutions are set 
to automatically update and 
conduct regular scans.
• Manage the use of 
privileged accounts — no 
users should be assigned 
administrative access unless 
absolutely needed and only 
use administrator accounts 
when necessary.

B I R M I N G H A M

Advocate 
Advocate 
for Women 
for Women 
in the Law
in the Law
Former president of the 
Michigan State Bar keeps 
women in the forefront.

JASON RUBENFIRE SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
J

ulie Fershtman, former 
president of the State Bar 
of Michigan and equity 
shareholder and vice president 
at Foster Swift Collins & Smith 
PC, has been a trailblazer in law, 
particularly for the advance-
ment of women. It’
s been 
her personal mission to help 
women lawyers succeed, both in 
and out of the workplace.

“When my career began in 
the 1980s, there were promising 
signs of women’
s advancement 
in the profession,
” she says. 
She was a member of Emory 
Law School’
s first-ever entering 
class with 50 percent women, 
most who received job offers. 
Despite this initial promise, she 
says progress for women in the 
law has surprisingly slowed over 

the years, despite the greater 
influx of female law school 
graduates.
Fershtman works with a 
nationwide clientele on a 
broad range of legal matters, 
primarily business and insur-
ance litigation. She’
s written 
more than 400 articles and 
published three books, one by 
the American Bar Association 

(ABA), and a fourth, with a 
focus on horse-related law, to be 
published by the ABA later this 
year. She has spoken on legal 
issues in 29 states. Still, she is 
deeply committed to empow-
ering other women in the pro-
fession.
“In 2011, I was only the fifth 
woman in 77 years to be elected 
president of the 45,000-member 

DERRICK MARTINEZ

Julie Fershtman

GUARD AGAINST RANSOMWARE ATTACKS

LAWRENCE TECH