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Bionic Woman Walks Into the Future

After a severe spinal cord injury, Sarah Anderson can’t use her legs. But that didn’t stop her Wednesday night from walking over and accepting a $100,000 check that will help paraplegics like her to become more independent.

Allan Appel Photo

Anderson walked Wednesday night with the help of a motorized robotic exoskeleton built by a California company called Ekso Bionics.

Her demonstration took place at a party at Kitchen Zinc, thrown by the Stratton Faxon trial lawyers firm to announce the winners of $200,000 in grants it is awarding to five local not-for-profits.

The biggest grant—$100,000—is going to Gaylord Specialty Healthcare of Wallingford to help buy an Ekso exoskeleton to help patients recover from strokes and paralysis.

Ekso’s Michael Magill said the invention has sensors in the feet that send signals to a computer in a kind of backpack. It in turn instructs motors in all the hip and leg joints to move to propel the wearer. Although the device weighs 45 pounds, Anderson felt none of it. It’s all borne directly to the ground. Magill said the invention, which just came out this year, is already in 10 hospitals, with more on the way 

The strap-on robot that Anderson used required that an assistant be nearby, just in case. The company has a prototype version for home and solo use, which will be ready in about two years, said Magill.

Gaylord president and CEO George Kyriacou said that for people with devastating injuries, the device will “help them return to a life you and I take for granted.”

The Ekso unit costs about $140,000, Kyriacou said. 

Miranda Bailey-Russomano (right, with Jasmine Wilborne) is with Common Ground’s Green Job Corps. The grant enables 37 more young people to be placed in jobs.

Gaylord was among several not-for-profits “pre-selected” for grants by the firm back in June. Gaylord, Common Ground High School, Billings Forge Community Works in Hartford, and New Haven’sAll Our Kineach received $25,000 for the pre-selection.

Then, in what Stratton Faxon billed as a “community builder contest,” the firm challenged the organizations to get their supporters to vote for them on the Stratton Faxon website and Facebook page. After more than 25,000 votes were cast, Gaylord prevailed, winning the $100,000 grant.

Another $25,000 check was presented to a winning “wild card entrant,” the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hartford.

A Law Firm That Doesn’t Advertise

All Our Kin’s Jessica Sager said with her grant “We’re going to be able to plant a lot more organic gardens” for the daycare providers her group trains.

Although Gaylord and the other awardees are all first-time recipients, their pre-selection was based on personal knowledge that Michael Stratton or other firm members had of them. In the case of Gaylord, many of the clients the firm represents in personal injury cases receive services at Gaylord. Stratton’s grandmother was a patient there in the 1920s, when it was a sanatorium for tuberculosis recovery.

“We made a commitment to give 10 percent of profit each year to charity” when the firm was established a decade ago, said Stratton. The firm holds an annual Labor Day road race and supports a number of area not-for-profits, including the Independent.

Michael Stratton and admirer Linda Barone.

The philanthropy is also astute marketing, said Stratton. “If you get a million dollar settlement, it’s not going to make you whole. Take some of that money and give it to the community. It gives meaning to the settlement. We’re trusted by clients, by the legal community. Jurors [in trials we participate in] are open to us. They’re running in the road races. They know we’re not associated with the commercialization of the law.”

He said the besmirching of the legal profession in the public eye—picture an ambulance-chasing trial lawyer—is traceable to Supreme court decisions that allowed lawyers to advertise without restriction.

The Stratton Faxon approach—doing good works in the community rather than putting your name on the side of a bus or on a billboard—is catching on. Stratton said he now advises lawyers in other cities how to pursue this approach. “You’re going to be happy. You’re not going to take it with you [the settlement money] and you don’t demean, but rather enhance the image of trial lawyers.”