New York employers weighing an applicant’s criminal record must follow legal steps rather than assume a conviction rules out the person, a Cornell labor-law specialist told lawyers at a recent gathering in Ithaca.
Esta Bigler, director of Labor Law and Employment Programs at Cornell’s ILR School, spoke to nearly 25 lawyers at the New York State Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section fall meeting, according to Cornell ILR’s account of the presentation. Thomas Jones, an education associate with the school’s Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative, joined her to discuss his experience with the justice system and the importance of assessing applicants individually.
Bigler reviewed how New York Correction Law Article 23-A, the state Human Rights Law, the Clean Slate Law, the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, ban-the-box rules and the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act affect hiring decisions. The presentation focused on both the legal requirements and the assumptions employers may make about applicants with felony or misdemeanor convictions.
Under Article 23-A, as explained by the state Department of Labor, an employer generally cannot reject an applicant solely because of a prior conviction. The law allows a denial when the conviction is directly related to the job or hiring would create an unreasonable risk to property or safety, after consideration of factors including the job’s duties, the offense, time elapsed and evidence of rehabilitation.
“Many labor and employment lawyers have never even heard of some of these laws,” Bigler said in the Cornell account. She said the presentation was intended to help lawyers apply the rules in their own practices and when advising clients.
Jones spoke about how a person’s circumstances can change after a conviction. Bigler said hearing that experience could help lawyers and employers look beyond assumptions. She described the presentation’s two aims as explaining how the law applies and showing why applicants should be assessed as individuals.
The New York courts say the Clean Slate Law took effect in November 2024, but the court system has until November 2027 to build processes for automatically sealing eligible convictions. The law does not mean every conviction is already sealed. Eligible misdemeanors generally have a three-year waiting period and eligible felonies an eight-year period, subject to other conditions and exceptions.
The ILR account said roughly 2.1 million New Yorkers have a criminal record and about 86,700 are under probation or parole supervision. Bigler and Jodi Anderson Jr., who directs technological innovation at the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative, previously presented an eCornell program on hiring and retaining people with criminal records.
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