Five practice groups. One firm. Every matter staffed by a partner.

Business & Corporate Law

Our business practice serves founders, closely-held corporations, LLCs, and family enterprises from formation through exit. We handle choice-of-entity analysis, operating agreements and shareholder agreements, buy-sell arrangements, and equity structuring for Rhode Island and Massachusetts companies across manufacturing, professional services, hospitality, and healthcare.

On the transactional side, we represent buyers and sellers in stock and asset purchases, asset divisions, and minority investments. Recent matters include a $14M asset purchase in the specialty-foods sector, a multi-location dental-practice roll-up, and the sale of a third-generation machine shop to a strategic acquirer. We work closely with the client's CPA and financial advisors to align legal structure with tax and succession goals.

Commercial contract work rounds out the practice: master supply agreements, distribution and licensing, independent-contractor agreements, and non-disclosure/non-solicitation frameworks. We counsel boards and management on fiduciary duties, indemnification, and D&O coverage considerations.

Real Estate & Commercial Leasing

Our real estate group represents developers, investors, landlords, tenants, and owner-occupiers in commercial and residential transactions throughout Southern New England. We guide clients from letter of intent through closing on acquisitions, dispositions, 1031 exchanges, and financed transactions, including CMBS and SBA 504/7(a) deal structures.

Commercial leasing is a significant portion of our workload. We draft and negotiate retail, office, industrial, and mixed-use leases on behalf of both landlords and tenants, with emphasis on operating-expense escalations, assignment and sublet rights, SNDAs, and estoppel deliverables. We regularly coordinate with local zoning counsel and title underwriters on harder-to-clear matters, including easement disputes, mechanic's-lien discharge, and Chapter 40B affordable-housing compliance.

Development practice includes land-use entitlements, special-use permits and variances before municipal zoning boards, and coordination with environmental consultants on Phase I and Phase II ESAs. Construction-side work includes AIA owner-contractor negotiation and payment-dispute resolution.

Estate Planning & Trust Administration

We counsel individuals and families at every wealth level, from first-time parents documenting guardianship to multi-generational families coordinating gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax planning. Core documents include last wills and testaments, revocable living trusts, financial and healthcare powers of attorney, HIPAA authorizations, and living wills.

For more complex estates we design irrevocable trusts tailored to the planning objective: irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs), spousal lifetime access trusts (SLATs), and special-needs trusts for beneficiaries receiving public benefits. We coordinate with financial advisors on beneficiary designations, titling, and funding — the step most often overlooked in off-the-shelf estate plans.

On the administration side, we represent fiduciaries through probate in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, handle trust administration and accounting, and defend or prosecute will contests and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims in probate court. Elder-law planning includes Medicaid asset protection within Rhode Island's five-year lookback period and review of long-term care insurance options.

Employment & Labor Counseling

We advise employers on the full employment lifecycle: offer letters and employment agreements, restrictive covenants (narrowly tailored to comply with Rhode Island's 2020 Noncompetition Agreement Act and Massachusetts' similar restrictions), handbooks, disciplinary procedures, reductions in force, and separation agreements. We conduct workplace investigations with an eye toward preserving privilege and producing a defensible record.

On the defense side, we represent employers before the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the EEOC, and state and federal court in wage-and-hour, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and FMLA matters. We also defend trade-secret and non-compete disputes and respond to Department of Labor audits.

Our counseling relationship with small and mid-sized employers is proactive — we prefer to shape policy and training so the messy case never develops. When it does, our litigators have tried cases to verdict in both Providence and Boston.

Commercial & Civil Litigation

Our litigation group handles commercial disputes in federal and state courts across New England, as well as in private arbitration under AAA and JAMS rules. We represent plaintiffs and defendants in breach-of-contract, breach-of-fiduciary-duty, partnership and LLC-member disputes, shareholder oppression matters, and business-tort actions including tortious interference and unfair competition.

Real-estate litigation is a natural extension of our transactional practice: boundary and easement disputes, partition actions, quiet-title, mechanic's-lien enforcement and discharge, and commercial-lease default proceedings. Our appellate practice includes oral argument before the Rhode Island Supreme Court and the Massachusetts Appeals Court.

We resolve most matters before trial through early mediation or negotiated settlement. When a matter must be tried, our attorneys are admitted to and practice regularly in the U.S. District Courts for Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the Rhode Island Superior Court, and Massachusetts Superior Court.