Check out Bankrate’s refinancing calculator to see how much you can potentially save per month.
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Connecticut Real Estate Attorneys: Mortgage Rates At Historic Lows
November 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Freed McKeen Proudly Sponsors “Race To Fill The Pantry”
November 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment
I’m a Glastonbury River Runner. The Glastonbury River Runners are awesome.
On Sunday, the Glastonbury River Runners are putting on the Race To Fill the Pantry 2012. The race begins at 9:00 a.m. You can register online or in person at 7:30.
The course is fast. I set a Personal Best on it last year. The 2011 Race to Fill the Pantry was won by our contractor, Brian Nelson.
$5 from every registration fee will be donated to the Glastonbury Food Bank. Participants are also asked to donate a non-perishable food item, such as canned vegetables or soup, boxed stuffing etc. In 2011 the Glastonbury River Runners were able to donate over $1000 plus a trailer full of food to the town Food Bank.
We hope to see you there.
Brick House
August 5, 2012 by 1 Comment
Kristen and I were on vacation last week and just got to see the work Brian Nelson and his folks accomplished in the space while we were gone. The beginnings of a banister have sprouted up; the idiosyncrasies in the floor are becoming less idiosyncratic.
The biggest news, as Ryan shared, was that there was beautiful brick hidden behind the drywall in the basement. We discovered that we had to remove the drywall a couple of weeks ago when we consulted with mold experts — the mold culprit was likely a sprinkler system leak due to a frozen pipe. Although removing all the drywall was an unexpected expense, discovering the brick was a blessing. It will come as no surprise that we will keep the brick exposed.
Although it’s hidden and doesn’t lend itself to the above video, the substantial electrical work is plugging along too. The day we are able to flip a switch and have the lights work in the basement will be a big day. B-I-G.
I also note that our King Charles Cavalier Daphne makes her debut appearance in this video, and she’s really cute.
Why Freed McKeen Chose Hartford
July 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment
1. We love Hartford. Meghan and Kristen live in Hartford. I’ve spent many days in Hartford courts. My daughter was born in Hartford. I run the Hartford Marathon. My wife works in Hartford. We’re Hartford-y. Locating our office in Hartford was a natural choice.
2. We believe in the future of Hartford. We believe that the business, non-profit, and governmental agencies are pursuing the right policies by encouraging residential development downtown and by making the city more walkable. Our office will benefit from the iQuilt. We love that. Clients can do their will and then walk to dinner and a show at the Bushnell.
Home To Freed McKeen, LLC
3. Our office is going to be gorgeous. We purchased 1900 square feet of office space (900 feet of which at street level on Main Street across from the Federal Court) for a reasonable price. Our office has brick walls, cherry floors, and floor to ceiling glass. We’re fighting through some electrical issues, a little rotted dry wall, and some plumbing issues. When we’re done our office is going to be great. Space you can’t rent. Our acquisition cost was low.
4. Our office is across the street from the Federal Court and within walking distance to every court in Hartford. Never having to feed a meter to go to court is going to be a great feeling. One less worry.
5. Our bank, within walking distance, is located next to a Starbucks and Max Downtown. As if we needed incentive to go to the bank.
6. The City reassessed our space. This made the space more attractive to us by lowering our monthly carrying costs.
7. I can run in Bushnell Park and along the Riverfront. We’re installing a shower in the office so I smell nice while meeting with clients. I can’t think of a better way to train for the Hartford Marathon than daily runs on the course. Want to have a “walking meeting” in Bushnell Park? We do.
8. Our office is within walking distance to Peppercorn’s, Vito’s, Salute, Max Downtown, Trumbull Kitchen, On 20, Agave, Rio, Arch Street Tavern, and the rumored Capital Grille at Front Street. You can’t do better than that. Even in Hartford’s neighbor to the west. We can throw Firebox into that mix as well. We like to walk.
9. Our location will be convenient to our clients. It is easy on and off from both 84 and 91. We have and are going to represent dwellers in Hartford’s downtown. There’s a bike rack in front of our office. We think that’s perfect.
10. We thought about other places……kind of. We thought of them because we needed to do our diligence. Choosing a location for a business is a major decision. No other place offered anything close to what Hartford offered us.
We don’t need the Whalers to return. We don’t need the City to roll out a new marketing slogan. We’re not waiting for Hartford’s next thing. We love Hartford “as is”.
We love Hartford. We’re happy with our choice. Once we’re done construction (hopefully in August), stop by our office. When you see our office, and meet us, you’ll know exactly why we’re in Hartford.
We’re moving into a mostly vacant commercial space at the Linden. As of today, we have one neighbor. We’ve been called pioneers. We’ve been called brave. We may be both of those things. More than anything, we think choosing Hartford is smart.
We didn’t want to ensconce our law firm in a tower, either. We didn’t want views of the city from on high, We wanted to look through our windows and see people’s faces. We wanted to step from our front door right onto the Main Street.
We didn’t want temporary walls and carpet, we wanted brick and wood. We didn’t want to lease in Hartford, we wanted to invest in Hartford.
Check out Meghan’s videos of the construction “Upstairs Downstairs” and “Under Construction“.
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Freed McKeen, LLC is a Hartford law firm. We’re located in Unit 103 at the Linden. Our office is at street level on Main Street directly across from the Federal Court. We hope to open our doors in September 2012.
Old and New
July 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment
These are our doorknobs. They are awesome.
They don’t make door knobs like these anymore.
Our office will blend the old with the new. We’ve embraced cutting edge technology. We’re doing this to deliver legal services as efficiently as possible. For example, this post was written on my phone.
We are doing this while embracing Hartford’s rich history. In particular, the rich history of our home, the Linden.
Antique door knobs will open doors to rooms that are both modern and historic.
Our work space reflects are values. We are open, authentic, and progressive. We think you’ll love the result.
Under Construction
July 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment
When we looked for an office space for FreedMcKeen, we looked for a home. There was never a question that we would locate ourselves in Hartford proper, and although the views of the Connecticut River Valley from Hartford’s skyscrapers are beautiful, we wanted to look out our windows and see people’s faces.
We found a spot in the first floor of a historic building built in 1891, The Linden, that suited perfectly. It is a wonderful location — we step out of our front door right onto Hartford’s Main Street – right across the street from the federal court house and a few blocks from the state court houses.
Our office is filled with brick and wood and potential — it just needs a face-lift.
The above video is the first documentation of the transformation. A few non-load-bearing walls have been taken down and the carpet has been removed, but other than that this video is pretty much where we started.
Throw Off the Bowlines.
July 19, 2012 by 2 Comments
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
That up there is Mark Twain. People from Hartford love Mark Twain. I am from Hartford.
My name is Meghan Freed, and as Ryan has shared, I am his partner over at our so-brand-spanking-new-the-office-is-still-under-construction law firm, FreedMcKeen.
I left law big law firm life for corporate law life in 2007. For myriad reasons obvious to lawyers and boring to non-lawyers, getting an “in-house” job like the one I had is many lawyers’ dream. There is a really long and growing list of folks who want to replace me. Practically nobody leaves a job like that.
But then in January Ryan, after some Jobs and gin, sent me a text message wondering about whether I wanted to open a law firm.
Conventional wisdom is that I should have told him no and wished him well. No matter how awesome the person they’d be leaving for, in-house lawyers don’t leave their jobs. Not unless it’s for another in-house job, and definitely not in this economy.
My immediate, hard-wired reaction was to go conventional. But, Kristen, my love, who’s about to sit for the bar herself so she can hurry on up and join Ryan and me, pushed me. She is brave. She is not afraid to do the unorthodox. Heck, she’s fished commercially (her Dad was jealous) and she’s lived in a treehouse (not a house in a tree. A treehouse.)
When I told her about Ryan’s text, Kristen said, “Well, are you going to?” I replied, “It would be awesome.” I didn’t mean, “It would be awesome, so I’m going to do it.” I meant, “Sigh, it would be awesome, sigh, I’m sorry I can’t do it, sigh.”
She pushed. “You should. You love Ryan. And, Meghan. Why not? Really. Why. Not.”
She was right. And now here we all are, throwing off our bowlines.
Over the past two weeks I have been telling people that matter to me about FreedMcKeen. Among them were my in-house lawyer collegues and other lawyers at firms big and small across the country. They are people whose opinions I value, admire, and trust. They are also people who do not mince words when they have an opinion. I expected to get some feedback about risk and the economy. I thought there would be a few folks who would simply tell me I was nuts.
No one did. Not a one. There was one word that literally every in-house and big firm lawyer said to me . . . bold. To a one, they didn’t say crazy, they said bold.
The small firm lawyers, the guys that had started their own firms? (I’m not generalizing, they are all men.) They, to a one, told me ”The only thing I would change is I would have started my own firm sooner.”
In the six plus months while we’ve dreamed up this firm one of our favorite quotes has been Jobs’ — “It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy.” Kristen and I were at the Whydah Pirate Museum in Provincetown (seriously) to get Ryan a pirate flag (seriously). Inside the museum hung this sign:
Mark Twain likes that we’re pirates.
