NewHavenBIZ

n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m | A p r i l 2 0 2 3 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 17 traditional municipal land records kept in a town hall vault with a blockchain- based system, Street said. "is is cutting-edge stuff that people are still figuring out," he said. New Haven's construction surge — apartments continue to rise at breakneck speed — has also been a significant source of increased business for Carmody, Street said. For Barclay Damon, a large regional firm with an office in New Haven, the biggest boost in business is coming from the energy sector, said Lizz Acee, managing director of major market offices in New York, Boston, Washington D.C., and New Jersey as well as New Haven. Helping drive growth in that practice area is the expansion in renewables, Acee said. "It can be anything from a major solar or wind project to regulatory issues and environmental issues," she said. Barclay Damon is also seeing an uptick in business restructurings and workouts as well as bank litigation, Acee said. Echoing Street and Hoffman, she cited intellectual property law and cannabis as growth areas. Acee noted that Barclay Damon has something of an unusual structure. Instead of traditional practice areas, it has teams that focus on a given economic sector and then provide clients with all legal services related to it. In recent years, the firm created a new team focused on restaurants and hotels and another it dubbed the "outdoor and wildlife team," she said. e latter team has seen its work increase significantly, Acee said. Clients range from land conservancies, to a bow maker defending a patent, to property owners coping with the Endangered Species Act, to wildlife museums seeking accreditation. e firm created the restaurant and Proudly committed to every customer, community partner, and neighbor we serve. YOUR SUCCESS is how we measure ours. 203.285.6490 | newhavenbank.com hotel team, Acee said, when it saw new opportunities in the industry. e pandemic and its lingering aermath have affected different practice areas in different ways, representatives of all three firms said. Commercial and retail real estate have both suffered and continue to struggle, they said. Litigation also took a hit thanks to COVID-related court closures, although it is coming back, they said. e virus did provide a big boost to one practice area, according to Pullman & Comley's Hoffman: arbitration and mediation. Temporary court closures resulted in a big backlog that lingers to this day. More clients are turning to alternative means to settle their disagreements, Hoffman said. "Instead of going to court, parties will seek to mediate or arbitrate their disputes privately," Hoffman said. at has translated into a big uptick in mediation and arbitration work for his firm, he said. Pullman recently hired two more retired judges, giving it a total of five, to help handle the growing caseload, he said. Hoffman added that the pandemic has led to a major change in the practice of law. He has more clients he has never met face-to-face because so much more legal business – everything from conferences to consultations – is being conducted over Zoom or Microso Teams. Certain court proceedings have moved online as well, he said. In addition, state agencies began holding hearings online and made it easier to obtain permits and conduct other business remotely, Hoffman said. As the pandemic has receded, these changes have remained and are increasingly entrenched as the normal course of business, he said. "I think it's here to stay because it's just more convenient for every party," Hoffman said. n Richard L. Street, managing partner of Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessey LLP. Lizz Acee, managing director of major market offices at Barclay Damon.

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