A group of lawyers has left Bangor-based Eaton Peabody and started a new law firm in downtown Ellsworth.
The lawyers — seven of them are based in Ellsworth, and one works in Portland — have established Viridian Law. The group, along with a small staff, has assumed Eaton Peabody’s former lease in the Seaboard Federal Credit Union building at 200 Main St. They are working out of the same offices they have occupied for the past several years.
The reason for striking out on their own was fairly simple, according to partners in the new business: They felt they could maintain their practices and attend to their own business affairs without having to be managed from afar. On top of that, they also see a growing need for legal representation in the region.
They said their aim is to provide legal services to clients statewide — especially along the state’s coastal corridor — but without the “increasingly high costs” that larger firms command.
“Technology now allows us to effectively and economically serve our clients across Maine through a more focused and flexible business model,” said Jeff Spaulding, one of Viridian’s partners.
“You don’t need the large-firm infrastructure to do it,” added Patrick Lyons, another Viridian partner. “We can do it from our little office in Ellsworth.”
Joining Lyons and Spaulding in the new venture are former Eaton Peabody lawyers Jen Baroletti, Jason Barrett, Kady Huff, Jeff Joyce, Mike Tadenev and Chris Uphouse. As of late last year, they were among 40 lawyers at Eaton Peabody, which includes offices in Augusta and Portland.
Lyons and Uphouse said that their departure at the end of last week was “relatively smooth” and that Eaton Peabody’s partners gave their blessing for the split. The lawyers at Viridian are all friends who felt they could work well together in running a business, they said.
“I think everyone here would like to chart our own course a bit,” Uphouse said.
The partners at Viridian said that with the growing population in Hancock County, and even in Washington County, they expect the demand for legal services in eastern coastal Maine to increase. That demand has been exacerbated in recent years by a general decline in the number of lawyers in rural Maine, and specifically by several longtime lawyers retiring or scaling back in the Ellsworth-Mount Desert Island area.
“It’s a growing area,” Lyons said. “We’re busy.”
