started his legal career with the major Connecticut law firm of Cummings & Lockwood, where he spent eight years as an associate in the Real Estate Department. From there he was recruited by Capital Holding Corporation, an insurance conglomerate based in Louisville, KY, where he served as Assistant General Counsel and head of the Real Estate Section of the Law Department. He then moved up to become Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Barclays Business Credit, Inc., a unit of Barclays Bank PLC headquartered in Glastonbury, Connecticut. He eventually became General Counsel for several other Barclays units, including a US National Bank, a factor, a commercial leasing company and others. In 1994 he started his own law firm in Glastonbury, focusing on real estate and the legal needs of small businesses and their owners, including the areas of business law, secured lending, estate planning and estate settlement. In 1999 he became a co-founder of Collins & Deans, LLC.