Partner Robyn Abbate is Chair of Wiggin and Dana’s Real Estate, Environmental, and Energy Department and a member of the firm’s Franchise and Distribution and Corporate practices. Her practice brings together two complementary areas, commercial real estate and franchise, and clients rely on her as a single, trusted advisor across their real estate portfolios and their franchise operations.

In her real estate practice, Robyn represents clients in all aspects of commercial real estate. Her clients include local and national companies, developers, franchisees, investors, and nonprofit organizations. She represents both landlords and tenants in office, retail, industrial, bond, build-to-suit, mixed-use, and ground lease transactions. She also handles the purchase and sale of commercial real estate. She is frequently involved in complex lease restructurings and dispositions. Her projects have ranged from high-rise office buildings, luxury retail, medical office space, build-to-suit restaurants, and manufacturing and distribution facilities to the sale of historic property and the development of commercial and residential buildings with significant state funding.

Robyn negotiates leases for prominent tenants, including Fortune 500 insurance companies, national retailers, and restaurant operators. She works opposite some of the largest office and retail landlords in the U.S.. She manages real estate due diligence for national and international merger and acquisition transactions. She also guides clients through the timely resolution of post-occupancy issues. In addition, Robyn helps clients with large portfolios develop strategic processes, procedures, and template documents that create uniformity across work streams, limit legal risk, and address compliance problems. She often serves as ongoing real estate counsel to corporate tenants and portfolio owners, working alongside their in-house legal, real estate, and facilities teams to manage leasing, acquisitions, and dispositions across multiple locations.

Robyn’s franchise practice builds on that real estate foundation. She represents some of the largest franchisees in the country in all aspects of their businesses, including multi-unit and multi-brand operators [confirm client types] in industries such as automotive, rent-to-own, education, and restaurants. Her work covers the full life cycle of a multi-unit franchise enterprise. That includes acquisitions and dispositions of franchised units, site selection and development, franchisor relationships and agreements, financing, and the general commercial contracts that keep a large operation running. Many of these clients retain her as ongoing outside counsel, and she works directly with their owners, executive teams, and in-house counsel as a practical extension of their leadership. Because she understands both the business and the real estate behind each location, she can give franchisee clients integrated, practical advice that supports growth across their portfolios.

Across both practices, Robyn has earned the trust of clients, team members, and executives through her understanding of the “big picture” in carrying out a real estate and franchise business strategy. Clients depend on her for timely, practical, risk-based decisions that reflect the negotiating leverage and time constraints of each deal. Prior to joining Wiggin and Dana, she was a commercial real estate partner at another Hartford area firm.

Robyn is a member of the Connecticut Bar Association, the International Association of Attorneys and Executives in Corporate Real Estate, the National Retail Tenants Association, the International Council of Shopping Centers, and the Hartford County Bar Association.

Robyn earned her J.D. cum laude from Western New England University School of Law, and she received her B.A. with honors from the University of Connecticut.