Robyn Abbate

Practice Areas

Partner Robyn Abbate acts as Chair for the Real Estate, Environmental and Energy Department. She is also a member of wiggin(x).

Robyn’s practice includes real estate, franchise, and general business counseling, with a focus on commercial leasing and real estate, where she counsels local and national companies, developers, franchisees, investors, and nonprofit organizations in various real estate matters, including office, retail, industrial, bond, build-to-suit, mixed-use, and ground lease transactions, for both landlords and tenants, the purchase and sale of commercial real estate, and the analysis and negotiation of general commercial contracts.

Robyn is frequently involved in complex lease restructurings and dispositions and has handled a wide variety of real estate projects: from the leasing of high-rise office buildings, luxury retail space, medical office space, build-to-suit restaurants, manufacturing and distribution facilities, and flagship office facilities, to the sale of historic property and development of commercial and residential buildings with significant state funding. Robyn negotiates leases for a wide variety of prominent tenants, including Fortune 500 insurance companies, national retailers, and restaurant operators, and with some of the largest office and retail landlords in the U.S. She assists her clients with the development of strategic processes, procedures, and template documents to produce uniformity among work streams, to limit legal risk and address compliance problems with large portfolios. In addition, Robyn guides clients through the timely resolution of post-occupancy issues and manages real estate due diligence for national and international merger and acquisition transactions.

Robyn has earned the trust and confidence of clients, team members, and executives through her understanding of the “big picture” in implementing a real estate strategy, and clients regularly depend on her ability to make timely and practical risk-based decisions depending on the negotiation power and time constraints of a particular deal. Prior to joining Wiggin and Dana, she was a commercial real estate partner at another Hartford area firm.

Robyn is on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut/Westchester Chapter of Corenet Global (a national corporate real estate trade association) and 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 College School of Law, and she received her B.A. with honors from the University of Connecticut.