Colleen Brunnick McElhinney is a Senior Associate with the firm, whose practice focuses on business, employment, and real estate litigation. She represents owner-operated businesses, business professionals, and homeowners, assisting them in negotiating and drafting new contracts, interpreting and applying existing contracts, and pursuing or defending their contract, employment, and property rights in court.   

Colleen advises business professionals on all phases of their employment relationship, from initial offer letters and employment contracts; to ongoing employment issues including their need for accommodation or leave and responding to discrimination and retaliation; to issues surrounding termination and resignation; to post-employment matters, including interpretation and enforcement of post-employment restrictive covenants. 

Colleen‘s business practice includes advising and representing local family-owned and family-operated business, on the myriad issues that arise in the operation of their business, including contracts and leases affecting their physical operations; contracts and contract disputes involving other businesses or consumers; and questions concerning workforce management and employment law compliance. 

Colleen also represents clients in disputes arising out of real estate ownership and real estate transfers, including disputes between abutting property owners; issues arising out of condominium ownership and governance; and post-transaction claims arising out of residential purchases and sales, and home improvement renovations. 

Colleen has been licensed to practice law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for 30 years. After clerking for the Chief Justice of the State of Maine Supreme Judicial Court, she began her legal career in the litigation. Later, in connection with balancing her professional and personal goals, Colleen had the opportunity to work on a project basis with several employment-focused firms on specific, targeted employment matters, creating the foundation on which she has continued to build her employment-focused litigation practice. She then furthered her litigation experience working in smaller firm settings, first in Boston alongside several Mintz Levin colleagues, and then in Newburyport, Massachusetts, continuing to build on her business and employment litigation practice. This included operating her own solo practice, where she honed her client-service skills with a focus on providing targeted, client-focused services in an an efficient, cost-effective manner. 

Colleen is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, including the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and the First Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. 

• Principal and Owner, Law Office of Colleen Brunnick McElhinney, Esq., Newburyport, MA
• Senior Litigation Associate, Finneran & Nicholson, P.C., Newburyport, MA 
• Of Counsel Litigation Attorney, Torres, Scammon, Hincks & Day, LLP, Boston, MA 
• Litigation Associate Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky & Popeo, P.C., Boston, MA 
• Law Clerk Maine Supreme Judicial Court for Chief Justice Daniel E. Wathen, Augusta, ME