🔒Connecticut Trial Firm dissolves years after winning $100M verdict, as former partners battle in court

Once 50-50 partners in a startup law firm that gained notoriety for winning the largest bodily injury verdict in Connecticut, two attorneys became such bitter adversaries they decided to dissolve the business.

Now, they’re ensnared in a legal battle over the winding down of their former law firm, with each attorney blaming the other for misspent money, personal attacks, inappropriate behavior and potential malfeasance.

Glastonbury-based Connecticut Trial Firm (CTF) was founded in 2016 by two young attorneys, Ryan McKeen and Andrew Garza. The firm received widespread publicity in 2022 after winning a $100 million settlement for a man who was paralyzed in a warehouse accident.

Connecticut Trial Firm grew to 24 employees and had satellite offices in Norwich and Enfield. It was named one of the “Best Places to Work” in Connecticut in 2023 and 2024.

Behind the scenes, the firm’s top leaders were engaged in battle.

“Despite the perceived shared vision at the formation of CTF, dysfunction simmered at CTF for several years between McKeen and Garza, reaching a boiling point in 2023 and early 2024,” according to a court document filed Jan. 14 by McKeen’s attorney, N. Kane Bennett of Aeton Law Partners in Middletown.

After numerous attempts at reconciliation, McKeen left the firm last May; Garza dissolved the business in December.

Now, the winding down of the business, including distributions to its partners and payments to creditors, remains embroiled in controversy.

McKeen and Garza have filed dueling lawsuits, including two small claims cases against Garza brought by LLCs controlled by McKeen.

McKeen is also seeking to have the firm’s dissolution supervised by an arbitrator.

On Oct. 25, Garza and his wife responded by filing a lawsuit against McKeen and his wife (who has since been removed as a defendant), seeking to prevent arbitration. They argue that the court has jurisdiction, and that arbitration would deprive them of their right to a jury.

McKeen is seeking to quash the lawsuit and wants arbitration to proceed. The case has been moved to the complex litigation docket of the Hartford Judicial District.

More recently, Garza filed another lawsuit against McKeen in Hartford Superior Court, which accuses McKeen of breach of fiduciary duty. Among other things, Garza is seeking a court-ordered forensic accounting of CTF’s financial records to determine whether any funds were misappropriated.

McKeen and Garza, contacted separately by the Hartford Business Journal, declined to discuss the pending lawsuits, citing confidentiality agreements.

“The situation with my former partner is unfortunate,” McKeen said. “I look forward to, and fully expect to, share my side of the story in arbitration — the forum we mutually agreed upon in 2016 for resolving disputes.”

Garza said their falling out stemmed from a disagreement about how to market the firm’s $100 million verdict.

“That verdict for us was sort of an inflection point,” Garza said. “Fundamentally, I think there was a misalignment in how to market it moving forward. We wanted to bring the firm in different directions, which can sometimes happen in business, right? We wanted to reach different consumer bases in different ways. Unfortunately, things spiraled from there.”

Meantime, while the former partners try to settle their past issues, they’re also looking to the future, having both launched their own new business ventures in the legal field.

Simmering tensions

McKeen, the CEO of Connecticut Trial Firm, was responsible for the firm’s strategy and business plans, including brand development, marketing and client relationships. His wife was the firm’s chief financial officer.

Garza was CTF’s lead trial attorney and oversaw litigation.

According to court documents, McKeen became “increasingly concerned” with Garza’s “use of alcohol and drugs and inappropriate behavior with employees” — specifically his behavior during the firm’s holiday party at the end of 2023.

McKeen believed Garza’s behaviors were disruptive to the law practice and could harm CTF’s reputation, so he consulted with a professional interventionist, the documents state.

According to McKeen’s arbitration demand letter, he was trying to get “help” for his business partner.

But according to Garza’s lawsuit, McKeen and his wife created a false narrative to plot a “secret lockout” of Garza from the CTF office on Feb. 26, 2024.

McKeen, seeing “no reasonable path forward,” began to discuss separation terms and/or buying out Garza’s interest in the firm.

During their negotiations, CTF continued to operate and employees were told the two partners were working on a separation agreement.

Eventually, McKeen and Garza reached an agreement, which appointed Garza the firm’s “liquidating member.”

McKeen, in his demand letter, contends that Garza abused his power and breached the agreement by using his new firm to settle CTF cases, then diverted settlement fees from CTF to his new firm, without McKeen’s consent.

Garza was required to provide McKeen with “prompt written notice” of any major decision, and McKeen had the right to object.

McKeen’s demand letter asks Garza to consent to arbitration, per an operating agreement they signed in 2016 when the firm was founded, delegating disputes to an arbitrator.

The arbitration process, which occurs privately between parties, would determine the distribution of CTF’s remaining funds.

Alleged misappropriation

McKeen and Garza both accuse each other of misappropriating CTF funds.

According to McKeen’s demand letter, Garza wrote a check from a CTF account to purchase a personal cellphone. It also accuses Garza of backing out of a real estate deal after he agreed to purchase McKeen’s interest for $50,000.

When McKeen brought financial irregularities to Garza’s attention, Garza threatened to hire a forensic accountant to investigate him for embezzlement while draining his share of CTF’s funds, the letter states.

In a separate court filing, Garza claims he found evidence that McKeen diverted CTF funds into his and his wife’s personal bank accounts, including money from a scholarship fund Garza created.

McKeen’s demand letter says the discrepancies were so minor that they were irrelevant.

McKeen’s letter also cites 12 pages of threats written by Garza meant to “extract financial concessions for his new law firm.” Garza read McKeen’s personal emails and chat messages and planned to use them as blackmail, the letter says.

McKeen further accuses Garza of impersonating him to clients and changing McKeen’s out-of-office message to say that he was no longer practicing law — an “intentional misrepresentation,” McKeen claims.

Due to the various disputes, KeyBank froze three Connecticut Trial Firm bank accounts with a total of $300,000. In a letter, the bank said the freeze was an effort “to preserve the status quo” until their differences are resolved by a court or tribunal.

Moving on

Both attorneys said they look forward to putting the past behind them.

McKeen has founded two new businesses with his wife: McKeen Law Firm, a solo practice that only takes five cases at a time, and Best Era LLC, a legal consulting firm. Both businesses operate from an office in Glastonbury.

The small law practice gives McKeen the opportunity to provide more hands-on support to his clients, he said.

“What happened is, after I left Connecticut Trial Firm, I had so many friends, family, people who knew me, who were referring cases to me,” McKeen said. “I really enjoy helping people who have been hurt. And so I made the decision to create what I call ‘the world’s tiniest personal injury firm’ and only handle five cases at a time. … It’s a very small practice with no plans to grow.”

He said he spends most of his time working on Best Era, which has five employees, each of whom used to work at CTF.

Best Era provides consulting services to small law firms, which often lack in-house marketing teams. McKeen and his colleagues train attorneys on “the business of law,” assist with cases and run focus groups.

Garza, with the backing of partners from a Las Vegas-based law firm, started the law firm Claggett, Sykes & Garza, headquartered in Farmington.

The firm has eight attorneys at two locations, one in Enfield and the other in a new 10,000-square-foot facility in Farmington with a mock courtroom.

“We built that (courtroom) so that we can focus on training our lawyers and helping our clients and really just honing our ability to do great trial work,” Garza said. “That’s new, and that’s something that I think is different. It sort of sets us apart.”