Deron Freeman didn't realize it at the time, but the seminal moment in his emerging law practice was the day his attorney-father Donald Freeman fired him in 2005.

"He really did it as a favor," the son says now, sitting behind his desk at The Law Offices of Deron Freeman, on Linden Place in Hartford. "He didn't need an extra associate. He brought me in the office one day and said, 'Listen, I can't pay you anymore. Time for you to go out on your own.' At first I was devastated.''

The job with his dad was Deron's first as a lawyer. He graduated from Western New England School of Law in 2000. After leaving his father's practice, Freeman soon discovered it "was actually the best thing that ever happened to me. … I doubled my salary."