Attorneys at the Brown Jacobson law firm in downtown Norwich store their client's wills and other important documents in massive vaults constructed a century ago to deter the shrewdest of bank robbers.

The city's largest law firm, like others in the region, occupies a space not originally intended as legal offices.

Brown Jacobson's 27 employees greet clients in spaces formerly occupied by teller stations. They climb marble staircases to their offices and hold meetings in rooms scattered with bank safes and the occasional dumbwaiter.

The firm is situated in two imposing granite buildings constructed as banks in the early 20th century when, firm director Mike Driscoll says, customers dealt in cash and wanted their banks to look like fortresses. Despite the occasional leaky ceiling and less than perfect heating and plumbing systems, Driscoll and his coworkers prefer their unique surroundings to more modern law offices.

During a recent tour of the building, attorney Wayne Tillinghast, one of the original partners, unearthed an early brochure of the firm featuring a pen and ink drawing of the building on embossed paper and newspaper articles heralding the firm's opening in 1966 on what was then known as "Banker's Row" on Shetucket Street.

The newly formed Brown, Jacobson, Jewett and Laudone occupied the three-story building formerly occupied by the Uncas-Merchants Branch of the Hartford National Bank. The exterior has hooded front doors, arched windows and an elaborate cornice. The interiors feature ornamental moldings and other decorative features.

About 10 years later the firm purchased the two-story Connecticut Bank & Trust building next door and cut through a wall to make it one building. The exterior has a Corinthian portico with oversized columns. Shetucket Street was renamed Courthouse Square after the nearby courthouse, labeled Geographical Area 21, was built in 1982. The law firm overlooks the spot where the Shetucket River enters Norwich Harbor, forming the Thames River, and features close-up views of the Shetucket River railroad bridge.

Like his counterparts in Norwich, New London attorney Dominic S. Piacenza says he never wants to work in a "boxy, rectangular modern building."

Piacenza and his tenants practice law in a well-preserved Victorian situated between the city's two courthouses at the intersection of Broad and Hempstead streets. Piacenza began working in the building in 1986 and eventually bought it from his former partners, Eugene Cushman, Robert Martin and the late John P. Tedeschi.

"People have really modern, efficient buildings, but that's not my style," he said during an early December interview.

The wood-shingled Victorian with curved windows looks much as it did when it was built by Richard C. Morris, who was appointed as the state's U.S. marshal in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland. City tax records indicate the building, which Piacenza says has a larger "twin" on nearby Granite Street, was constructed in 1890.

The interior features ornate woodwork and moldings, which Piacenza says causes contractors and clients who work with wood to "go crazy." There are four fireplaces, and in the back kitchen, a copper sink and a built-in icebox. Piacenza said he would like to rebuild the widow's walk, a railed rooftop platform that once occupied the top of the building.

Next door is another Victorian, a 9,500-square-foot building in yellow stucco, occupied by the Reardon Law Firm. Attorney Robert I. Reardon said he bought the building with his former partner, Michael Shapiro, in 1978 and bought out Shapiro upon his retirement. The Tudor-revival-style building was designed in 1904 by architects Donnelly & Hazeltine and served as the home and office for physician Leander K. Shipman, according to Reardon. The copper gargoyles on the four corners of the building were meant to protect against evil spirits, he said.

Reardon said the firm is fortunate to have all of the original architectural drawings for the house and took care to replicate design features, including the mahogany spindles and cabinets in the butler's pantry, when adding on to the building in 1995.

Like other lawyers who work in unique offices, Reardon said he would "go crazy" if he had to work in a more traditional office building.

k.florin@theday.com

Twitter: @KFLORIN