Intellectual Capital

General Electric may be the highest-profile company to announce plans to move out of high-tax Connecticut, but the exodus has already started from the Northeast.

Consider Charles Grimes, one of the foremost intellectual property attorneys in the nation. With clients such as actress Jessica Simpson, country music superstar LeeAnn Rimes and billionaire industrialist Ronald Perelman, Grimes moved his law firm's headquarters to Bonita Springs from Connecticut in January.

His neighbor in a Bonita Springs office park is a familiar one to him: footwear giant Camuto Group, a Jessica Simpson licensee that also recently moved operations from Connecticut. “A lot of Connecticut firms are opening up here,” Grimes says.