A law firm that opened an office in Wilmington more than a decade ago has expanded to Southport.

Hutchens Law Firm, established 37 years ago in Fayetteville by managing partner H. Terry Hutchens, recently celebrated the opening of its Southport location in Suite 5 at 4911 Old Long Beach Road SE, which is the Southport office of Wilmington-based residential real estate firm Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage.

Staffing the new location for Hutchens Law Firm are Wendy Hughes (pictured at left), real estate attorney, and Sharon Lee, real estate loan closing processor.

“We were just looking at the need and the growth in the area and just happened to have a great opportunity in working with Tim Milam [president of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage] . . . to place an office inside their building,” said Chris Huff (pictured below), managing partner of the Wilmington location of Hutchens Law Firm at 7029 Wrightsville Ave. “It seemed like everything came together perfectly to try to meet the expanding need of Brunswick County.”

Real estate legal services offered by the firm include electronic closings (e-closings), hybrid e-closings and e-recording transactions, which means closings that can be recorded quickly without having to travel in person to the Brunswick County Courthouse and other locations to finalize paperwork, according to a news release from the Southport-Oak Island Area Chamber of Commerce.

Home sales in Brunswick County have been booming this year. The third quarter finished strong, according to a news release in October from the Brunswick County Association of Realtors. The number of homes sold outpaced 2016 by 27 percent and total dollar sales were up by 36 percent over last year, the BCAR statistics showed.