Estate Planning
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Decades of experience serving Ohio families
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Trusted by over 6,000 clients and their advisors
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From young families to multi-generational wealth
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Fixed fee pricing with no surprises
Basic Estate Planning
Investment (most situations):
$1,900 for individual plans
$2,500 for married couples
Every comprehensive estate plan includes the essential documents that protect your loved ones: a Last Will and Testament, Durable Power of Attorney, Healthcare Power of Attorney, and Living Will. These documents work together to ensure your wishes are honored, your assets are distributed according to your intentions, and your family has clear guidance during difficult times.
But documents alone don't constitute a plan. Effective estate planning requires thoughtful conversations about guardianship for minor children, the selection of a trustee, strategies for minimizing probate, coordination with existing beneficiary designations, and consideration of how your assets will actually transfer at your death. We guide you through these decisions with clarity and patience, ensuring nothing is overlooked.
The process begins by understanding your family situation and objectives. We then design a plan tailored to your specific circumstances and explain how each component works. Finally, we execute the documents and provide clear instructions for your family. The result is a plan you understand completely—one that protects what matters most while remaining simple and accessible to those who will eventually rely on it.
Investment varies by project
Investment varies by project
Complex Estate Planning
When your situation involves substantial wealth, business ownership, blended families, special needs planning, or sophisticated tax strategies, estate planning requires a deeper level of experience, skill, and customization.
We've seen the consequences of firms that treat complex planning as a series of template solutions—generic irrevocable trusts, convoluted tax schemes, and plans so complicated that families abandon them entirely, or worse, have to deal with their shortcomings for decades, if not generations.
Our process for complex planning begins the same way as basic planning: by listening. What are you trying to accomplish? What concerns keep you awake at night? What does success look like for your family? From that foundation, we design strategies that address your particular situation—whether that involves asset protection planning, charitable giving structures, generation-skipping trusts, special needs trusts, or sophisticated tax minimization techniques.
Throughout the process, we explain your options in clear terms. You shouldn't need a law degree to understand your own estate plan. When we're finished, you'll have confidence in what you've created and clarity about how it works. Your family will inherit a plan they can actually follow, not a puzzle that takes years to unravel.
Asset Protection Planning
Wealth creates exposure. Business owners face liability from operations, employees, and litigation. Real estate investors accumulate equity that becomes a target in lawsuits. High-net-worth families worry about creditors, divorce, and other risks that could erode what took decades to build.
Asset protection planning creates legal structures that shield your wealth from these risks—before problems arise. This isn't about hiding assets or evading legitimate obligations. It's about using established legal entities and strategies to separate vulnerable assets from personal liability, making it substantially more difficult and expensive for creditors to reach what you've protected.
We help clients implement asset protection strategies using LLCs, family limited partnerships, and Ohio Legacy Trusts. Each structure serves a different purpose and offers different levels of protection. Single-member LLCs provide basic liability protection for business and rental property assets. Family limited partnerships add valuation discounts for estate tax purposes while maintaining family control. Ohio Legacy Trusts—a relatively new tool authorized by Ohio law—offer asset protection previously available only through offshore trusts, with properly structured trusts becoming unreachable by future creditors.
The key to effective asset protection is timing and proper implementation. These structures must be established before you have a known creditor or lawsuit, and they must be properly funded, maintained, and operated according to legal formalities. We guide you through entity selection, formation, funding strategies, operating agreements, and ongoing compliance requirements. We coordinate with your tax advisors to ensure the structures accomplish asset protection goals without creating unnecessary tax complications.
Asset protection planning also integrates with your broader estate plan. The same entities that shield assets during your lifetime can facilitate efficient transfer to the next generation, provide management structure for family wealth, and preserve assets for beneficiaries who may face their own creditor risks.
This work is technical and requires careful attention to both Ohio law and federal bankruptcy law. Done properly, asset protection planning provides substantial security for your wealth. Done poorly or too late, it provides false confidence and potential fraudulent transfer liability.
Meet Our Estate Planning Attorney
MATTHEW GIBSON
Matt has practiced law since 2006, and has worked with thousands of clients during that period. He gravitated towards estate planning as soon as he graduated from law school, as he saw the practice area as an opportunity to engage in his two greatest passions—meeting with and getting to know people, and writing. He is not kidding when he says that he thinks about estate planning, and the estate planning process, incessantly, and that he is always looking for ways to improve our services and better help clients. He is fortunate and grateful to have been recognized by his peers as a Top Lawyer through Columbus CEO magazine and as AV-Rated through Martindale-Hubbell.