Impacting families for generations to come.
Adam graduated from law school in 1995 and came to work here in Gainesville as a prosecutor in State Court working on DUIs, family violence and traffic matters. After 18 months at State Court, he worked for a brief period with another private law firm in town as he tried to find his way to estate planning. In the fall of 1997, Adam began working at Stewart, Melvin, & Frost as an associate. He worked closely with Woody Stewart who was the premiere estate planning attorney in Northeast Georgia and over the next five years we worked with over 125 wealthy families implementing a variety of plans to reduce the very high estate tax. Even though Adam was working for a fantastic mentor, whom he loved, he felt a large disconnect between what he dreamed of during law school versus the reality of practicing law at a firm.
One of the problems working as an associate at a large firm is how production is measured by the billable hour. It caused problems for him because it was restricting his ability to serve and relate to clients. To his clients, the hourly rate was always looming and so they kept conversations short or they never asked to have them even when they wanted them.
The inefficient grind of the billable hour and dissatisfaction of not serving his clients as well as they deserved, drove Adam to begin his search in the corporate world for a job where he could leverage his law degree. From 2002 to 2015 he worked in the corporate sector in a variety of positions, but that still wasn’t aligned with what he had envisioned being able to do as an attorney. In 2015, Adam found himself wanting to shift paths again, so he went back to what he knew and had been taught so well, estate planning. But, not knowing any other way, Adam went back to the billable hour model. Which brought back all of the old problems presented before. It’s hard to track every hour of your day and is not a satisfying way to practice law.
Adam is a veteran of the US Navy and an experienced estate planning and trust administration attorney. He is a sailing and vintage Volkswagen enthusiast. When he is not serving clients, he spends his time working on his 1970 Karmann Ghia. He has a strong and diverse background including estate planning, business formation, and financial advising. As a member of a blended family, he has dedicated a lot of his time to developing a estate planning tactics to handle the unique challenges of blended family planning.
He graduated from the United State Naval Academy, and after 6 years of service as a Surface Warfare Officer, he earned his J.D. from Mercer University. Adam has been a member of the Georgia Bar since 1995.
All of our Planning Sessions are built into your plan. Together, we will agree to the flat fee appropriate for you in advance of any work so you won’t have any surprises about what something is going to cost you. We want to make sure you’re totally comfortable and knowing that if you call us and talk to anybody on the team, you won’t receive a separate unexpected bill.
We have a whole team of people here to support and take care of our clients both during their life and then after their death. Our goal is to educate clients so they know exactly how their estate plan is working for them. We want to work with their family. Our team is important because we want you to be able to get answers to the questions that you need in a timely manner. You’ll have access to Liz, our Client Services Director, and Vicki, our paralegal with amazing knowledge and years of experience.
We don’t merely create a plan for you once and never look at it again. Yes, we do prepare estate planning documents for you, but the documents are really just one portion of our relationship. We want to build relationships that focus on helping you make the best legal decisions for your family, both now and throughout the future. Most people typically see an attorney to get a will when they have their first child and think they have checked the box for getting the important documents in place. Often, they don't revise their will again for 15-20 years and become empty nesters. Then, in another 15-20 years, as they start to embrace their mortality, they go see an attorney one more time. We don't want that to be the case for you. That's why we look at every plan every three years.
The signing of your plan is only the beginning of a long-term relationship with our firm. We think that’s what makes us different. All of it begins with a Legacy Planning Session. It’s a free meeting for us to learn about who you are and how we can best serve you. You can sign up for one by visiting the contact page on our website. If you have more questions about our process before signing up for a planning session, we encourage you to schedule an introductory call with us.
