Family Law

• Divorce
• Guardianship
  Issues of aging include senior housing and home care, long-term (or nursing home) care, guardianships and health care documents, Medicare and Medicaid. Learn More

Criminal Law

• Criminal Defense
  Sydney Meeks Fowler recently returned to the practice of law following two years as a Judicial Law Clerk at the Charleston County Probate Court. Earlier in her career, she practiced family and criminal law. Her current areas of focus are Probate Administration, Estate Planning, and Guardianships and Conservatorships.

Health Law

• Personal Injury
  Shelly has also worked extensively with clients who have disabilities or have children with disabilities. She knows how critically important maintaining public benefits (Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income [SSI]), are for the person and his or her family. She has extensive knowledge and experience in making sure her clients’ eligibility is not jeopardized as a result of an inheritance from a parent or spouse or from a personal injury settlement. She helps the person with disabilities have the highest quality of life possible and his or her parents and family to develop plans to make sure the person with disabilities is taken care of in the event the parent or caregiver becomes unable to care for the person with disabilities. This is often achieved through the use of Special Needs Trusts.
• Medicaid Planning
  We charge flat fees for estate planning and Medicaid planning clients. Before you hire us, you’ll know exactly what the legal fees will be. Once agreed upon, the fee will never change. You don’t have to worry about surprises at the end.

Trusts and Estates

• Estate Planning
  Special Needs Estate Planning focuses on providing for the special needs of our loved ones with disabilities when we are no longer there to organize and advocate on their behalf. Parents of children with special needs must make careful estate planning choices to coordinate all of the legal, financial, and special care needs of their children – both now and in the future.
• Wills
  Your last will and testament is just one part of a comprehensive estate plan. If a person dies without a Will they are said to have died "intestate" and state laws will determine how and to whom the person's assets will be distributed. Some things you should know about wills...
• Trusts
  Depending on the situation, there may be many advantages to establishing a trust, including avoiding probate court. In most cases, assets owned in a revocable living trust will pass to the trust beneficiaries (or heirs) immediately upon the death of the trust-maker(s) with no probate required. Certain trusts also may result in tax advantages both for the trust-maker and the beneficiary. Or they may be used to protect property from creditors, or simply to provide for someone else to manage and invest property for the trust-maker(s) and the named beneficiaries. If well drafted, another advantage of trusts is their continuing effectiveness even if the trust-maker dies or becomes incapacitated.
• Power of Attorney
  Sometimes called an Advance Medical Directive, a living will allows you to state your wishes in advance regarding what types of medical life support measures you prefer to have, or have withheld/withdrawn if you are in a terminal condition (without reasonable hope of recovery) and cannot express your wishes yourself. Oftentimes a living will is executed along with a Durable Power of Attorney for Health care, which gives someone legal authority to make your health care decisions when you are unable to do so yourself.
• Probate

Finance Law

• Tax Law
  Trusts come in many "flavors," they can be simple or complex, and serve a variety of legal, personal, investment or tax planning purposes. At the most basic level, a trust is a legal entity with at least three parties involved: the trust-maker, the trustee (trust manager), and the trust beneficiary. Oftentimes, all three parties are represented by one person or a married couple. In the case of a revocable living trust, for example, a person may create a trust (the trust-maker) and name themselves the current trustees (trust managers) who manage the trust assets for their own benefit (trust beneficiary).