I have practiced in the areas of estate and business planning, probate and trust administration, related areas of taxation, and corporate and real estate law for over twelve years.

I have been a member of the Florida Bar since 1997 and of the District of Columbia Bar since 1998. I earned my Juris Doctorate from the University of Florida where I received the James G. Pressly, Jr. Book Award in Estates and Trusts in the Spring of 2006 for being first out of one hundred students in that class. I was accepted as a member of the Gainesville Cockrell Inn of Phi Delta Phi, the oldest North American Legal Fraternity (1869). I graduated six months early from law school while raising my five sons.

I earned my Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in finance and banking from the University of North Florida in 1991. I speak and write French fluently (having received a D.E.U.G. in law from the University of Paris II (Law and Economics / Pantheon-Assas). Prior to law school, I worked as a surgical center administrator and as an income tax preparer.

In my twelve years of practice I have worked on estate and business succession plans for individuals with estates valued up to $40,000,000. I have prepared a wide variety of estate planning documents including complex wills and trusts with credit shelter “family”, marital, disclaimer, special needs, incentive, and generation-skipping transfer tax provisions, irrevocable life insurance trusts, charitable trusts, personal residence trusts, prenuptial agreements, and qualified Medicaid income trusts. I have represented personal representatives in the administration of probates, and have advised corporate and individual trustees and trust beneficiaries about trust funding and trust administrative matters. I have prepared estate tax returns, gift tax returns, fiduciary income tax returns, individual income tax returns, and charitable foundations tax returns.

I have also drafted a wide variety of business transactions documents and residential and commercial real estate documents including purchase and sale agreements, loan and closing documents, entities formations documents, and shareholders agreements for entities and transactions worth up to $25,000,000. I have worked as both a residential and commercial real estate attorney, and handled closings, title insurance and related due diligence matters, and preparation of residential and commercial leases.

I have served on the Professional Advisors Council of the Community Foundation of Jacksonville, Inc. since 2000 (www.jaxcf.org), and on the Small Business Resource Network at the University of North Florida since 2005 (www.sbrn.org) where I am also a board member. I am a Board member of the Coggin College of Business Alumni Chapter Board at the University of North Florida. I was a member of the Estate Planning Council of Northeast Florida from 1999 to 2009 (www.nefepc.org).