About The Firm

In 1980, we established our law firm based upon core beliefs and principles which we have adhered to as our legal practice has grown. The core of our beliefs and principles is simple. We provide legal services to a broad cross section of ordinary, everyday people focusing on the areas of law most people would regularly encounter over a lifetime.

We have endeavored to follow the wise counsel of attorneys who have come before us as we practice law, and there are several key parts of this advice.

  • We always act in the best interest of the client.  If an attorney acts mostly or always in his or her own best interests, their clients will quickly perceive it and seek better counsel.
  • We endeavor to represent clients in a pragmatic and cost-effective manner, performing essential tasks but avoiding “fluff.” We recognize that litigation is extremely expensive and only rarely completely successful, so we decided that a key goal for us would be, to the fullest extent possible, to keep clients from getting into situations where litigation becomes unavoidable. We only accept litigation matters related to the areas of law we regularly deal with, and even in those situations, we very carefully evaluate the cases and clients we will undertake.
  • We are attorneys and counselors at law who remain independent.  We do not go into partnership with our clients and instead charge them a reasonable fee for our services. Our goal is for no single client to represent more than 5% of our total practice as we do not want to have a single client upon whom we would become financially dependent thereby potentially clouding our judgment.

Over these past forty-plus years, we have been very blessed. We have an excellent staff and wonderful clients. While we maintain a general civil practice, our primary practice areas are real estate; estate planning with emphasis on non-probate estate planning; trust and probate administration; business and commercial law including farming. All of the attorneys in our firm are experienced in these areas of law and, collectively, our three attorneys have over 100 years of experience.

Real Estate

We have extensive experience in essentially all aspects of real estate law.

We represent buyers and sellers, and we handle residential, commercial, and farming real estate transactions. We are experienced in the areas of:

  1. real estate purchase contracts;
  2. land use planning, zoning, and annexation;
  3. residential, commercial, and farming leases; and
  4. 1031 IRC exchanges.
  5. David Shade has been a licensed title insurance agent since 1978.

Estate Planning, Probate, Wills, Trusts

We are experienced in all areas of estate planning and in handling a person’s affairs after their death, whether that is a probate estate, a trust administration, or non-probate administration. We are committed to preparing an estate plan that is effective in carrying out a person’s wishes, whether that be as a non-probate estate, a simple will or trust, or a more complex will or trust. We also prepare powers of attorney and advance directives such as health care powers of attorney and living wills. The Ohio State Bar Association has many helpful resources for you to review as you make your estate planning decisions.

Business and Commercial

We are experienced in the areas of business and commercial law and have assisted many clients with the startup of a new business and with the sale or purchase of a business or business assets. We are familiar with all forms of privately owned Ohio business entities commonly utilized in the business community and can assist clients in selecting and forming entities. Our clients represent a broad cross section of businesses including retail and wholesale businesses, for profit and not-for-profit enterprises and family farming businesses.