Our Process

Estate Law

At Shinehoft Law we understand that planning for yourself and your family can be stressful, and we believe in making the legal process as smooth as possible. We believe our job is to do the heavy lifting and minimize your burden whether planning your estate or dealing with the death of a loved one.

We begin by offering a comprehensive consultation with the goal of not overwhelming you. This is your time to tell us about your unique situation and needs. Are you looking for estate planning? Are you going to be administering someone else’s estate? Are you a beneficiary looking to see that your needs and rights are protected?

During the consultation we will be assessing your circumstances and wishes. Our discussion may focus on what are the best options for you to move forward. We will briefly touch on the complexity of your estate, or the estate of the deceased person you are administering. This is your opportunity to ask all your general questions and get some easy-to-understand-legal information.

The second step is to retain our services and schedule a planning meeting. This will allow us to dive deeper into your specific situation and provide you with a roadmap and/or timeline on next steps. The process, timeline and roadmap will differ, depending on your needs and what stage of your estate matter you come to us.

For Estate Planning, this is where we will gather the necessary information and instructions to prepare your legal documents. We generally charge a flat fee, but the cost can increase depending on the complexity of your estate and number of meetings necessary.

For Estate Administration matters we will discuss your responsibilities and obligations and you can decide, with our input, whether you need our help throughout the process or guidance as needed. We generally charge on an hourly basis that sometimes takes into account complexity and urgency of a matter.

Family Law

At Shinehoft Law, we believe in making the legal process as smooth as possible. We focus on listening to you so that we can then provide you with the information in an easy-to-understand way and by breaking things down into manageable steps.

The first step is to schedule a comprehensive consultation where we listen and discover your unique situation, what issues will likely need to be dealt with, and what would be the best legal approach for you to proceed.

Are you ready to move forward or do you just need legal information? Is your case best suited to using the Collaborative Law Process or should we consider mediation? What are your priorities and main concerns?

Your second step will be to retain our services, at which time we will discuss your overall concerns and get into more details. We work to provide you a general roadmap on what the next steps are and what approximate timelines will look like.

The process, timeline and roadmap will differ, depending on your needs and what stage of your family issue you come to us.

We generally work on an hourly basis that sometimes takes into account complexity and urgency of a matter, and also offer a limited number of flat fee services.