I am an Oak Park, Illinois-based attorney whose practice is focused on the areas of estate planning (wills and trusts), probate administration (including probate litigation), and residential real estate. I serve as co-chair of the planned giving committee for the Greater Chicago Food Depository. I am also the author of "Family Limited Partnerships and the Investment Company Rules," which appeared in the May/June 2001 edition of Probate & Property, and for which I won that publication’s “2001 Excellence in Writing Award for Best Cutting Edge Article - Probate & Trust.”
Before starting my own law practice, I practiced estate planning and probate law at three different law firms in downtown Chicago: Sidley & Austin (now Sidley Austin Brown & Wood), Sachnoff & Weaver, and Barnes & Thornburg.
I received my J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School (Ann Arbor, Michigan) in 1996, where I also worked as a research assistant for professors Carl Schneider and Takashi Maruta, and taught argumentative writing to undergraduates through U of M’s Pilot Program.
Prior to attending law school, I spent a year working for the Japanese Ministry of Education as a member of the Jet Programme. I taught high school English at two high schools in Nagahama, Japan, a city of approximately 60,000 located in Shiga prefecture.
I obtained my undergraduate degree (a B.A. in English with High Honors) from Michigan State University (East Lansing, Michigan) in 1992, where I was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and MSU’s 1991 Homecoming Court, and president of the university’s chapter of the Circle K International service organization.
I grew up in Marshall, Michigan, and now live in Oak Park with my wife, Ruth (a commercial real estate attorney with the law firm of Jenner & Block), and my daughter, Sophia (born in September of 2001).
