Practice Areas

Our firm provides services in many legal practice areas including the following:

Asset protection can be one of the most significant objectives of estate planning. Through estate planning, our clients can protect their assets in a variety of ways. The following pages help explain how this is possible. Florida residents have individual homestead protections, which protects a person’s primary residence from creditors even if he or she declares bankruptcy. The Jacksonville asset protection attorneys here can protect your vehicle from creditors through a vehicle trust. Many clients don’t realize they are liable if their children, under a certain age, get into auto accidents. We also offer the Florida Land Trust, Florida iPug Trust and Florida Asset Protection Trust, which can help people protect assets from creditors, maintain privacy and can even exempt assets from Medicaid to permit them to qualify for government benefits.

Our firm also works to help our clients start their own business. The business lawyers in our firm can set up a business in a variety of ways that can protect our client’s personal assets, and to avoid costly corporate taxes. In you are interested in starting a small business, we might recommend forming an LLC. The LLC, when formed the correct way in Florida, can protect the client’s personal assets from creditors. Ask us about our LLC Membership trust so you can have a multi-member LLC even if you are single. So if the company were ever to do poorly, the company’s creditors could only attach to the company’s assets and not the individual’s assets like they could if the company was a sole proprietorship. If multiple people wish to start a business together, we can structure the business as a limited partnership. This allows for some partners to act as investors, and others as general partners to manage the day-to-day affairs.

Elder law is an important field of estate planning because it allows for our clients to make a plan for their future. The attorneys here work with our clients to become Medicaid eligible through careful planning. Medicaid is important because it provides long-term health care to those that qualify for the program. Several studies have shown that many people will need some assistance as they become older, which is often in the form of nursing home assistance. The problem is that nursing homes are expensive and can quickly eat through a person’s savings. Further, it’s extremely hard to qualify for Medicaid in Florida even if a person has a modest amount of assets. This state requires a person pass an income test and an asset test. We can help you qualify for Medicaid through documents like iPug trusts and Lady Bird deeds.

Estate planning is a general term that incorporates many legal benefits. Estate planning permits many of our clients to save money on taxes, protect their assets, and to leave a lasting legacy. Estate planning also gives our clients piece of mind, because they know a plan is in place to care for them and their assets no matter what happens. We can create unique wills and trusts that cater to the client’s specific objectives and goals. The estate planning attorneys here focus on revocable trusts, irrevocable trusts, iPug trusts, wills, pour-over wills, advanced directives, and more. Contact us today, and we can ensure your goals are met.

The attorneys in The Law Office of David Goldman PLLC also work with many on establishing guardianships. Guardianship cases are important, especially in estate planning. We often create preneed guardianship documents, which are documents where a person can appoint a guardian to take care of them, and their finances, if they ever become incapacitated. These documents are fantastic not just for our clients but for their families as well, because it prevents the family from arguing over the client’s healthcare decisions. The client can appoint a person they trust will fulfill their wishes, and at the same time prevent years of possible in-fighting among family members. We can also help our clients become guardians of minor children.

Trusts are one of the greatest estate-planning tools at an attorney’s disposal. Trusts permit our clients to protect assets, save money on taxes, and to leave a lasting legacy. However, trusts can also be subject to litigation. A trustee is a person that manages the trust, and he or she owes certain fiduciary duties to the beneficiaries of the trust. If the trustee breaks these duties, then he or she is liable. For instance, a trustee must provide a regular trust accounting to the beneficiaries otherwise the beneficiaries may not realize fraud or a breach of duty has taken place. A trust may also be invalid due to the way it was drafted, or because a beneficiary used undue influence over the trust’s creator.

This firm focuses on creating trusts that cater to the needs of our clients. We often created living trusts for clients that want their estate to avoid the long probate process so that their assets can pass quickly to their loved ones. We create Florida Asset Protection Trusts and Florida Land Trust to allow our clients to protect assets from creditors, maintain privacy and qualify for Medicaid. The attorneys here can create an irrevocable trust to protect the client’s assets even after they pass away. We can also create charitable trusts for clients that wish to leave a charitable legacy. For instance, a charitable lead trust is a great way to provide income to the trust creator’s heirs during his lifetime, and then to provide the trust’s principal to a charity after the creator passes away.

Restoration of Firearms Rights

We focus on filing applications to restore your firearms rights or receive a state pardon. The first step is to review your history and determine your eligibility. If eligible, we can gather the official state court document and file an application to receive a pardon, or restore your firearms rights or both.  We can file either or both for the same fee. Contact us to determine if you are eligible to restore your firearms rights in Florida.