Stephen Lee Carpenter

I help families and businesses protect their assets to pass a legacy to the next generation.

I am active in my church and community and I enjoy snorkeling, hiking, reading and window shopping.

STEPHEN L. CARPENTER is an attorney in Knoxville, Tennessee, where his practice is concentrated in the areas of Wills, Trusts, Probate, Tax Law and Small Business transactional matters.  Mr. Carpenter studied Business Management and Accounting at Asbury College (earning the Bachelor of Arts degree in liberal arts, cum laude) and then continued his studies at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law of the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where he earned both the Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in Taxation and the Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) degree.  Stephen is licensed to practice law in Virginia and Tennessee – and he is the managing member of the law firm he founded in 1989, now known as Carpenter & Lewis PLLC, which is a very different type of law firm because its attorneys take a more client-oriented approach to practicing law.

Over the years, Stephen has helped thousands of individuals and families by drafting wills and trusts to transfer wealth to the next generation – while effectively minimizing taxes and implementing values-based estate plans.  Stephen is equally adept at assisting families after the death of a loved one, as they walk through the legal process of estate and trust administration.  Stephen also regularly works with small businesses and nonprofit organizations to help those entities with tax compliance and asset protection planning.

Mr. Carpenter has extensive experience and capability in: (a) counseling affluent clients regarding their personal estate and business planning; (b) drafting wills, trust instruments, durable powers of attorney, pre-nuptial agreements and other estate planning documents; (c) pre-and post-death tax planning for individuals, trusts and estates; (d) preparing and filing estate tax returns, gift tax returns and fiduciary income tax returns; (e) representing individual and corporate fiduciaries and (f) litigating disputes in the Probate Division and other equity divisions of the Chancery Court.

Stephen has worked on estates involving assets valued at several million dollars and has successfully handled numerous estate tax, income tax, and business tax matters, will and trust construction cases, will contests, modification of trust agreements and various types of court cases involving estates and trusts.  He enjoys aiding forward-thinking clients by properly structuring their assets to reduce the risk of unnecessary loss due to taxation and litigation.