Mary Ann Wehr

Mary Ann Wehr is a compassionate, knowledgeable attorney who truly begins each day with the determination to be better, to serve her clients better, and to do her part to make the world a better place through service to community members. She ends everyday with the satisfaction that she's accomplished what she set out to do and with the knowledge that she has the opportunity to do even more tomorrow.

She spent nearly 15 years as an attorney for General Motors in Detroit, Michigan where she served multiple business units in numerous legal roles. Her favorite role was that of the leading lawyer for global workplace safety. In this role, she was able to positively impact the actual lives of the men and women who came to work each day. She felt considerable pride in the fact that her work had direct impact on reducing workplace injury and even death.

Ironically, her calling to the practice of Estate Planning occurred with the death of her son, who died of a workplace exposure to COVID-19. The weeks and months following his death were made considerably more difficult because he died without an estate plan. This burdened his new bride with a legal proceeding called probate and robbed her of needed opportunity to grieve in peace.

As his mother, Mary Ann experienced the first-hand pain that was placed upon the people who he loved most. This was an outcome that he never would have chosen for his wife, unborn child, or parents. It took six months to probate her son's estate during which time no party contested the proceeding allowing it to remain "on the fast and easy pace". During this time, her son's mortgage needed to be paid to avoid foreclosure of the property while it was in probate. Ironically, banking regulations would not allow the bank to communicate with anyone but the person whose name was on the mortgage, luckily her son was receiving monthly statements in the mail, so the family was able to identify the amount due each month. Even a last will and testament would not have helped this situation. But, sound estate planning, including proper title of assets, would have avoided probate altogether and saved the family thousands of dollars, but even more importantly lessened the stress and worry at this time of deep grief. The family is fortunate that this situation did not create conflict between the people who he loved most, his wife and his parents.

Determined to help other families avoid this scenario, Mary Ann opened her practice with a focus Elder Law, Wills and Trusts for families who don't just want to leave their family a set of documents that may or may not work, but instead want to use the estate planning process to pass on a legacy of love with care and ease. Mary Ann is passionate about designing fitting estate plans that will avoid probate, protect children, and preserve family legacy of your intellectual, spiritual and human assets.