Rodney James Hatley

"A seven-year probate?! Are you freaking kidding me?”

That’s how I made the transition from being a Navy JAG, representing the accused at courts-martial (as in the movie "A Few Good Men"), to focusing on estate planning.

My father had been ill with leukemia before he passed. He had a complicated estate and was unable to do anything other than a simple will. Unfortunately, wills go through probate. As a result, my sister and I endured a multi-year court procedure. I resolved to do something positive with that experience and became an estate planning attorney.

After I came off active duty, I pursued a tax law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law. After graduating, I transitioned into private practice.

At Hatley Law Group, A P.C., we view estate planning through the lens of asset protection. We partner with our clients to protect everyone they love and everything they own. In addition to foundational estate planning, the planning we do for our clients may include advanced strategies to eliminate, or greatly mitigate, estate, generation-skipping transfer (GST), and gift taxes as well as domestic or offshore asset protection trusts, depending on their needs and goals.

Our clients include:

✔ Licensed professionals (accountants, attorneys, dentists, doctors);
✔ Professional athletes;
✔ Highly compensated business executives;
✔ Business owners;
✔ Real estate investors; and
✔ Serial entrepreneurs.

Here are some other benefits that clients realize by working with us:

✔ They maintain privacy over their affairs;
✔ They ensure that the lifestyle they've earned is maintained;
✔ They have certainty that they will keep the government out of their lives (no conservatorship if they become incapacitated and no probate when they pass);
✔ Their loved ones and assets are protected from "creditors and predators" (i.e., lawsuits and divorcing spouses); and
✔ Much more.

If you want to protect everyone you love and everything you own, then let’s talk. We can explore whether our services will be right for what you want to accomplish. If it is not a good fit, then we will part as friends. However, if it is a good fit, then we can do wonders together to protect your loved ones and hard-earned assets.

To learn more and see if we’re a good fit to work together, please either call or email me to schedule a free 15-minute phone or Zoom breakthrough call.