Justin Richard Ervin III

My partner and I worked with Justin to get our estate plans organized- we have unusual circumstances that made this both complicated and sensitive, and we are also a gay couple in North Carolina, which makes navigating an estate and health care planning critical. I went into this both stressed and w...orried, and with a lot more questions than answers. Justin was up to the challenge of getting us on track. He is very personable, listens very well, gave very active feedback and clearly fully understood our complications and concerns, and then he turned that into a very impressive estate plan that addresses every issue thoroughly. He gave us a lot of guidance about how to deal with North Carolina’s laws, and explained in detail what the actual challenges were for us in this state, and how to allow for the fact that we can’t be married here and have to plan care for one another around those restrictions. I did expect a competent professional, and Justin certainly met that expectation easily; however, he went well beyond that. He was friendly, very engaging and responsive, clearly well-versed in how to handle our multiple trusts and backup plans that included several generations, and steered us clear of what we had initially thought would be good ideas with sensitivity and thorough explanations. I’ve dreaded getting the estate planning done because I expected it to be a nightmare- with Justin, it was anything but. I just didn’t anticipate that he would understand our goals and be able to discuss how to attain them within minutes during the first consultation, and he gave us lots of options for the variables, with clear pros and cons to consider. Better still, he did this in plain English. What could have been a very stressful and tedious task became quite interesting and engaging, and we remained very active in all of the decisions. I’m a harsh critic, I have high expectations, I know my mind and I don’t go into anything blind; That means that I can be a challenge to work with if I feel like I’m not being heard or that my ideas aren’t being given their due. Justin worked with that superbly, and the estate plans that we chose give me great confidence that we’ve allowed for everything that we should. We aren’t wealthy, but we have some circumstances that people with substantial assets have to cope with, and Justin knew how to deal with both our asset level and our complications. Immediately after completing our estate plans, I recommended him to a close friend whom I’ve known for decades, and who also had unusual circumstances; he told me that he got the same competence and confidence. A word on rates- attorneys aren’t cheap, nor should they be if you want excellent work. However, I found Justin’s rates to be very fair, on the low end of what I expected, and he kept me informed throughout the process how much time our work was taking so that we knew what we were spending. I’ve found it difficult to get anything resembling that from car mechanics and contractors, so I found that particularly impressive. We did go over budget from our original estimate, but with full knowledge and understanding and as a direct result of changes that we made to put some additional variables into our trusts. I am confident that the final bill was very reasonable, that it was money well spent, and that Justin earned more than we paid. The relief that I had from getting this done (and done well) was priceless.