Estate Planning & Asset Protection

Probate & After-Death Administration

Business Planning

Philanthropic Planning

General Counsel

About GMFD

Special Qualities of Our Firm

... Qualities Which Make Our Clients More Successful
You Will Want to Know the Values of the Attorneys You Engage

1. Our Goal Is for Long-Term Success. We want to create long-lasting dynasty Camelots for our clients, families, businesses, and foundations ‹ making them successful, secure, and harmonious through generations of transitions.
2. Our Focus Is on Structuring and Maintaining Families and Businesses. We structure or restructure families, businesses, foundations, and other legal entities. When we have these in order, we set up maintenance systems to ensure continued quality performance. Throughout this process, we serve as general counsel for families, handling questions and problems as they occur. If legal specialists in other areas of law are needed, we will find them and monitor their performance.
3. Preventive Law Is Our Strategy. Attorneys of our firm founded the Preventive Law Resource Center and originated the legal specialty of Preventive Law. Preventive law is thinking like a champion chess player who plans ahead to win and prevent checkmate. With Preventive Law, we minimize the chances for confiscatory taxes, predator creditors, unnecessary legal and accounting fees, disharmony within families and businesses, probate proceedings, and other financial and emotional disasters.
4. Our Reputation Is Preeminent. In 1995, the Martindale-Hubbell attorney rating service designated our firm as one of four law firms in Arizona to achieve preeminent status in the categories of (1) probate, (2) estate planning law, (3) business law, and (4) general practice law. The ratings are based upon surveys of other attorneys and judges in each community. This status enables us to work well with other attorneys on behalf of our clients. Moreover, this preeminent reputation among our legal colleagues allows us to find specialized attorneys that our clients may need from time to time in legal specialties which we do not handle.
5. We Are Experienced in Our Specialty. Having been in business for 40 years, we have years of experience not only within our expertise in estate, business, and general practice law but also within areas such as complex litigation, divorce, real estate, and other matters. This long-standing, diverse, case history experience allows us to quickly diagnose client situations which may be similar or comparable to previous cases.
6. We Are Skilled Educators. Attorneys of our firm have taught legal courses at the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and Phoenix College. Our attorneys also have taught continuing education courses for attorneys, accountants, financial planners, life insurance professionals, real estate brokers, and scores of public seminars. Our senior attorney is the Chairman of the Faculty of the College of Estate Planning Attorneys and one of its founders. Our attorneys have received specialized education in estate and corporate planning at Harvard University, University of Indiana, Miami University, and New York University. Our attorneys have lectured at national conventions of the Million Dollar Life Insurance Round Table, International Association of Financial Planners, the National Convention of Fee Only Financial Planners, the National Speakers Association, and other nationwide groups. This expertise in education allows us to articulate the legal subjects better with our clients and to provide our clients with educational materials and audiotapes on almost every key legal subject associated with estate and business law.
7. We Are Dedicated to Quality Control. Unlike most legal firms, we assign two attorneys and one staff member to every client matter so we have a three-way proofreading process. We use quality control checklists on almost every process and conduct bi-monthly education meetings involving all of our attorneys and our staff to review any new ideas and to evaluate any problems that we have observed in the practice. These systems allow us to keep our legal documentation state-of-the-art and to warrant that our documents are the best documents that our clients will find anywhere in the legal profession. Our clients benefit from this quality control process by having legal documents which last a long time and cover as many of the detailed necessities as possible.
8. We Are a Driving Force Toward Innovation. Our firm is known within the legal community as one of the innovators. We originated the following concepts: "legal architecture"‹ using schematic drawings to simplify the understanding of complex estate and business structures; "legal surgery"‹the concept of keeping track of the "action items" as doctors keep track of instruments and sponges; "checkpoints"‹ the system of constantly identifying landmarks in an attorney/client relationship where there are definite status follow-ups on all matters; and "team consensus planning"‹ the process of brainstorming with clients and their entire financial planning team so they work together like a well-trained basketball team.