Personal Injury Attorney Shane Smith's Practice Now Includes Wealth Protection For Doctors And Small Business Owners

PEACHTREE CITY, Ga., July 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Founding Attorney of The Law Offices of Shane Smith, Shane Smith is known throughout the region around his home base of Peachtree City, Georgia for his stellar work as a personal injury attorney over the past ten years.

But if Smith's vision of how he wants the firm to expand is fulfilled, within five years, over half of their clientele will be those seeking Smith's expertise in estate planning and wealth protection for doctors and other small business owners. The firm's new array of services includes asset protection, tax planning and reworking business structures.

The heading on www.wealthprotectionfordoctors.com, a dedicated new website started by Smith's firm, captures the essence of this new element that is becoming an important part of the practice: "You've Earned It – You Deserve to Keep It."

In the services overview presentation on this landing page, Smith points out some crucial truths: 1) Whether you've just started building your practice or you're about to retire, wealth protection planning is critically important; 2) Every business owner should have a wealth protection plan in place the moment they start building their legacy – including doctors and dentists; 3) Because of the strict federal and state laws for these types of professionals, lack of planning could have far more devastating consequences on the value of a practice than on the typical business owner.

The goal of the Law Offices of Shane Smith – whose current staff includes four other lawyers and over 20 staff members – is help ensure that the value of an existing practice or business is passed on to loved one of the doctor, dentist or proprietor. 

A former member of the U.S. Army JAG (Judge Advocate General) Corps practicing criminal defense law throughout the military for four years throughout the Southeast, he launched his career as a civilian attorney at the renowned Atlanta firm of Montlick & Associates. During his time there, he handled over 500 cases, ranging from minor injuries to a serious tractor trailer collision.

Since launching his own quickly growing firm, Smith – a graduate of the University of Georgia and Georgia State's College of Law - and his team have served hundreds of clients in the Metro Atlanta area with cases involving car wrecks, car accidents, personal injury, slips and falls and back and neck injuries. He has particularly enjoyed the opportunity to help clients who have been struck by drunk drivers receive the compensation they deserve; they have also been a regional sponsor of MADD.

The Law Offices of Shane Smith is very much a family run organization, with Smith's wife Holly, a nurse by training, supervising the firm's accounting, bookkeeping and customer service and his mother in law Shirley making that key first contact with potential clients.

Smith oversees the Estate Planning and Wealth Management and explains the big picture of his services to clients, but he has assembled a powerhouse team with other firms to make sure all of his clients' needs are met with a balanced approach. Having experienced that awkward nether region of being a financial client caught between advisors suggesting different things, he makes sure that the solutions his team crafts balance everything and don't offer conflicting advice. 

The first step is to analyze the client's real estate holdings and how they are owned, then evaluate the amount of revenue and profit that goes through their practice or business, which tells Smith and his team the scope of the practice. They then look at various corporate structures to see what would be most beneficial, and create an operating agreement for those. At that point, they work on estate planning for the client's family.  Next comes the implementation of the operating agreement and the business structure.

While the wealth protection planning aspects of The Law Offices of Shane Smith has only existed less than a year, Smith is excited by its rapid growth and future potential. "It's a funny area of the law, because instead of helping people who have been in serious work or auto accidents, we're helping those small practice and business owners who are driving our economy," he says.

Read more at http://www.shanesmithlaw.com/blog/wealth-protection-for-doctors-and-small-business-owners.cfm

SOURCE The Law Offices of Shane Smith