The Roadmap

Amanda Pierson was studying for the Bar in 2014—and already had a job lined up as a litigator—when, just before Father’s Day, her 72-year-old dad unexpectedly died in his sleep from heart failure.

Despite the wills and estates class she’d taken in law school, Pierson didn’t know where to begin putting his affairs in order. “We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know who to call,” she says. “All of us deal with estate planning and probate in our lives, and yet it’s one of those areas of law that nobody seems to know a whole lot about.”

To make matters worse, she adds: “We didn’t know where he banked, where he invested. The communication piece was missing. It felt messy. It felt disorganized. We didn’t have a roadmap.”

Pierson eventually untangled her dad’s estate, passed the Bar, and began her career as a defense attorney at BakerHostetler. Two years later she joined Stilwell Trial Law. It was near the end of her five years there, while watching the firm’s estate planning practice in action, that she realized what she truly wanted to be doing.

“I was mad at myself that I had gone down the wrong path. I wanted to get out of that path, and I didn’t know how. Basically, starting at the end of 2021, all I did was immerse myself in estate planning and probate,” she says. “You name it—I signed up and did it.”

In early 2022, Pierson struck out on her own, founding Heights Law Group to focus on estate planning and probate law. She now works with everyone from high net worth clients to blended families. “Most people don’t understand the difference between a will and a trust. They don’t understand what probates are going to require. And some people don’t even understand where the money would go without a will,” she says. “Unlike some areas of law that may or may not impact you, this will impact you. Not only do we all die eventually, but we all lose the ones we love at some point.”

“It felt messy. It felt disorganized. We didn’t have a roadmap.”

As part of her “been there, done that” counsel, Pierson gives each client a roadmap booklet that lays out what their children and/or executors will need to know to manage the estate—including the location of financial accounts, online passwords, and safety deposit boxes. “When you’ve lost somebody, it at least makes the administrative part so much easier and less overwhelming,” she says.

Going that extra mile, plus being willing to talk about her own story, has been a draw for clients who seek Pierson’s services. “A lot of people say that they hired me because they read my biography online,” she says, “and that it resonated with them and they felt comfortable working with somebody who understood how they feel. … I don’t want people to worry about probate, or the legal or administrative details. My job is to make things easy for them, so they can focus on their recovery and their grief and their healing.”

On the aftermath of her dad’s death, as well as her experience crafting her own end-of-life plans as the mother of two little boys, Pierson says: “I don’t force a conversation about it, but if I think it could really help somebody who’s grieving, I’m always happy to share.”

Where There’s a Will

Even experienced lawyers can neglect to make preparations for their families when they pass away. “I have a lot of clients who are attorneys, and they don’t have a plan in place; they have the same questions as everyone else,” Amanda Pierson says. “They’re always like, ‘I can’t believe I don’t know this.’ But the truth of the matter is most people don’t.”