LEGAL NEWS PHOTOS BY CYNTHIA PRICE
by Cynthia Price
Legal News
When principals Connie Thacker and Allison Sleight were looking to add an in-depth estate planning practice to the relatively new firm of Thacker Sleight, they sought someone whose expertise and dedication was aligned with their own above-and-beyond ethic.
In James L. “Jamie” Moore, they found what they were seeking.
Moreover, Moore will be mentoring and sharing his expertise with another new attorney: Mary Hilger joined the firm just last week.
Moore, who received his B.A. in English Literature from Michigan State University and his J.D. from Thomas M. Cooley Law School (now Western Michigan University-Cooley Law School), has over thirty years of experience exclusively in estate planning – “the old term,” he says, preferring “wealth protection planning.”
He appears to regard the field as more of a calling than as mere employment. Moore not only speaks widely to professional groups and holds workshops for individuals, but also has
written a book.
Family Wealth Protection Planning draws on his years of experience as well as his thoughts of those of colleagues in the National Network of Estate Planning Attorneys. His philosophy on the matter could be summed up by the epigraph to his first chapter, a quote from Seneca: “When a man does not know what harbor he is heading for, no wind is the right wind.”
The book, which is available through Amazon, shares Moore’s passion for finding out exactly what a person wants, which he considers essential and which he says takes a lot of work. From there, he maintains, he can teach individuals what they need to know to reach their vision, but without that soul-searching, leaving matters to chance often causes unnecessary hardship.
At Thacker Sleight, Moore says, the estate planning practice will have “two oars in the water:” first, counseling individuals and families on wealth protection and other critical decisions, and second, helping business owners with exit planning to ensure the future of their companies.
In relation to the former, Moore is a Senior Contributing Fellow with the National Network of Estate Planning Attorneys, a group of about 900 lawyers in the field. He also has an Advanced Estate and Business Success Planning designation from that firm, and is a Business Enterprise Institute Certified Exit Planning Professional.
“Of course, we’ll do succession planning,” he says, “but that’s pretty basic, and we want to help the business owner capture all that has been put into the business. So we help them create a step-by-step plan, which only about 3% of business owners have,’ Moore says.
Moore was raised in Grand Rapids and went to Wyoming Park High School, where he was an all-state athlete. After a tour of duty in Vietnam as a Marine (which he continued to be for 22 years), he went to law school and then spent some time as a bank trust officer in Traverse City. He then returned home to work in the City of Grand Rapids attorney’s office under Phil Balkema. With a few other stops, his career moved into a solo practice that lasted until he started at Thacker Sleight in July.
The client base offers enough work for more than one person, so Thacker and Sleight reached out to Mary Hilger, who had been working with Alles Law in Ada since her graduation from WMU-Cooley Law School last year. Hilger, who is the daughter of former judge (and current Michigan Veterans Affairs Administrator) James Redford, and the daughter-in-law of Stephen Hilger of Hilger Hammond, clearly knows her way around the law. But she is very excited to deepen her expertise in the estate planning field.
“I loved my time at Alles Law,” she says. “They also do estate planning, including in the elder law area. I learned a lot, but this is a great opportunity to figure out exactly what I want to do in the estate planning field through working with Jamie.”
Both are very excited about Thacker Sleight’s chic and beautiful west-side offices in the Widdicomb Building, where the firm moved at the beginning of the year. “I love this space. It’s so pretty and it seems like a very non-lawyer office,” says Hilger.
“I’m just excited about the renovation and rehabilitation of this whole area,” Moore says, adding, “I used to take the train down to Wurzburg’s when I was younger. Grand Rapids was going down for a while, but now it’s up and up and up.”
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