Helping clients ‘sleep at night’ drives estate attorney

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

Nov. 8, 2012

There are only seven attorneys in Memphis certified with the state of Tennessee as specialists in estate planning.

Five of them work for the firm of Wyatt Tarrant & Combs LLP, and Mike Adams is one of those lawyers.

To be certified, an attorney must have passed a test and been peer reviewed while 80 percent of his continuing legal education must be in the area of estate planning. It’s training and a distinction that is important to Adams, a 1997 graduate of the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, and which compelled him to further his studies.

“Right after law school I decided I wanted to really focus on, and specialize in, estate planning, so I went to one more year of law school down at the University of Miami,” the only law school in the country at the time offering a Master of Laws in the subject, Adams said.

It was a personal experience that ignited his interest in this area of law. His grandfather died just before Adams began law school and he was able to help his grandmother through a lot of the transition … (read more)