Illinois Estate Law Firm

Focus and practice areas

Illinois Estate Law works at the intersection of two areas that often arrive together: what happens to property during life, and what happens to it afterward. The firm handles estate planning, trust administration, probate, guardianship and real estate.

Estate planning work covers wills, revocable living trusts, powers of attorney for healthcare and for property, healthcare directives and HIPAA authorizations. That set of documents is the standard package Illinois families use to keep decisions in the hands of people they picked.

Real estate work is narrower: deed transfers and residential closings. Both connect back to the planning side. A deed transfer is often the mechanism that moves a house into a trust, and a closing is frequently the last step in settling an estate.

How probate work is handled

The firm's probate services include estate administration, intestate estates and cases picked up mid-probate. Taking over a file partway through is worth noting, since executors sometimes change counsel after a matter has already been opened with the court.

The listed tasks are the operational ones. Court filings, creditor notification and publication, opening estate bank accounts, obtaining EINs and filing final tax returns where required.

For general context, probate in Illinois runs through the circuit court in the county where the decedent lived. An executor or administrator gets letters of office, notifies known creditors and publishes notice to unknown ones, inventories the assets, pays valid claims and taxes, then distributes what remains. The creditor claim period sets much of the timeline. Small estates below a statutory threshold can often be settled with an affidavit and no court supervision at all.

Fee structure

Illinois Estate Law prices standard matters as flat fees, including uncontested probate and uncontested guardianship. Contested matters, will contests, contested probate and contested guardianship, are billed hourly against a retainer.

The services page sets out probate tiers by estate size, with a small estate tier under $150,000 and a standard probate tier covering $150,000 to $2,000,000. In my opinion, publishing tiers tied to estate value is the useful part here. A family can look at the numbers and work out roughly which bracket they fall into before they ever pick up the phone.

Guardianship and the compliance tail

The firm handles guardianship of the person and guardianship of the estate, for both adults and minors. It also does annual guardian compliance reporting.

That second item deserves a word. Guardianship is not a single hearing. Once a court appoints a guardian, that guardian owes the court ongoing reports: accountings of estate funds for a guardian of the estate, and reports on the ward's condition for a guardian of the person. Illinois courts expect these annually, and a guardian who misses them can be called in to explain. A firm that lists compliance reporting as a service is describing the part of the job that lasts for years.

How the team is built

The about page names three attorneys. Mary Liberty is Founding Attorney and Owner. Yassmin Koudmani and Victoria Lozano are both Senior Attorneys, and the site notes that Koudmani is fluent in Arabic.

Arabic capacity matters more in this practice area than it might elsewhere. Estate planning conversations touch on family structure, money and death, and clients tend to be more precise in the language they think in. Chicago has a large Arabic-speaking population, so the note is a practical one.

Three staff members are also named: Brittany Hardy as Lead Paralegal, Jessica Sallows as Paralegal, and Maggie Patterson in an intake role. The ratio is roughly one support person per attorney. For probate and guardianship, where the work is heavy on filings, notices and annual reports, that staffing shape makes sense. Paralegals carry a lot of the document flow in estate matters.

As a reviewer, I'd note that the site names every person on the team rather than presenting a faceless roster.Naming an intake coordinator is a small signal, and it suggests the first call goes to someone whose job is to take it properly.

Reach and how the firm operates

Illinois Estate Law is based in Chicago and states that it serves all 102 Illinois counties. The firm works virtually, with in-person meetings available to current clients.

Statewide reach is a real claim in probate work, because venue follows the decedent's county of residence. A Chicago family with a parent who retired downstate can end up in a courthouse hours away. A firm that files in any Illinois county removes the search for separate local counsel.

The virtual model fits the document-heavy nature of this practice. Trust funding, deed preparation and probate filings move through paperwork and e-filing more than through hearings. Illinois circuit courts have accepted electronic filing in civil matters for years, and many routine probate appearances happen remotely.

The firm's attorneys are licensed in Illinois, and the site indicates ISBA membership. The site does not list a founding year.

What the record shows

The strongest evidence on this firm's website is structural. Named people, defined practice areas, a stated fee model and published price tiers by estate size.

Those four things are checkable. A prospective client can read the team page and know who might handle the file, read the services page and see which probate tier applies, and understand before the first meeting whether a matter will be flat fee or hourly.

What the site does not carry is case history, reported outcomes or attorney biographies with law schools and admission years. Mary Liberty and Victoria Lozano are named with titles and no further detail. For a directory built on verification, that limits how much can be confirmed about background and experience.

In my opinion, the fee transparency is the most useful feature of this listing. Probate costs are a common source of anxiety for families who are already dealing with a death, and a firm that posts brackets tied to estate value is answering the question most people are too uncomfortable to ask first. The Arabic language capacity and the statewide filing reach are the two other concrete points a prospective client can act on. Office coverage runs Monday through Friday during standard business hours, Central time.