Peggs Wheeler, LC

Focus and practice areas

Two partners run this Wichita, Kansas firm, and their work covers a wide civil practice. Peggs Wheeler, LC opened in 2015. Its lawyers handle civil litigation, and that side of the practice includes complex tort litigation and appellate work. Civil litigation covers disputes over money, contracts and injuries that one party brings against another, and complex tort matters tend to involve several parties or hard questions of cause.

Appellate practice sits apart from a trial. It turns on written briefs and, at times, oral argument before a higher court that reviews the record for legal error. A firm that lists appellate work next to its trial work can carry a case through both stages. In my opinion, that pairing helps a client who wants one team if a verdict heads to appeal. The appellate court reviews what the trial produced and applies the law to it.

Estate planning, probate and family matters

Estate planning at the firm covers wills, trusts, powers of attorney and advance directives. These documents set who inherits, who can act if a person loses capacity, and what medical wishes stay on record. A will directs how property passes at death, while a trust can hold and manage assets during life and after it. Powers of attorney and advance directives name who can act and decide for a person who has lost capacity.

Probate follows when an estate goes before the court for administration, and the firm handles that stage too. Probate confirms the will, settles debts and moves property to the heirs under court supervision. Families often meet a probate lawyer during a hard month, so steady handling counts for a lot at that point.

Family law paths

Family law brings a separate set of matters. The firm takes divorce, child custody and support, and property division. It also handles guardianship, along with mediation and arbitration. In a contested divorce, a court can decide custody, support and the division of marital property when the spouses reach an impasse, and the firm represents a spouse through that process.

Mediation and arbitration give two other paths. Mediation puts a neutral third party between the sides to help settle terms, which can keep a custody or property dispute out of a contested hearing. Arbitration sends the dispute to a private decision-maker whose ruling can bind both sides. Guardianship cases ask a court to name someone to care for a person who needs help managing their own affairs.

Business, property and trademark work

On the business side, the firm helps owners with formation, the step where they pick a structure and file the papers that give a company legal standing. It handles business litigation when commercial disputes reach court. Commercial real estate and trademark matters fill out this part of the practice. Trademark work guards the names and marks a business uses to identify itself, and it can include federal filings and disputes over who may use a mark.

The firm also takes personal injury claims from vehicle accidents and other incidents. These cases rest on proving fault and documenting the harm a client suffered, and many settle before trial. Because the same lawyers litigate civil cases, they can press such a claim in court when a settlement offer stays low.

How the partnership formed

The firm carries the names of its two partners, Jack Peggs and Mindy Ellen Wheeler. Jack Peggs practiced law in Wichita before the firm opened. He formed Peggs Wheeler, LC in 2015 and brought in Mindy Ellen Wheeler, then newly admitted to practice, as a law partner. The firm's own account frames that year as its start.

That start put an established attorney and a newer one under one roof together. The site states that the two have more than 45 years of combined legal experience. As a reviewer, I read a two-partner firm as one where a client tends to work directly with a named principal. The person who first hears a matter is often the person who carries it.

Where the firm works

Wichita is the firm's base, and its stated service area spreads out from there. That area reaches McConnell AFB, Andover, Derby, Greenwich and Kechi, plus Butler County and Sedgwick County. The list keeps the firm's focus regional, centered on the Wichita metro. A firm rooted in one metro tends to know the local courts and the judges who sit in them.

The firm offers a free initial consultation, which gives a prospective client a first meeting to lay out a matter before any commitment. For someone weighing a divorce or an estate plan, that opening step is a way to test fit with the attorney who would take the case. The civil, family and estate work all run through the same two partners named on the door.