The Law Office of David S. Schleiffarth, LLC

Focus and practice areas

Estate planning is the core of the work at this Clayton, Missouri office. The firm drafts wills and prepares several kinds of trusts, and it builds each plan around the client sitting in front of it.

The trust work covers a wide span of instruments. The firm names generation-skipping trusts, retirement plan trusts, revocable living trusts, spendthrift trusts, testamentary trusts and Totten trusts among the tools it uses. That is an unusually specific list for a small office to publish, and in my opinion it says something useful about the depth of the drafting practice.

Alongside trusts, the firm prepares financial powers of attorney, health care powers of attorney and advance health care directives. It also handles asset protection arrangements and special needs planning.

Real estate and probate avoidance

The firm prepares transfer deeds and beneficiary deeds. Both are used to move real estate to a named person at death while keeping the property outside probate.

Missouri recognises the beneficiary deed by statute. The owner records the deed during life, keeps full control of the property, and can revoke it at any time before death. The named beneficiary takes nothing until the owner dies, at which point the transfer happens outside the probate court. Getting the recording and the wording right matters, because a defective deed usually surfaces only when the owner can no longer fix it.

Business work for Missouri owners

The firm handles business formation in Missouri. It also does business succession planning and high net worth planning, which puts the commercial side of the practice close to the estate side.

Forming a Missouri entity involves choosing a structure, filing articles with the Secretary of State, and putting an operating agreement or bylaws in place. The filing itself is quick. The governance documents are where the durable decisions live: who can sell, who breaks a deadlock, what happens when an owner dies or wants out.

Succession planning picks up where formation stops. It asks what happens to an owner's interest when the owner retires, becomes incapacitated or dies. Common mechanics include buy-sell agreements funded by life insurance, cross-purchase arrangements between co-owners, and trusts holding shares for the next generation.These plans generally sit alongside the owner's personal estate plan, since a business interest often represents a substantial portion of the estate.

How the team is built

Dave Schleiffarth is the owner and managing attorney. He works with individuals, families and business owners on estate and business planning, which matches the practice areas the firm publishes.

He holds a Juris Doctor from Saint Louis University School of Law. His undergraduate degree is a Bachelor of Science in Sociology from Brigham Young University-Idaho.

Professional and civic roles

His involvement outside the office is documented on the firm's own attorney page. He belongs to the Estate Planning Council of St. Louis and sits on the Missouri Bar Estate Planning Committee.

Locally, he serves on the Crestwood Board of Adjustment and the Crestwood Economic Development Commission. The Board of Adjustment is the body that hears zoning variance and appeal requests in a Missouri municipality, so the seat carries real property-law exposure. As a reviewer, I find this the more interesting entry on the list: bar committee work and a municipal land use seat are both verifiable, and both are the kind of thing an attorney has to keep showing up for.

Where the firm works

The firm runs two Missouri offices, one in Clayton and one in Ballwin. Clayton is the St. Louis County seat and holds the county courthouse; Ballwin sits about twenty miles west, in the county's outer suburbs.

The stated service area is the greater St. Louis region. Both offices keep weekday business hours.

Two locations in the same county is a practical arrangement for a planning practice. Estate planning usually requires clients to appear in person at least twice: once to discuss and once to sign, since Missouri wills need witnesses and most planning documents need a notary. Splitting the drive between central and west county saves clients a trip across the metro.

What the record shows

The firm's own description of its process is straightforward. It builds custom plans and, during consultations, advises clients which legal instruments fit their circumstances.

That approach fits the subject matter. A revocable living trust and a simple will do different jobs, and the choice between them turns on things like whether the client owns property in more than one state, whether there are minor or disabled beneficiaries, and how much the family wants kept out of the public probate file. A spendthrift provision protects a beneficiary from creditors and from their own spending. A generation-skipping trust addresses transfer tax across three generations. These are not interchangeable, and matching them to a household takes a conversation.

Reading the listing

The firm publishes its legal name, The Law Office of David S. Schleiffarth, LLC, on the home and attorneys pages. It operates publicly under the shorter Law Office DSS.

The site names one attorney and describes one field of law. In my opinion that consistency counts for something in a directory built on checkable claims: the practice areas listed in the navigation are the same ones described in the body text, and the attorney biography lines up with both. There is no gap between what the firm advertises and what it says it does.

For a client in St. Louis County who needs a will, a trust, a power of attorney or a Missouri entity formed, the published information is enough to start a conversation. The firm names its attorney, his law school, his bar committee and his municipal appointments, and it lists the specific instruments it drafts.

Clayton address and availability

The Clayton office is listed at 225 S Meramec Ave. The street address gives prospective clients a precise destination within the city and separates the physical office from the firm's broader service area. It is also useful for planning an in-person consultation or document appointment before contacting the office.

The published weekday hours run from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. That schedule provides a clear window for calls and office visits. For this reviewer, stating exact opening and closing times is more useful than a general reference to ordinary business hours, particularly for clients arranging a meeting around work or travel.

Telephone and website details

The listed telephone number is 314-448-0527. The record contains the same number in two formats, with one version shown as (314)-448-0527. Both entries contain the same ten digits, so they refer to a single contact line rather than separate numbers for different matters.

The repeated telephone entry provides a simple internal check on the contact information. A reader does not need to determine whether one number belongs to the Clayton office and another belongs elsewhere. The consistent digits make the intended point of telephone contact clear.

The firm's published website is lawofficedss.com. Its domain uses the same shortened name under which the office presents itself publicly, which makes the connection between the directory entry and the firm's web presence easy to follow. Readers can use the website alongside the listed telephone number when preparing to contact the office.

What the contact record adds

The contact record supplies concrete details that matter at the point when a reader moves from researching the practice to approaching the firm. The street address identifies where the Clayton office is located. The telephone number provides a direct contact route, while the stated 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. window tells readers when the office is open during the week.

These details are narrow, but they are specific. Each can be checked directly against the listing, and each answers a practical question about reaching or visiting the Clayton office.