Katz and Baehre

Focus and practice areas

The firm opened in Williamsville, New York in 1992. Partners Jeffrey H. Katz and Mark A. Baehre started it. It works in four connected fields: estate planning, elder law, trust planning, and estate administration. Each one deals with how people arrange and pass on what they own.

These fields sit close together in practice. A person often needs a will, a trust, and a plan for later care within the same stretch of life. The firm has kept to this branch of law since 1992, and its service list runs across the main steps a family meets along the way.

Estate planning sets out what happens to a person's property and care once they can no longer decide for themselves. A plan can name guardians and record a person's medical choices. The firm builds these plans and revises them as a family's situation changes.

Wills and living wills

A will directs who receives a person's property and names an executor to carry out those wishes. A living will answers a separate question: it records what medical care a person wants if they cannot speak for themselves. The firm prepares both documents. In my opinion, it helps to prepare them together, since one visit can cover what happens to property and what happens to care.

Trusts and estate tax planning

A living trust holds assets while a person is alive and passes them on without probate. Trust administration covers the steps a trustee takes once the person who created the trust has died. The firm handles the drafting and the later administration, so the same office that writes a trust can carry it through to the heirs. A trust can also set conditions on when and how heirs receive their share.

Estate tax planning looks at how much of an estate may go to taxes before heirs receive anything. New York runs its own estate tax with its own threshold, on top of the federal rules. Planning early can change how assets are titled and how gifts are timed, and the firm builds this planning into the wider estate work.

Elder law and Medicaid work

Elder law at the firm centers on nursing home planning and Medicaid applications. These matters turn on careful timing and paperwork. In New York, Medicaid coverage for long-term care involves a look-back on past asset transfers and an application filed with the local Department of Social Services.

Nursing home planning usually looks at how a person's assets and income line up with those rules before care begins. The work rewards early attention, since choices made years ahead can shape what a family keeps. A well-timed plan can also protect a healthy spouse who stays at home while the other enters care. The firm folds this planning into the same estate practice, so a will or trust and a Medicaid plan can sit together.

Estate administration and Surrogate's Court

When someone dies, their estate generally passes through Surrogate's Court in the county where they lived. Probate confirms a will and appoints an executor to carry it out. Administration covers estates where there is no will, and the court names someone to manage what remains. The firm handles probate and trust administration, and that work includes Surrogate's Court matters.

An executor's job runs through several steps. They gather the estate's assets, pay valid debts and taxes, and pass what is left to the heirs. Surrogate's Court oversees that process and settles disputes when they come up. The timeline can run months, and longer if the estate is large or contested. The firm guides an executor or an administrator through those filings.

The firm also takes kinship cases. A kinship case comes up when heirs have to prove their family relationship to a person who died without a clear line of succession. These cases run through the same court and often call for records that trace a family tree. The firm gathers and presents that proof to the court. Handling them next to probate keeps related questions with one office.

How the team is built

The site names three attorneys. Jeffrey H. Katz and Mark A. Baehre are the founding partners, and both have carried the practice since 1992. Shawn P. Byrns appears among the attorneys, though the site does not state a title.

The firm says every matter is handled directly by a partner. As a reviewer, I read that as a statement about who signs the work: a partner on each file, at the first meeting and through the paperwork that follows. For estate and elder law questions, where one small document can decide a large outcome, that kind of direct partner attention carries weight.

Where the firm works

The office in Williamsville serves clients across the Buffalo area. The practice areas match what many families in that region need: a will, a trust, a Medicaid plan, or help settling an estate. In my opinion, a firm that keeps to one region and a short list of related fields tends to know the local courts and their rules well. The stated service area covers Buffalo, Williamsville, Amherst, Clarence, and Erie County, New York.

The attorneys and their training

Jeffrey H. Katz studied at SUNY Buffalo Law School. His work reaches beyond estate planning into business law and into stockbroker and investment fraud, though at this firm the cases stay within estate and elder law. That range in business and securities matters can help when an estate holds a company or a brokerage account, since the same lawyer has met both kinds of question before. Mark A. Baehre also studied at the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law, and his practice centers on estate planning. Both partners trained at the same Buffalo law school, and the firm they built stays in the county where they studied.

Shawn P. Byrns came to the firm by a different route. He earned a bachelor's degree from the State University of Fredonia in 2013 and a Juris Doctor from Vermont Law School in 2018. During law school he worked with the Center for Elder Law and Justice in Buffalo, which placed him close to the clients this firm now serves. Before law school he taught English and economics abroad, in Australia and Thailand. That work on elder law lines up with a core part of what the firm handles today. His practice covers estate and trust work along with elder law, and it runs from a single will to succession plans that reach across several generations of one family.

The office and hours

The office is at 8604 Main Street, Suite Two, in Williamsville, at the 14221 ZIP code. It keeps weekday hours and is open Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm. Someone who wants to begin can call the firm at 716-633-3363 or read more at the firm's website, katzandbaehre.com. For estate and elder law questions, where a first meeting often covers private family matters, a fixed office with set hours gives a client a plain place to start.