Shur Law

Focus and practice areas

Shur Law works across two areas that most people meet at difficult moments: family matters and money matters. On the family side, the website lists divorce, dissolution, collaborative divorce and child custody. On the financial and planning side, it lists estate planning, trusts, estate administration, bankruptcy and contracts.

That pairing makes practical sense. A divorce raises questions about who owns what, and both of those questions outlive the case. An estate plan drafted before a marriage ends usually needs redrafting after it. A firm that handles both can keep the same file open across the transition.

The firm also identifies itself as a debt relief agency that helps people file for bankruptcy under the Bankruptcy Code. That is a required disclosure under federal law for firms doing consumer bankruptcy work, and its presence on the site tells a reader the bankruptcy practice is a real one rather than a listed keyword.

What the family law list signals

Ohio recognizes two routes to ending a marriage. Divorce is the contested route, filed by one spouse, decided by a judge on grounds. Dissolution is the agreed route: both spouses sign a separation agreement covering property, support and any children before anything reaches the court, then appear together for a hearing.

Shur Law lists both, and lists collaborative divorce separately. Collaborative practice is a distinct process with its own participation agreement, where each spouse has counsel and the attorneys withdraw if the case goes to litigation. Naming all three tells a prospective client the firm can take a matter through whichever track the couple can actually sustain.

Child custody in Ohio runs on allocation of parental rights and responsibilities. Courts weigh the child's relationship with each parent, adjustment to home and school, and the willingness of each parent to honor parenting time. Cases often involve a guardian ad litem appointed to report to the court. In my opinion, a firm that lists custody alongside both divorce tracks is set up for the version of these cases that stretch over years rather than months.

How the team is built

The attorneys page names nine: Lauren Ashley, Jeffrey Casazza, Susanne Christ, Heather Dyer, Marisa Dyson, D'Erra Jackson Wells, Sarah Oberer, Krishna Patel and Tonya VanBenschoten. Each carries the title Attorney. For a firm covering the practice areas listed, nine names give room to assign matters by subject.

The site publishes licensing state by state. Ashley, Dyer, Dyson, Oberer and Patel are licensed in Ohio. Christ and VanBenschoten are licensed in Ohio and Kentucky. Casazza is licensed in Kentucky, Ohio and New Jersey.

That level of disclosure deserves a note. Plenty of firm websites list attorney names and leave bar admissions to a reader's assumption. Publishing which state each lawyer can appear in lets someone confirm, before the first call, that the firm has a lawyer admitted where their case will be heard.

Why the Kentucky admissions matter here

Cincinnati sits on the Ohio River, and the state line runs through the middle of the metropolitan area. A family living in northern Kentucky and working in Ohio is ordinary there. So is a marriage where the spouses separate across the river, or an estate where the deceased owned property on both sides.

Jurisdiction in family cases follows residency, and probate follows where the decedent lived and where the property sits. Both can put a single household's legal problems in two different court systems. Christ, VanBenschoten and Casazza hold admissions in both states, which means the firm can keep a cross-river matter with the same lawyer rather than referring half of it out.

Where the firm operates

Shur Law states that it has offices in Kentucky and Ohio and that it is structured under Ohio law. Beyond the Cincinnati area and northern Kentucky, the site identifies Beachwood and Akron, and it publishes separate phone lines for Cincinnati, for Cleveland and Akron, and for northern Kentucky.

Beachwood is a Cleveland suburb, and Akron is roughly forty miles south of it. Those two points plus Cincinnati put the firm at both ends of Ohio, about 250 miles apart, with the Kentucky presence extending it south. Running separate contact numbers per region is a small operational detail, and it suggests the regional offices take their own calls.

What the record shows

Reviewing this firm against what its own website publishes, the strongest evidence is the attorney roster paired with the licensing notice. Nine named lawyers with stated bar admissions is verifiable information. A reader can check any of those names against the Ohio, Kentucky or New Jersey bar records and confirm what the site says.

The website does not publish individual attorney biographies, law schools or admission years, and it does not state a founding year. As a reviewer, the honest read is that the site is built to route an inquiry to the right lawyer quickly, with detail about each attorney's background left for the conversation itself.

Shur Law publishes Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles in its structured site data. That gives a prospective client another route to check the firm's current activity and staffing.

Reading this listing as a prospective client

Someone weighing a call here has enough on the public record to do useful homework. They can confirm a specific attorney's admission status. They can match their own county to one of the three published phone regions. They can see whether their matter falls inside the listed subject areas.

What the site leaves for the first conversation is which of the nine attorneys would take the file, and what experience that person brings to the particular question. Those are fair questions to ask directly, and in a firm this size the answer will vary by lawyer.

For anyone whose situation touches both family law and estate or debt questions, the combination on offer here is worth noting. A divorce that involves a trust, or a separation where one spouse is heading toward bankruptcy, needs someone who can see both halves. Shur Law lists all of those areas under one roof, staffed by nine attorneys licensed across Ohio, Kentucky and New Jersey.