Thomas Taneff Co., LPA

Focus and practice areas

Taneff Law works at the point where family matters meet court files. The firm handles probate, estate administration, wills, trusts and powers of attorney. It also takes guardianship, adoption, custody and surrogacy matters.

That pairing is less common than it looks. Probate and adoption both run through Ohio's probate courts, so a firm built around one is already fluent in the other. Thomas Taneff founded the firm in 1989 in Columbus, and the legal entity is Thomas Taneff Co., LPA.

The probate side goes past paperwork. The firm handles estate and trust litigation: will and trust contests, fiduciary disputes and contested guardianships. Those are adversarial cases with named opposing parties, not administrative filings.

Where the firm works

The firm says it serves clients throughout Ohio. Its probate and estate administration work centres on the Columbus metropolitan area and named surrounding counties. Adoption work covers the whole state.

That split makes practical sense. Probate is tied to the county where the decedent lived, so a lawyer's value rises with familiarity with a particular court's magistrates and local rules. Adoption travels better, since the statutory framework is uniform across Ohio.

How the team is built

The site names two attorneys. Thomas Taneff is the principal, and Emma Saxby is an associate attorney. Both graduated from Capital University Law School.

Taneff has practiced law for more than 30 years. He earned a Bachelor of Science from The Ohio State University, his Juris Doctor from Capital University Law School, and completed a post-graduate program at Harvard Law School. Before private practice he worked as a judicial law clerk and as a Franklin County Probate Court Magistrate.

The magistrate background carries real weight for the work this firm does. A probate magistrate hears guardianship applications, estate disputes and adoption petitions, and writes the decisions a judge then adopts. In my opinion, a lawyer who has sat in that chair reads a contested guardianship file differently from one who has only ever argued to it.

The associate

Emma Saxby joined the firm in October 2023. She studied Business Management and Marketing at the University of Rio Grande before law school at Capital University. She belongs to the Ohio State Bar Association and the Columbus Bar Association.

A two-attorney office means the principal is likely on the file. For probate and adoption clients, that matters. These are matters where the same person tends to handle the intake conversation, the court appearance and the follow-up questions six months later.

What probate and estate work involves

Some general context helps here, and it describes how these matters proceed in Ohio rather than any claim about this firm's results.

Estate administration starts with an application to open the estate in the probate court of the county where the person died. The court appoints a fiduciary, usually the executor named in the will. That fiduciary then inventories assets, notifies creditors, pays valid claims and taxes, and distributes what remains.

Timelines run in months, sometimes longer. Ohio requires an inventory within three months of appointment and a final account after the estate closes. Delays usually come from real property that must be sold, creditor claims that arrive late, or beneficiaries who disagree.

When estates turn contested

A will contest is a separate lawsuit filed against the will's validity. Grounds typically include lack of testamentary capacity, undue influence or improper execution. Ohio sets a short window to bring one, measured from when the will is admitted to probate.

Fiduciary disputes work differently. A beneficiary who believes an executor or trustee has mishandled assets can ask the court to compel an accounting, surcharge the fiduciary or remove them. These cases produce discovery, expert testimony on valuations and, sometimes, trial.

Contested guardianships sit somewhere between the two. The court is deciding whether an adult lacks the capacity to manage their own affairs and, if so, who should decide for them. Medical evidence drives the first question. Family conflict usually drives the second.

Adoption, custody and surrogacy in practice

Ohio adoptions run through probate court. The petition, the consents, the home study and the final hearing all land in the same courthouse that handles estates. A firm doing both keeps one set of court relationships working across two client bases.

Taneff Law handles adoption by carers within the same work. Those cases follow a different path from private placements: the child is already in the petitioner's home, the agency holds permanent custody, and the legal question turns on finalizing a placement that already exists in fact.

Consent is the pressure point in most adoption files. Ohio law requires consent from certain parents unless the court finds it unnecessary, and that finding requires its own evidence and hearing. Getting the consent question right early tends to determine how long the case takes.

Surrogacy and custody

Surrogacy work is contractual before it is judicial. The agreement between intended parents and a gestational carrier gets drafted well ahead of any birth, and the parentage order follows. Ohio has no single overarching surrogacy statute, so the drafting carries the weight.

Custody matters bring their own procedural shape. Courts apply a child's-interests standard with statutory factors, and shared parenting plans have to be workable enough for the court to approve them. Modifications require a change in circumstances since the last order.

What the record shows

The firm's website is straightforward about what it does and who does it. Practice areas are listed with detail on the sub-pages, and both attorneys have biographies with named schools and prior roles. As a reviewer, that level of specificity is what makes a listing verifiable.

What stands out is the coherence. Probate, guardianship, adoption and surrogacy all touch the same court and the same category of client decision: who takes responsibility for a person or an estate. A firm that has organized itself around that question has a reason for its shape.

The 1989 founding date gives the firm a long run in one city. Thomas Taneff's time as a Franklin County Probate Court Magistrate ties directly to the venue where much of the firm's work is filed. Emma Saxby's arrival in October 2023 adds a second attorney to a practice that had been built around one.

For clients weighing options, the useful test is whether a firm's stated work matches the courtroom where their matter will actually be heard. Here it does. Taneff Law's practice areas concentrate in Ohio probate court, and its principal has served in that court as a magistrate.