Hildebrand Law Firm

Focus and practice areas

The firm works across five connected fields of law: estate planning, elder law, probate, business law, and family law. That range points toward clients who are planning for later life, settling an estate, or running a company around Milwaukee. Hildebrand Law Firm has served clients in the area since 2001. It works with families and businesses across Southeastern Wisconsin.

These areas overlap in daily practice more than the labels suggest. A person who signs a will and a trust may later need Medicaid advice, and the same family may return years on for probate. A business owner who forms a company often needs a personal estate plan for the shares they hold. In my opinion, a firm that keeps these areas under one roof can carry a client through several stages of a single plan.

The common thread is planning for money, property, and family through predictable legal steps. Estate and elder law look ahead to incapacity and death. Probate deals with what happens after. Business law sets up and runs companies, and family law handles the legal side of separation. Each area has its own rules and its own paperwork, and the firm names all five on its site.

How the team is built

Kirsten Hildebrand is the Managing Partner, and she has built the firm's team since 2001. The site names her alongside three partners: Derek Daron, Mark Clauss, and Matt Kaplan. Ralph Ehlinger holds the title of Senior Attorney and Of Counsel. Erik J. Krueger is listed as an Attorney, and Pierce Mobley as an Associate Attorney.

The firm describes itself as a small, woman-owned firm. That size shows in a roster a reader can take in on one page, with seven named lawyers at different levels of seniority. The mix of associate, attorney, and partner titles points to a structure where newer lawyers work under more experienced ones. An Of Counsel role, which Ralph Ehlinger holds, usually marks a lawyer who keeps a continuing relationship with the firm in a senior advisory capacity.

As a reviewer, I read these titles as the firm's own account of who holds which role. The page gives each lawyer a title and a level of seniority. Kirsten Hildebrand's stated history with the firm since 2001 places her at both its founding and its growth. A firm led by the same person for more than two decades gives a client one clear point of accountability at the top.

Estate planning and elder law

These two areas sit next to each other on the firm's services page, and they share a client base of people planning for age, illness, and the transfer of what they own. The work is document-heavy, and much of it happens before any court gets involved.

The core documents

Estate planning at the firm covers wills, revocable living trusts, durable powers of attorney, and health care directives. These are the documents most adults use to direct their assets and their medical care. A will sets out who receives property after death and names an executor to carry out those wishes. It takes effect only after death, and in most cases it passes through probate.

A revocable living trust works on a different footing. It can hold assets during life and pass them to beneficiaries outside probate, and the person who creates it can change or cancel it while alive. Many plans use a will and a trust together, each handling part of the job. A durable power of attorney lets someone name an agent to handle finances if illness or injury takes away their capacity, and the word durable means that authority survives the loss of capacity.

A health care directive, sometimes called a living will or a health care power of attorney, records medical wishes and names a person to make medical decisions. The firm prepares all four documents, so a client can assemble a full plan in one office. Taken together, the four cover both what happens to property and who speaks for a person who can no longer speak for themselves.

Medicaid and the five-year look-back

Elder law is the firm's second main area, and it centers on Medicaid planning and long-term care. Nursing care and assisted living are costly, and many families turn to Medicaid to help pay for it. Medicaid has strict limits on income and assets, so qualifying often takes planning done well in advance.

The firm names the five-year look-back directly in its services. Under that rule, Medicaid reviews asset transfers made in the five years before an application. Gifts or transfers made below fair value during that window can delay eligibility. Planning around the look-back is one reason families consult an elder law attorney years before care is needed, since the timing of a transfer can change the result.

The firm also lists long-term care planning meant to protect assets. This work looks at how a couple's savings, home, and income are treated when one spouse needs care and the other stays at home. Wisconsin applies both federal Medicaid rules and its own state provisions, and the details shift over time. A lawyer who works in this area regularly tracks those rules so a plan matches the law in force when care begins.

Probate and disputed estates

Probate and trust administration follow naturally from the estate planning work. When someone dies, an executor or trustee has to gather the assets, pay debts and taxes, and distribute what remains under court supervision or the terms of a trust. The firm advises executors and trustees as they carry out those duties.

Probate is the court process that confirms a will, appoints a personal representative, and oversees the transfer of a deceased person's property. Trust administration runs on a parallel track, guided by the trust document and often with less court involvement. Both call for careful records and firm deadlines, and an executor who misses a step can be held personally responsible.

The firm also handles contested estates and will disputes. These arise when heirs disagree over a will's meaning, question whether the person had capacity to sign, or claim undue influence. Such matters can move from paperwork into litigation, and they call for a lawyer who can both draft documents and argue a case. The firm lists contested work among its services, so it takes these disputes alongside routine administration.

Business and family work

Forming and running a company

On the business side, the firm advises on entity formation, including LLC, S-Corp, and C-Corp structures. Its services also cover contract drafting and negotiation, corporate compliance, and mergers and acquisitions. A new company owner picks an entity type early, since that choice shapes how the business is taxed and how far personal assets are exposed to its debts.

An LLC, an S-Corp, and a C-Corp each carry their own tax and ownership rules, and the right pick depends on the owners' plans. After formation, a company needs contracts with customers, suppliers, and staff, and it carries ongoing filing and compliance duties. The firm handles that first setup, the contracts that follow, and larger deals such as mergers and acquisitions.

Divorce, children, and appeals

Family law rounds out the firm's practice. This work includes divorce, child custody and placement, and child support and maintenance. Wisconsin courts treat legal custody and physical placement as separate questions, one about who makes major decisions for a child and one about where the child lives.

Support and maintenance follow their own state guidelines, and the numbers turn on income, placement time, and the length of a marriage. The firm also takes appellate matters in Wisconsin courts, so it can carry a case past the trial level to review by a higher court. That appellate line matters for a client whose trial result they want a higher court to examine.

What the record shows

The verifiable facts here are steady and few. Hildebrand Law Firm has practiced in Milwaukee since 2001, it names seven lawyers led by a Managing Partner, and it describes itself as a small, woman-owned firm. Those points come straight from the firm's own pages, and they are the kind a reader can check.

For clients in Southeastern Wisconsin, the firm keeps estate plans, elder law, probate, business formation, and family cases under one Milwaukee roof. That range means a household can bring more than one legal need to the same office. A person might sign a trust one year and call the same firm about a parent's Medicaid application the next.

In my opinion, the firm's strongest through-line is continuity. Kirsten Hildebrand has led it since it opened in 2001, and the roster today lists seven attorneys working under her.