Southfield's hometown estate planning attorney.

An estate planning office in your own city

Southfield has no shortage of law offices — the gold-glass towers of the Town Center alone hold more lawyers than most Michigan counties. What is harder to find is a solo estate planning attorney whose practice is built around the families who actually live here, rather than the corporations that commute in. That is the practice Moshe B. Newman has run from Southfield since 2015: wills, trusts, powers of attorney, probate, and the disputes that arise when those documents were never signed or were signed badly.

Being local changes the work in small, practical ways. Signing a trust means a short drive up Greenfield rather than an afternoon on the freeway. Dropping off a folder of deeds and beneficiary statements does not require an appointment three weeks out. And when a client's adult children want to sit in on a meeting — which we encourage — they can usually get here on a lunch hour. Full details of what we draft are on the estate planning services page; this page is about how that work looks for the people of this city.

Who we plan for in Southfield

The 2020 census counted 76,618 residents in Southfield, and the city's age profile is striking: the median age is about 44, and more than one in five residents is 65 or older. Behind those numbers are the clients who walk through our door. Retirees who bought a brick ranch off Evergreen or Lahser in the 1970s or 1980s and have long since paid it off. Widows and widowers managing a late spouse's pension, IRA, and life insurance for the first time. Adult children — often living in another state — trying to help a parent get documents in order before a health crisis forces the issue.

For a household like that, the plan rarely needs to be exotic. It needs to be complete. A paid-off Southfield home can usually pass outside probate through a properly drafted Lady Bird deed. Retirement accounts and insurance need beneficiary designations that match the rest of the plan instead of contradicting it. A durable power of attorney and patient advocate designation decide who acts if dementia or a stroke arrives before death does — and in a city with Southfield's senior population, incapacity planning is not an afterthought. It is frequently the most urgent document in the stack.

We also serve the other Southfield: the professionals and business owners drawn by a daytime economy that swells far beyond the city's residential population. Consultants, physicians affiliated with the Nine Mile medical corridor, landlords holding rental houses in the neighborhoods south of I-696 — clients whose estates involve entities, investment property, and succession questions that a form-fill website cannot answer.

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Planning for every Southfield community

Southfield is one of the most diverse cities in Oakland County, and its estate planning needs reflect that. A majority of residents are Black, many in families that arrived over decades of migration from Detroit and beyond, often with real estate held across generations — and sometimes still titled in the name of a grandparent who died years ago. Untangling heir property before it becomes a probate emergency is work we know well.

The city is also a longstanding center of Jewish life in metro Detroit; Congregation Shaarey Zedek's landmark sanctuary has stood on Bell Road since the early 1960s, and synagogues, schools, and kosher institutions thread through the city and its border with Oak Park. Families here often want an estate plan that honors religious commitments — charitable bequests to a congregation or day school, guardianship choices that keep children within the community, and documents coordinated with religious directives. We are glad to have those conversations and to draft accordingly.

Chaldean, Nigerian, Caribbean, and other immigrant families in Southfield bring their own questions: how to provide for relatives abroad, how foreign property interacts with a Michigan will, and how to name a fiduciary when the natural choice lives overseas. None of these situations fits a template. All of them fit a conversation.

Probate for Southfield residents happens in Pontiac

A detail that surprises many families: although Southfield sits on Oakland County's southern edge, minutes from the Wayne County line at Eight Mile, every probate matter for a Southfield decedent belongs to the Oakland County Probate Court — 1200 N. Telegraph Road, Dept. 457, Pontiac, MI 48341, reachable at (248) 858-0260. There is no probate courthouse in Southfield itself. When a parent dies with a house on Marler or Shiawassee still titled in her own name, the case is opened twenty-plus miles up Telegraph.

That court has also gone digital. New probate filings must be submitted electronically through Michigan's MiFILE system, and a personal representative handling an estate alone will discover that the technology, the forms, and the court's formatting expectations each have a learning curve — at exactly the moment they are also planning a funeral and securing a house. As a probate lawyer serving Southfield from inside Southfield, we take that burden over entirely: we prepare and e-file the petitions, track the deadlines, and appear in Pontiac so our clients rarely have to.

Better still is never needing the courthouse. A funded revocable trust, correct beneficiary designations, and the right deed keep most Southfield estates out of probate altogether — which is the outcome we design for first.

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Serving Southfield's neighbors, too

Our location puts us within a few minutes of an unusual cluster of communities. Lathrup Village — the mile-and-a-half-square city entirely surrounded by Southfield — is effectively part of our neighborhood, and its residents face the identical Oakland County probate process. Oak Park lies just across our eastern boundary; Beverly Hills, Franklin, and Bingham Farms sit immediately to the north. We regularly represent clients from each, along with Farmington Hills and West Bloomfield families a short drive up the Lodge or Northwestern Highway.

And because the firm is licensed throughout Michigan, distance is never disqualifying — we handle plans and probate matters statewide by phone and video when an office visit is impractical.

Questions Southfield families ask

Where does probate happen for Southfield residents?

Southfield is in Oakland County, so probate matters for Southfield residents are handled by the Oakland County Probate Court at 1200 N. Telegraph Road in Pontiac — not at a courthouse in Southfield itself. The court now requires most documents to be filed electronically through the MiFILE system, which is one of the practical hurdles first-time personal representatives run into.

Is your office actually located in Southfield?

Yes. The Legacy Law Firm is located at 24361 Greenfield Road, Suite 310, Southfield, MI 48075, and has been based in Southfield since 2015. For Southfield residents, meeting with us usually means a drive of a few minutes, and we also offer phone and video meetings when that is easier.

What does a typical estate plan for a Southfield family include?

Most plans are built around either a will or a revocable living trust, plus a durable power of attorney for finances and a patient advocate designation for medical decisions. For many Southfield homeowners — especially retirees whose home is paid off — a Lady Bird deed can pass the house outside probate while preserving property tax protections. The right combination depends on what you own and who you want protected. Our guide Do I need a will or a trust? is a good starting point.

What happens if a Southfield resident dies without a will?

Michigan's intestacy statutes decide who inherits, and the estate generally must pass through probate at the Oakland County Probate Court. The statutory formula does not account for blended families, estranged relatives, or a caregiver child, and it never benefits a charity, a friend, or a congregation. A basic estate plan replaces that default with your actual wishes. We explain the mechanics in what happens when you die without a will in Michigan.

Where to begin

Two doors in, same room at the end. The free option is a 20-minute phone screening: you describe your family and your assets, we tell you honestly whether you need us and what the engagement would involve. The paid option is a $500 working session — bring your old will, your deed, your account statements, and leave with a written picture of where your plan stands and what we would change. If you hire us afterward, the $500 is applied to your fee.

You have driven past our building. The hard part of estate planning is not the documents — it is picking up the phone. For Southfield residents, everything after that call happens close to home.

Schedule a consultation →

Or call us directly at (248) 629-0161.

This article is general information about Michigan law, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws and dollar thresholds change; figures current as of 2026. For advice on your specific situation, schedule a consultation.