Attorney
With more than 30 years of legal experience, Michael Amthor brings seasoned judgment, practical insight, and a highly personal approach to estate planning, probate, and trust administration. He helps individuals and families protect what they have built, prepare for the future, and create plans that reflect both their financial circumstances and the people and relationships that matter most to them.
Michael has decades of experience developing comprehensive estate plans, including living trusts, wills, powers of attorney, advance health care directives, and related planning documents. He takes the time to understand each client’s family, priorities, concerns, and long-term wishes before recommending a strategy. His goal is to create a plan that provides clarity during the client’s lifetime and helps make the administration of the estate as straightforward as possible for loved ones.
His broader legal background gives him an additional perspective when designing estate plans for families with complex relationships, significant assets, or concerns about future conflict. His extensive background in family law and mediation has given him, and firsthand insight into the family dynamics that can emerge when significant assets, changing circumstances, strong emotions, and competing expectations intersect.
That experience helps Michael look beyond the documents themselves, identify potential areas of concern, ask questions clients may not have considered, and structure plans with an eye toward reducing uncertainty and the risk of future conflict. His background has reinforced a principle that guides his estate planning practice today: an effective estate plan should account for the family as carefully as it accounts for the assets.
Michael also has extensive experience guiding families through probate and representing trustees in the administration of living trusts. That work directly informs the way he approaches estate planning. Having seen how plans are carried out after death, Michael understands the importance of clear documents, thoughtful decision-making, and preparing for the practical realities families and fiduciaries may face.
Throughout his career, Michael has represented clients with estates ranging from modest to substantial and complex. Regardless of the size of an estate, he believes every client deserves to be heard, understood, and treated with the same level of care and attention. No two families are alike, and he approaches every engagement with that in mind.
Service to the community is also an important part of Michael’s life. He is active in Rotary International, volunteers with Meals on Wheels, and has devoted many hours to helping seniors and others in the community. He has also volunteered his legal experience in court settlement conferences, helping parties work toward practical resolutions. Michael and his firm have been recognized with Best of Brentwood honors for many years.
Outside the office, Michael has been married to his wife for more than 36 years and is the proud father of two adult children. He enjoys boating, four-wheeling, and spending time with his family.