Dent Coulson, a southern Illinois-based elder care law firm, has opened a Springfield office.
Steven Milburn, a Springfield native who joined Dent Coulson in January, is heading up the new office. Dent Coulson’s work is mainly focused on estate planning and elder law, handling issues such as power of attorney, wills, trusts, estate tax planning and asset-protection planning for long-term care.
Milburn previously was legal counsel for the Illinois Department and Healthcare and Family Services Office of the Inspector General, where he handled appeals for Medicaid long-term care eligibility determinations. He had been with the inspector general’s office for eight years, which, Milburn says, “is kind of a long time to be doing the same thing.”
He was looking for other opportunities when he was contacted by Dent Coulson.
Dent Coulson has offices in O’Fallon, Effingham, Shelbyville and Champaign, and initially Milburn was not interested in joining the firm because he and his wife did not want to leave the Springfield community. However, Milburn was intrigued when the opportunity arose to introduce Dent Coulson to the Springfield market.
“I want to build a presence for the firm here, and we are working on doing that,” Milburn said.
Dent Coulson’s local offices are located in Cowork Springfield, at 2532 Farragut Drive. Milburn, who is senior associate attorney at the firm, said elder law is “definitely a growing market.”
“Sixty-seven percent of people have no estate planning in place,” he said. “Our goal is to educate people on the need for estate planning and get all their planning taken care of to make it easier on their families in the long term.”