Practice Area · Trusts, Entities & Wealth Preservation
Asset Protection Attorney in Franklin, Tennessee
Discreet, sophisticated planning to safeguard what you’ve built, coordinated seamlessly with your financial team.
Overview
What is Asset Protection Planning?
Asset protection planning is the strategic use of legal structures to shield your wealth from future creditors, lawsuits, long-term care costs, and other risks, while keeping your assets working for you and your family. It is not about hiding assets. It is about making sure that what you have built stays intact for the reasons you built it.
Tennessee is one of the most trust-friendly states in the country, and clients across the region use Tennessee law specifically for its asset protection tools.
Our Clients
Who We Work With
Our asset protection clients are business owners, physicians, professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, and retirees who have significant assets to protect. Many carry professional liability exposure by virtue of their industry. Others simply want to ensure that decades of work aren’t undone by a single lawsuit, a divorce in the next generation, or the rising cost of long-term care.
They already have advisors they trust. Our job is to work alongside them.
Scope of Work
What We Handle
Every plan is custom-built to the client’s assets, risk profile, and goals. Common elements include:
- Tennessee Investment Services Trusts (TISTs)
- Irrevocable trust structures
- LLC and business entity structuring for liability separation
- Multi-generational wealth transfer strategies
- Coordination with financial advisors, CPAs, and insurance advisors
- Integration with estate planning and long-term care planning
- Review and restructuring of existing trusts
Asset protection rarely stands alone. Most plans are layered into a broader estate plan so lifetime protection and after-death distribution work as one strategy.
How We Work
Our Approach
Asset protection is a long game. The strategies that actually work require planning ahead, before there is a creditor, a lawsuit, or a diagnosis. We build plans that layer in protection now, so that when a real threat arrives, your assets are already out of reach.
We work alongside your existing team. Your CPA, your financial advisor, your insurance advisor. Everyone stays in the loop, and every piece of the plan works together.
Asset protection has to be done in calm weather, not in a storm.
Tennessee Statutes
Asset Protection Under Tennessee Law
Tennessee’s trust statutes are among the most favorable in the country, and they are the foundation of most of the plans we build.
The Tennessee Investment Services Act of 2007 (T.C.A. § 35-16-101 et seq.) allows Tennessee residents (and non-residents using a Tennessee trustee) to create Tennessee Investment Services Trusts, commonly called TISTs. A TIST is a self-settled irrevocable trust that lets the person creating it remain a discretionary beneficiary while shielding the trust assets from future creditor claims.
TISTs require a qualified Tennessee trustee, a spendthrift provision, and irrevocable structure. Once the trust is properly funded, Tennessee law provides a limitation period (generally 18 months, or 6 months with proper creditor notice) after which the assets are protected from future creditor claims.
Asset protection planning does not protect assets from creditors that already exist or claims that are already foreseeable. Any transfer intended to defraud existing creditors can be undone by a court. The value of asset protection is entirely in planning ahead.
Common Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Tennessee Investment Services Trust (TIST)?
A TIST is Tennessee’s version of a domestic asset protection trust. It’s an irrevocable trust that allows the person creating it to remain a discretionary beneficiary while shielding the trust assets from future creditor claims. Tennessee is one of about 20 states that permits this kind of self-settled asset protection trust.
Is asset protection the same as hiding assets?
No. Legitimate asset protection is about structuring your assets before any creditor exists so that future risks don’t reach what you’ve built. Trying to move assets after a claim has arisen or is foreseeable is a fraudulent transfer and can be undone by a court. The planning has to happen ahead of the threat, not in response to it.
When should I start asset protection planning?
Ideally, before you need it. The most effective asset protection strategies have waiting periods (18 months or more) before assets are fully shielded, so starting after a lawsuit has been filed is usually too late. High-risk professionals and business owners should build asset protection into their overall estate plan from the start.
Can I protect assets from creditors after a lawsuit is filed?
Generally, no. Any transfer made after a claim exists or is reasonably foreseeable can be treated as a fraudulent transfer and reversed. This is why we tell clients repeatedly: asset protection has to be done in calm weather, not in a storm.
Does an LLC protect my personal assets?
An LLC can separate your business liabilities from your personal ones, which is a legitimate and important layer of protection. But an LLC alone does not protect you from personal claims (like a car accident lawsuit) or reach through to protect the LLC’s assets from the LLC’s own creditors. Full asset protection usually combines entity structuring with trust planning.
How does asset protection fit with my estate plan?
The two should work together as a single strategy. A well-integrated plan protects assets during your lifetime and passes them to your heirs with continued protection from their creditors, spouses, and other risks. We build asset protection and estate planning as one unified plan rather than two separate documents.
Next Step
Ready to Get Started?
Schedule a consultation. Bring your questions, your existing plan if you have one, and the concerns that keep you thinking about what would happen if.