David Shulman

I am an almost native Floridian (I moved here when I was two), and have lived in Broward County for my entire life, except for a brief sojourn in Boston and Washington, DC. My practice is dedicated solely to estate planning — which includes tax planning and asset protection — and probate and trust administration.

Estate planning means retaining control of your property while you are alive, providing for and protecting yourself and your loved ones if you become disabled, and giving what you have to who you want, when you want, and how you want — with the least amount of taxes, costs, and administrative fees as possible.

Why I Chose Estate Planning

I came to estate planning in a roundabout way. When I entered George Washington University Law School after graduating from Brandeis University, I had no idea what type of law I wanted to practice. The one thing I knew: I wasn’t interested in tax.

Between my first and second years of law school, I applied for the Justice Department’s summer program. Scanning the application, I picked the Tax Division on the theory that it would be the least competitive. It wasn’t boring. I fell in love with the area, took every tax course I could, and after graduation joined the Internal Revenue Service as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Chief Counsel, Passthroughs and Special Industries — writing regulations, revenue rulings, and private letter rulings for partnerships, S corporations, and trusts.

I greatly enjoyed my time in Washington, but Broward County is home. After seven years with the IRS, I moved back to South Florida and obtained my LL.M. in Estate Planning from the University of Miami — one of the only law schools in the country that offers a dedicated LL.M. in this field. It is an intensive, year-long program focused entirely on estate planning, trust law, and tax, not a general tax LL.M. with a few estate planning courses mixed in. It gave me a technical foundation I could not have gotten any other way.

I then worked at a large law firm for several years before starting my own practice in February 2009. In 2013, Jill and I combined our firms.

Board Certification

In 2014, I became Board Certified by the Florida Bar in Wills, Trusts and Estates. Board Certification is the Bar’s formal recognition that an attorney has demonstrated special competence in a field — it requires a minimum number of years in practice, peer reviews, a passing score on a written examination, and ongoing continuing legal education. Less than 0.5% of Florida-licensed attorneys hold this certification in Wills, Trusts and Estates.

I have also served on the Florida Bar’s Board Certification Committee for Wills, Trusts and Estates — the committee that writes and grades the examination and decides who is eligible to sit for it. It has given me a clear-eyed view of what genuine competence in this area actually looks like.

How I Practice

I prepare all estate planning documents myself. I do not hand document drafting off to a paralegal or secretary.

Outside the Office

I serve on the board of the Jewish Community Foundation of the Jewish Federation of Broward County. I also have a weakness for train travel — Amtrak’s California Zephyr, the Coast Starlight, and the Empire Builder, with the next one already in planning.