TEL 312 565.1067
FAX 312 565.8300
ldejong@SchuylerRoche.com

Estate Planning and Administration

Trusts

Probate and Trust Litigation

Estate and Transfer Taxation

Wealth and Health Planning

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To Lauren Evans DeJong piecing together solutions to the problems her clients pose is a journey whose culmination is intellectual gratification, the enduring reward of the dedicated practitioner. In drawing conclusions from the available rules, regulations and laws, she finds it immensely satisfying to employ her skills in the service of others, leading clients through the maze of confusing and often conflicting statutes to achieve a shared desire: financial stability, if not security, and peace of mind for the entire family. Indeed, clients laud her determination to represent their best interests regarding estate planning, trust administration and probate according to her own rock-solid code of ethics.

Following her first year of law school, Lauren interned with the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), which is self-insured, working in its insurance department. There she helped mediate and settle claims seeking workers’ compensation and alleging personal injury; she also helped resolve disputed medical claims. After her second year of law school and throughout her third year, she clerked in the appellate and litigation departments of a Chicago law firm, where she became an associate upon graduation. Two years later she segued into transactional law; partners involved her in both residential and commercial real estate deals, a variety of business transactions—including issues related to employment law—and estate planning and probate. Building upon this steady foundation, she began to focus on the needs of families and concentrate in estate planning and management exclusively.

In reflecting on her experience at the Chicago Housing Authority, Lauren says the CHA provided her with a frightening glimpse of the extent to which injury and death impact families and that her work there illuminated the additional problems families face when they neglect to plan for misfortune. Her experience before law school in the employ of prominent family-owned businesses—such as Illinois Auto Electric and Hinckley & Schmidt (now Hinckley Springs)—as well as her years as a young lawyer representing entrepreneurs and family-owned businesses further helped her to understand the interrelationship between business issues and estate planning, including the need to provide for succession. As a result, she has garnered invaluable experience counseling family upon family whose single largest asset is stock in the family’s business. In addition, Lauren’s volunteer work at nursing homes has reinforced for her “the importance of listening to the ideas and thoughts of others, especially those who, sad to say, are often ignored.”

In agreeing to join Schuyler Roche, Lauren said, "The professionalism here was a major attraction. I was also drawn by the quality of the attorneys, the depth of their individual knowledge and experience, as well as by the ability here to address a client's entire legal needs because of the range of services Schuyler Roche provides." A loyal clientele is certainly one measure of Lauren's effectiveness—peer recognition another. Recently, for example, the Illinois State Bar Association honored Lauren by appointing her to its committee on law-related education for the public, a committee on which she has served since 2005.

Concentrating in estate planning, trust administration and probate, Lauren counsels individuals of all ages and from all walks of life. In serving newlyweds, couples in second marriages, widows, widowers and business owners, she considers each client’s goals, her clients tell us, not only from their unique perspectives, but with an empathy uniquely her own. Lauren says she enjoys preparing estate plans and administering trusts and estates as an opportunity to help eliminate the emotional burden clients often bear when seeking the most appropriate means to plan for themselves and their beneficiaries.

“Clients are relieved, but also pleased,” she says, “after I have succeeded in obtaining a guardian for an ailing or disabled relative, or executed an estate plan to provide minor children with security should the parents die, or assisted in the transition of a family business to the children. Much of my service is proactive; I help clients help themselves, and there is always satisfaction in that.”

Lauren earned numerous academic distinctions as a political science major at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and as a law student at Northwestern University. She counts among her many professional accomplishments the following range of service:

• obtaining a substantial cash award on behalf of a disabled woman and succeeding in removing her guardian, whose negligence had hastened the woman’s home into foreclosure
• addressing a succession challenge within a particular family by preparing a will with testamentary trusts, allowing a client to bequeath shares of an S corporation to his daughters by designating one daughter responsible for voting all shares, but granting all daughters an equal share in the income
• gifting shares of a closely held business over a period of years from the founder of a company to his daughters, resulting in zero liability for gift and estate taxes
• formulating an estate plan in which a client was able to allow his companion full use of his considerable assets and receipt of all income from those assets without incurring tax liability by donating said assets to the charities of his choice, subject to his companion’s lifetime interests
• appointing a guardian for a disabled woman to afford her time to finalize her divorce and obtain an equitable maintenance agreement and property settlement
• assisting a client in withstanding several challenges to her endeavor to become her cousin’s guardian.

If, in seeking an attorney to administer your estate, manage a trust, guide you through probate, you desire a practitioner who will advocate as though your best interests are as important as her own, you would do well to contact Lauren DeJong.

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