General Practice

Each stage in life brings changing legal needs. People get married, have children, buy or build residential and vacation homes, purchase investment properties, plan for retirement, care for elderly family members and plan for generations to come.

Each general practice attorney at Stephen G. Thomas & Associates Co., L.P.A. has the skill and training to serve the everyday legal needs of individuals and their families. From wills, trusts and estate planning to real estate, construction and municipal law, our lawyers put our varied and exceptional experience to work advancing each client’s goals.

Prospective clients sometimes ask whether choosing a general practice attorney is the best course. It truly depends on the attorney, the client and the problem. Some suggest that choosing between a general practice attorney and a specialist mirrors one’s choice between a generalist or specialist in medicine. We usually find that analogy to be inaccurate.

Unlike physicians, the legal profession doesn’t offer a general practice certification for lawyers. If it did, the certification would recognize that broad experience in multiple practice areas is essential to the competent representation of any client.

A law firm typically collects lawyers whose talents and practice areas complement each other. But clients too often wind up with inefficient communications among a law firm’s practitioners or with an inexperienced attorney working on a critical task as a means to keep the cost of legal services competitive. A quality general practice lawyer has the talent and broad-based experience to competently represent clients with many different problems, the judgment to know when specialized advice should be sought and the skill to efficiently coordinate the client’s needs without unnecessary duplication of services. In short, a well-trained general practice attorney saves his or her client’s time and money in the long run, while delivering a quality product.

Our diverse legal experience emphasizes the following general practice areas:

• Personal Estate Planning and Probate
• Municipal Law
• Non-profit Incorporation and Planning
• Real Estate
• Construction Agreements

Serving Northeast Ohio, including Cleveland, Chagrin Falls, Chardon, Akron, Elyria, Canton, the Chagrin Valley, the counties of Cuyahoga, Geauga, Summit, Lake, Ashtabula, Lorain, Stark and wherever else our clients' paths may lead.