How a firm earns its place on this docket
Manhattan Trust is an independent index of estate planning attorneys. Every listing is built from public sources only — the firm's own website and its Google Maps page. No referral fees, no advertorial profiles, no lead-form sales.
What we look for
We tag firms by what they actually publish on their own pages and by how their Google Maps category is set. The five core practice signals we track are living trust drafting, will preparation, probate administration, powers of attorney and healthcare directives, and elder law. Firms appear in any practice-area filter only if their public material clearly references that area — silence in a public source is not "no", but it is also not "yes".
How a public-record score is built
Each firm carries a 0-100 score based on five inputs, weighted in roughly this order:
- Practice content on the firm's own website
- Pages that describe drafting, probate, POA, or elder-law work — not just an "about us" boilerplate. This is the heaviest input.
- Google Maps category and review weight
- Whether the firm is filed under "estate planning attorney", "probate attorney", or a related label, and whether the review base is substantive enough to read.
- Direct contact data
- A phone number you can dial, an office address, and a working website. Every detail page must show its source for these.
- Review-quote signal
- Client review excerpts that mention the kind of work done — not generic praise. Personal grief language is moved to a separate column from firm copy.
- Cross-source agreement
- When the firm's site says one thing and the Maps category agrees, confidence rises. When they disagree, the page is flagged.
What we do not do
- We do not accept payment for placement. There is no "premium listing".
- We do not sell leads, share contact intent, or run a lead-form network behind the scenes.
- We do not assess legal quality, malpractice history, bar standing, or ethics — that is what state bar licensing and disciplinary databases are for.
- We do not write reviews of the firms or rank them on subjective quality.
- We do not give legal advice or recommend a specific firm for a specific matter.
Thin records still appear
About a third of firms in the index have a thin public record — a working phone number, an address, and not much else. We keep them on file for completeness, but every thin entry is marked clearly so a reader knows not to lean on the page for evaluation. Use the contact details, then call.
State law is not abstract
Every state has its own probate procedure, elective-share rule, and estate-tax threshold. A plan that works in Florida may need a rewrite in New York. Our detail pages call out the most relevant inheritance-law band — community property, elective-share, state-tax, or simplified-probate — for the firm's home state, plus the others for comparison.
If something looks wrong
Listings drift. A firm changes hands, an attorney retires, a website is rebuilt. Send us the listing URL and what's off; corrections are usually applied within a week. We do not edit listings to favor or disfavor a firm — only to keep the public record accurate.
Our Editorial Team
The Manhattan Trust Writing editorial team curates this directory, runs the public-source data pass, and writes each listing's call-prep notes. We do not take referral fees, do not place a thumb on which provider a reader picks, and do not accept paid review placement. Editorial decisions are made by the team, not by the businesses listed.
How We Evaluate Listings
Each listing on the site is scored on documented service signals, public-source evidence quality, and supporting context (city, regional factors, common failure modes). Listings without enough documented evidence are kept as limited-evidence listings or held out of the index.
Methodology Note
The page you are reading is editorial commentary — not paid placement. We update listings when public-source signals change, when a business reports a correction through the contact page, or when the public website goes offline.