Our Philosophy

At Buckley Law, we take a low-volume, high-touch approach to practicing law that emphasizes personal service and working with other professionals to serve clients in a multi-disciplinary fashion. This futuristic practice model is primarily used by larger law and accounting firms, but has been modified by Mr. Buckley to meet the needs of this community. Knowing that his clients want to be the “hub” of all information flow regarding their business and estate planning, John builds teams of professionals to work together transparently for the client’s benefit. These teams can include John, along with a nationally-renowned business valuation expert, an insurance professional, a financial planner, and a CPA. Together, the team looks for the best available tools to maximize the client’s benefit in each of these disciplines.

Because of our commitment to personalized service, Buckley Law doesn’t do “one-size-fits-all” planning using form documents off the internet. Our plans are unique to you and your specific needs. To begin working together, we schedule a complementary initial consultation with potential estate planning and business planning clients to discuss their situation, goals, and objectives. If a potential client wishes to retain the Firm’s services, we then prepare and implement a plan that will achieve the client’s immediate as well as long-term goals.

The Tools We Use

In business planning, John restructures businesses to get current income tax deductions and save money on capital gains tax, estate tax and gift taxes when the owners exit the business. In addition, the Firm focuses on returning the cost of your legal fees as much as possible through pre-tax savings when the plan is implemented. We use legal tools like carpenters use hammers and saws. These tools include (but are not limited to) limited partnerships, tax-exempt entities, and sophisticated trust planning. If a client only needs a simple will and powers of attorney, our Firm stands ready to serve them as well. Sometimes, we can avoid probate and transfer assets without using a will or a trust. It all depends on the client’s situation and particular goals and objectives.

Justice Learned Hand said there are two tax systems in America – one for the educated and one for the ignorant. John specializes in helping his clients structure their affairs in an educated manner. Once used only by the rich and famous, John makes sophisticated business and estate planning tools available to everyone, including charitable planning with its significant tax breaks. J. Paul Getty, who among other financial wizards used charitable (or tax-exempt) planning to live the lifestyle of a billionaire but own little, is reputed to have said: “It’s amazing how much [money] you can make when you’re willing to give it away.” John’s philosophy is that if a person is estate or income taxable at death, she or he can either give an involuntary charitable contribution to the IRS (the government is a charity under the Tax Code), or can create wealth using tax-exempt tools while taking care of his or her heirs as well.

John is one of a handful of founding members of Wealth Counsel, LLC, an organization comprised of approximately 8,000 of America’s top business and estate planning lawyers. He was also a member of Business Enterprise Institute, a leading group of business exit planners in America. Every year he invests a great deal of time and treasure (tuition plus travel expenses) to attend conferences in these key areas of the Firm’s practice. There, he interacts with the best of the best in estate and business planning. He does this because it keeps him on top of very advanced planning tools that save money and build wealth for his clients.

What Our Clients Are Saying