About Chaney Counsel

• Focused practice in estate planning, special needs planning, trust administration, probate, and conservatorships
• Transparent flat-fee pricing on many services, discussed with you up front
• Virtual and in-person consultations available throughout California
• A family-centered approach built around your goals, never a generic template
• Serving Los Angeles County, Ventura County, and the surrounding Southern California communities

Planning With Heart. Protecting What Matters.

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Planning With Heart. Protecting What Matters.

At Chaney Counsel, estate planning starts with a conversation about what matters to you.

Your family. Your relationships. The people who depend on you. The life you have built. The decisions you want to remain yours.

Because a meaningful estate plan should do more than put documents in a binder. It should reflect your life, prepare the people you love for what comes next, and give you greater confidence that the right protections are in place.

That is the idea behind Planning With Heart.

We help individuals and families throughout Southern California create thoughtful estate plans, prepare for the needs of loved ones with disabilities, administer trusts, navigate probate, and work through other important transitions. Throughout that process, our goal is to make legal planning feel more personal, more understandable, and much less intimidating.

Estate Planning Should Feel Personal—Because It Is

No two families look exactly alike.

You may be raising young children. Caring for a family member with a disability. Building a blended family. Planning for an aging parent. Protecting a family home or business. Preparing to serve as a trustee. Or simply realizing that it is finally time to put your own affairs in order.

Those differences matter.

At Chaney Counsel, we do not believe estate planning should begin with a stack of forms or a predetermined package. We begin by listening.

We want to understand who matters to you, what concerns are keeping you up at night, what you want to protect, and what you hope your planning will accomplish. From there, we can help you build a legal strategy around your actual circumstances rather than trying to fit your family into a standard template.

The result is planning designed not merely to check a box, but to work for the people it was created to protect.

Why Lindsey Chaney Built Chaney Counsel

Attorney Lindsey Chaney founded Chaney Counsel with a clear idea of what she wanted a law firm to feel like: professional and thorough, but also approachable, responsive, and genuinely supportive.

Before becoming an attorney, Lindsey worked in corporate human resources and client relations. Those roles taught her that people remember more than whether a professional completed the technical work correctly. They remember whether someone listened. Whether calls were returned. Whether complicated information was explained clearly. Whether they felt respected and cared for throughout the process.

Those lessons continue to shape Chaney Counsel today.

Lindsey later earned her Juris Doctor from Mitchell Hamline School of Law, graduating Magna Cum Laude, and gained courtroom and litigation experience before focusing her practice on estate planning and family-centered legal services.

But her connection to this work is not only professional.

Lindsey's own family experiences navigating disability-related systems and long-term planning have given her a personal understanding of the questions many caregivers carry: Who will be there for my loved one when I cannot be? How do I protect their financial future without jeopardizing important benefits? Who can I trust to make decisions? What have I forgotten to plan for?

That experience is especially meaningful to Lindsey's special needs planning practice. It also influences the broader way she works with every family: with patience, careful attention, and an understanding that the decisions being discussed are rarely just financial or legal.

They are personal.

Clear Guidance Without the Legal Fog

Estate planning can involve unfamiliar terminology, difficult decisions, and subjects many people would rather put off.

We do not think your attorney should make any of that more complicated.

Our role is to help you understand your choices, explain why particular strategies may or may not make sense for your circumstances, and give you the information you need to make informed decisions for yourself and your family.

That means you should feel comfortable asking questions.

You should understand what your documents are designed to accomplish.

And when the planning process is finished, you should know more than where to find your trust or will. You should understand the plan you created and feel confident about why you created it.

Planning for Real Families and Real Life

Families change.

Children grow up. New children and grandchildren arrive. Relationships evolve. People marry and divorce. Assets change. Homes are purchased and sold. Loved ones develop new care needs. The people you once selected to serve important roles in your estate plan may no longer be the right people years later.

Your estate plan should be able to evolve with you.

That is why Chaney Counsel sees estate planning as more than a one-time transaction.

In addition to helping clients establish wills, trusts, powers of attorney, advance health care directives, and other important protections, we offer ongoing support so families have a place to turn as circumstances change.

We also help families on the other side of planning. When a loved one dies and you find yourself responsible for administering a trust or navigating probate, you do not have to figure everything out alone.

Whatever chapter brings you to us, our goal remains the same: provide clear answers, thoughtful guidance, and a path forward.

Special Needs Planning With Personal Understanding

Planning for a loved one with a disability can raise an entirely different set of questions.

Families may need to consider public benefits, future caregiving, housing, financial resources, trustee selection, decision-making, and what will happen when a parent or primary caregiver is no longer there to coordinate everything.

These conversations require more than legal documents.

They require understanding the person at the center of the plan.

Chaney Counsel helps families consider the larger picture and create strategies designed to support a loved one's financial security, quality of life, and long-term care while addressing important issues such as eligibility for needs-based public benefits.

For Lindsey, this area of practice carries particular meaning because of her own family's experiences with disability planning.

She understands that beneath the legal questions is often a much more personal one:

Will the person I love be okay?

Our job is to help you turn that concern into a thoughtful plan.

What “Planning With Heart” Means to Us

Planning With Heart is not simply our tagline. It is the standard we want to bring to every client relationship.

It means listening before recommending.

It means recognizing that the technically correct legal answer is only useful if it works for your actual family.

It means explaining complicated decisions in language you can understand.

It means thinking beyond what happens after death and considering how your plan can protect you during your lifetime.

It means approaching sensitive family dynamics without judgment.

It means being available when life changes and new questions arise.

And it means remembering that behind every trust, will, power of attorney, probate petition, or special needs plan are real people trying to take care of someone they love.

That is what this work is about.

Thoughtful Planning for Every Chapter

You do not need to have everything figured out before speaking with an estate planning attorney.

You do not need to know whether you need a will or a trust. You do not need to understand probate terminology. You do not need to arrive with every difficult family decision already made.

You just need a place to begin.

Chaney Counsel serves individuals and families throughout Los Angeles County, Ventura County, and surrounding Southern California communities with estate planning, special needs planning, trust administration, probate, conservatorships, and related legal needs.

Whether you are planning decades ahead, responding to a major life change, caring for someone you love, or dealing with responsibilities that arrived after a loss, we are here to help you understand the next step.

Your family is personal. Your plan should be, too.

See What Planning With Heart Means for Your Family

Start with a conversation. Tell us about your family, your concerns, and what you want to protect. We can help you understand your options and begin creating a plan for what matters most.

Schedule your free consultation with Chaney Counsel today.