Best Law Firms in Texas for Trusts and Estates

Crain Caton & James is a century-old, full-service law firm based in Houston, Texas, providing transactional counsel, corporate advisory, regulatory guidance, and trial defense services locally, nationally, and internationally.

The firm concentrates its collective legal capabilities across major practice divisions:

• Corporate & Financial: Banking and financial institution compliance, business transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and commercial real estate development.
• Wealth, Trust, & Fiduciary: Estate planning, complex trust structuring, asset protection, and fiduciary or probate litigation.
• Litigation & Appeals: Commercial litigation, construction disputes, labor and employment conflicts, and comprehensive state and federal appellate practice.
• Regulatory & Technical: Environmental law, toxic tort defense, administrative health and safety (EHS) compliance, OSHA mitigation, and intellectual property (IP) protection, including patent and trademark prosecution.

Kelly Hart & Hallman has been a trusted provider of comprehensive legal services to some of the most innovative and successful businesses, individuals, and governmental entities in the country for over four decades. Our exceptional lawyers and exceptional clients have been instrumental in our continued success. Kelly Hart & Hallman LLP, also known as Kelly Hart, is a leading business-to-business law firm offering a wide range of legal services. With a team of more than 160 attorneys specializing in over 20 substantive areas of the law, we deliver creative and strategic legal solutions to address our clients’ most intricate business challenges.

Our esteemed client base includes Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, individuals, foundations, investor groups, and governmental entities, all of whom rely on us for their legal needs. Our extensive areas of practice encompass administrative law, appellate law, aviation law, banking and finance law, business reorganization and bankruptcy law, corporate and securities law, energy law, environmental law, estate planning and probate, government enforcement and investigation, health care law, intellectual property and technology law, labor and employment law, litigation, nonprofit organizations, oil and gas/energy law, public finance law, real estate law, tax law, transportation law, and water law.

At Kelly Hart, we are committed to delivering exceptional legal representation and value to our clients, utilizing our depth of knowledge and experience across various legal disciplines.

Staubus, Blankenship, Legere and Walker PLLC is a leading law firm with 3 lawyers recognized by Best Lawyers across 2 practice areas. The firm's tenure with Best Lawyers began in 2021. Having lawyers recognized in Best Lawyers' purely peer review process emphasizes the lawyers credibility and reputation for their practice amongst their peers in their practice area and region. It displays professional validation of the legal talent that Staubus, Blankenship, Legere and Walker PLLC has on their team. The firm has lawyers recognized in practice areas including: Trusts and Estates and Litigation - Trusts and Estates.

Staubus, Blankenship, Legere and Walker PLLC is also ranked by Best Law Firms in 2 practice areas. The Best Law Firms rankings are founded on a time-tested and transparent research process that has remained consistent since Best Lawyers launched it in 2010. Staubus, Blankenship, Legere and Walker PLLC has 2 rankings in 2 practices. Echoing their Best Lawyers awards and team of top legal talent.

The Ashmore Law Firm, P.C. is a Dallas boutique firm founded in 1987 by The Honorable Joseph E. Ashmore, Jr., former judge of Dallas County Probate Court No. 3, together with his son, Gary Ashmore. Today the firm is led by Managing Attorneys Gary Ashmore and Lori Ashmore Peters, the Judge's children, who carry forward his commitment to relationships that matter and experience clients can count on.

The firm's seven attorneys practice where family law meets family legacy. Gary Ashmore leads the Family Law practice, concentrating on complex and high-net-worth divorce, including property division involving business interests, trusts, and inheritance issues. Lori Ashmore Peters leads the Estate Planning and Probate practice, guiding individuals, fiduciaries, families, and business owners through wills, trusts, probate administration, will contests, contested guardianships, and business succession planning. Because both practices operate under one roof, clients facing a divorce can address the estate-planning consequences at the same time, with attorneys who coordinate as a team while billing for only one attorney's time.

Lori Ashmore Peters is recognized in The Best Lawyers in America for Trusts and Estates for three consecutive years (2025–2027), and the firm's tenure with Best Lawyers began in 2025. Best Lawyers' purely peer-review process reflects the credibility and reputation an attorney has earned among peers in their practice area and region, and it offers professional validation of the legal talent on The Ashmore Law Firm's team. The firm is also ranked by Best Law Firms in one practice area. Best Law Firms rankings are founded on a time-tested, transparent research process that has remained consistent since it launched in 2010, echoing the firm's Best Lawyers recognition and its depth of top legal talent.

Both Managing Attorneys are consistently recognized by their peers. Lori Ashmore Peters has been named to Super Lawyers in Texas for Estate Planning & Probate every year from 2012 through 2026, holds the Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent rating in Estate Planning and Probate (2022–2026), and is certified to serve as Attorney Ad Litem and Guardian Ad Litem in the Probate Courts of Texas. Gary Ashmore has been named to Super Lawyers in Texas for Family Law from 2024 through 2026, holds the Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent rating (2022–2026) and Justia Top Rated recognition in Complex Divorce, and is a collaboratively trained divorce practitioner and member of Collaborative Law Dallas. Both attorneys hold Avvo 10.0 and Lawyers.com 5.0 ratings. The firm holds a 4.8-star rating on Google across more than 170 client reviews and is a member of the Dallas Bar Association 100 Club (2024–2026).

The firm's attorneys are active contributors to Headnotes, the official publication of the Dallas Bar Association. Most recently, attorney Hamid Naraghi authored "The Role of Mental Health Professionals in Family Law Cases" (Vol. 51, No. 9, September 2026), reflecting the firm's approach of helping clients separate the emotional divorce from the legal one, including divorce coaching provided as part of the firm's process at no additional cost. Gary Ashmore and Lori Ashmore Peters have also co-authored Headnotes articles on the intersection of family law and probate.