Who We Are

Who is Tallgrass Estate Planning?

Riley Kern founded Tallgrass Estate Planning, LLP in 2016 as a home-based law firm Tulsa, Oklahoma. Their goal was to create a different kind of law firm - one that reaches out to people who are routinely overlooked by traditional law firms or people who are hesitant to work with traditional firms. Tallgrass Estate Planning has grown into a full service, family-oriented law firm and focuses exclusively on estate planning and elder law.

What is Estate Planning and Elder Law?

What is estate planning and elder law? Many see these terms as distant from their lives, thinking, "Only wealthy people have estates, and that's not me." In reality, an "estate" means your belongings, your body, and your values—regardless of their value. Since everyone has an estate, everyone needs an estate plan.

An estate plan addresses key questions: If something happens to you, who will pay your mortgage and bills? Who'll ensure your kids get to school? Who's responsible for communicating with your doctor? How do you protect your assets from creditors or lawsuits? If your parents need financial help, do you have the authority to assist? That's estate planning.

Elder law covers legal issues related to aging. Our practice focuses on guardianship of incapacitated adults, Medicaid asset protection, VA benefits, and crisis Medicaid planning.

Why Does Tallgrass Estate Planning Work This Way?

Because estate planning is an intensely personal process, Laurel and Riley have created an informal but thorough conversational process to discover clients' needs, priorities, and values, and then design and execute customized estate plans and services.

We call this three-step process Discovery, Design, and Delivery. Throughout the process, Tallgrass Estate Planning, LLP is committed to the core principles of education, hospitality, and inclusion. Your assets, your priorities, and your concerns are different from those of other people, so your estate plan will be different from those of other people, but everyone needs a plan.

What Does Tallgrass Estate Planning Do?

Our estate planning and elder law practice involves the following tools and strategies:

-Revocable living trusts
-Irrevocable trusts and asset protection
-Special needs planning
-Last will and testament
-Probate and estate administration
-Trust administration
-Guardianship for incapacitated adults
-Medicaid asset protection planning
-Veterans Aid & Attendance planning
-Business succession

In short, no matter who you are or what you have, we help you answer critical questions about who is in charge of you and your stuff during health, disability, and death, as well as who benefits from what you have.

Our Attorney

Riley Kern

Father. Bookworm. Musician.

Riley Kern is a father, bookworm, and an amateur musician who somehow managed to become an attorney along the way. He is the co-founder of Tallgrass Estate Planning where he is a managing partner with Laurel Carbone. Riley started Tallgrass as a home-based law firm, blending life and work seamlessly, spending time and energy with their children and their clients as organically as possible. As the business grew and life changed, they also opened offices in Midtown and Owasso.

Riley primarily works from the firm’s Midtown location. He loves working with clients who are using their estate plans to creatively solve problems and communicate their values, not just transfer their assets. He also loves making estate planning accessible to communities that have traditionally be marginalized and left out of traditional planning opportunities.

Riley is frequently invited to speak on trust planning, asset protection, special needs, and elder law matters, and he has served as the chair of the Estate Planning section of the Tulsa County Bar Association. Riley serves on several Tulsa-area non-profit boards of directors. He is a member at All Souls Unitarian Church, a hack woodworker, an inconsistent hiker, and a book lover.