Dan A. Baron Esq. - Independence, OH

Dan Baron is an Ohio estate planning, probate, and business succession attorney and the founder of Baron Law, LLC in Independence, Ohio. He helps individuals, families, and business owners throughout Cleveland and Northeast Ohio protect their wealth, settle estates and trusts, and pass their businesses on to the next generation.

Estate Planning

Dan prepares wills, revocable living trusts, irrevocable trusts, durable financial powers of attorney, health care powers of attorney, and living wills for clients across Cuyahoga County and Northeast Ohio. For clients with significant assets, he designs advanced strategies to reduce estate and gift taxes and protect wealth. These include:

• Ohio Legacy Trusts
• Spousal lifetime access trusts (SLATs)
• Irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs)
• Grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs)
• Dynasty trusts
• Family limited partnerships and LLCs
• Charitable remainder trusts

He also prepares special needs trusts for families with a loved one with a disability. He uses transfer-on-death designation affidavits and beneficiary planning to keep assets out of probate. His plans focus on probate avoidance, asset protection, incapacity planning, and preserving family wealth across generations. He explains each document in plain language and reviews plans as clients’ family and financial circumstances change.

Probate & Trust Administration

Dan represents executors, administrators, trustees, and beneficiaries in probate and trust administration, including matters before the Cuyahoga County Probate Court. He handles estate settlement from start to finish: opening the estate, preparing inventories and asset valuations, addressing creditor claims, filing estate tax returns, transferring real estate and investment accounts, and making final distributions. He also handles:

• Ancillary probate for out-of-state property
• Release from administration for smaller estates
• Trust administration outside of court, including guiding trustees through their fiduciary duties
• Disputes involving will and trust contests, trustee and executor accountability, and beneficiary rights

Business Succession Planning

With a business administration degree and a background in corporate law, Dan helps owners of family businesses and closely held companies plan for the transfer of ownership at retirement, incapacity, or death. His succession planning work includes:

• Buy-sell agreements, including those funded by life insurance
• Operating and shareholder agreement provisions that govern ownership transfers
• Recapitalizing companies into voting and nonvoting interests
• Gifting and sale strategies that use trusts to shift business value to the next generation at reduced tax cost
• Planning for sales to partners or key employees

He coordinates each owner’s succession plan with their personal estate plan. This protects the value of the business, keeps operations running, and gives family members, partners, and successors a clear path to ownership.

Education, Recognition, and Community

• Bachelor of Business Administration, cum laude, The University of Akron (2011)
• Juris Doctor, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law (2014); Editor-in-Chief, The Global Business Law Review
• “Superb” rating on Avvo
• Published author, including articles in the CMBA Bar Journal; founder and editor of Dollars & Sense Magazine
• Teaches estate planning at local colleges and speaks regularly on trusts, probate avoidance, asset protection, and business succession planning
• Member of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, West Shore Bar Association, Akron Bar Association, and American Bar Association