Orlando has transformed from a tourism-dependent economy into one of Florida’s most economically diverse and rapidly growing metropolitan areas, creating a substantial and increasingly sophisticated estate planning market where theme park and hospitality industry executives, healthcare professionals, aerospace and defense workers, technology entrepreneurs, real estate investors, and retirees drawn by Florida’s favorable tax environment all require comprehensive estate planning counsel. The Greater Orlando area’s extraordinary population growth — driven by corporate relocations, remote workers seeking Florida’s quality of life, and retirees from across the country — has created demand for estate planning services that spans the full spectrum from foundational planning for young families to extraordinarily complex multigenerational wealth transfer structures for established Orlando business families.
Florida provides one of the most favorable estate planning environments in the United States. Florida imposes no state income tax and no state estate or inheritance tax — making it one of the most tax-favorable states for both accumulating and transferring wealth. Florida’s specific estate planning legal framework — including the Florida Trust Code, the Florida Probate Code, Florida’s unique homestead law that provides powerful creditor protection for Florida primary residences, Florida’s Disposition of Property Without Administration provisions, and the Florida Health Care Surrogate Act — creates the statutory architecture within which Orlando estate planning attorneys serve their clients. Florida’s homestead law creates both extraordinary asset protection opportunities and important planning constraints that make Florida-specific expertise essential for Orlando estate planning attorneys.
1. Thomas Sasser — Sasser Cestaro Sasser and Sasser PA
Thomas Sasser is one of Orlando’s most highly regarded estate planning and trust attorneys, with a practice at Sasser Cestaro Sasser and Sasser that has served Central Florida families in comprehensive estate planning, trust and estate administration, business succession planning, and Medicaid planning for many years. Sasser has been recognized by Super Lawyers Florida in estate planning and probate for multiple consecutive years and has been included in Best Lawyers in America — reflecting sustained peer recognition from Florida’s legal community for the consistent quality and sophistication of his estate planning counsel.
Sasser’s practice encompasses the full range of Florida estate planning services — revocable living trusts, wills, durable powers of attorney, healthcare surrogates, living wills, irrevocable trusts, and sophisticated wealth transfer strategies — with particular expertise in the Florida-specific planning considerations that distinguish Orlando estate planning from planning in other jurisdictions. His particular expertise in Florida homestead law — understanding the complex interaction between Florida’s constitutional homestead exemption, the homestead’s protection from forced sale by creditors, the descent and devise restrictions that limit how homestead property can be transferred, and the specific planning strategies that allow Orlando families to maximize homestead benefits while achieving their estate planning objectives — reflects Florida-specific knowledge that is essential for comprehensive Central Florida estate planning.
His deep familiarity with the Florida Trust Code and the specific planning tools available under Florida law — including Florida’s quiet trust provisions, Florida’s trust decanting statute, and the specific trustee standards and beneficiary rights that Florida law establishes — provides his clients with comprehensive planning structures that leverage the full range of Florida’s trust law framework. His experience handling Florida trust and probate administration alongside planning work provides his planning clients with practical insight into how Florida estates and trusts actually function during the administration process.
2. Christine Fletcher — Fletcher and Williams PA
Christine Fletcher is a highly regarded Orlando estate planning and elder law attorney whose practice focuses on comprehensive estate planning, Florida Medicaid planning for long-term care, special needs planning, and trust administration for Orange County and Central Florida families. Fletcher has been recognized by Super Lawyers Florida in estate planning and probate and has developed a reputation for combining comprehensive Florida estate planning expertise with specialized elder law knowledge — providing Orlando families with integrated planning that addresses both wealth transfer objectives and the practical realities of aging and long-term care in Florida’s large senior population.
Fletcher’s practice encompasses revocable and irrevocable trusts, wills, powers of attorney, healthcare surrogates, living wills, special needs trusts, Florida Medicaid planning, and trust administration — reflecting the comprehensive range of estate planning and elder law services that Orlando families need across different life stages and family circumstances. Her particular expertise in Florida Medicaid planning — navigating the Agency for Health Care Administration’s complex eligibility rules for Florida Medicaid long-term care coverage, including the Florida Statewide Medicaid Managed Care Long-Term Care program — reflects specialized knowledge of one of the most financially consequential areas of planning for Orlando’s substantial and growing senior population.
Her particular expertise in special needs trust planning for Florida beneficiaries — creating Florida-compliant supplemental needs trusts that preserve eligibility for Florida Medicaid, SSI, and other government benefit programs while providing supplemental financial support — reflects specialized knowledge of critical importance for Orlando families whose estate planning must account for a family member’s disability. Her practice’s genuine accessibility to Orlando families across economic backgrounds reflects a commitment to making quality Florida estate planning available to the full spectrum of Central Florida residents.
3. Steven Bagen — Bagen and Bagen PA
Steven Bagen is a prominent Orlando estate planning and business law attorney whose practice focuses on integrated estate planning and business succession planning for Orlando’s entrepreneur, hospitality industry, and real estate investor community. Bagen has been recognized by Super Lawyers Florida in estate planning and probate and has developed a reputation in the Orlando business community for sophisticated, results-oriented estate planning counsel that addresses the specific planning needs of clients whose wealth is concentrated in closely held business interests, real estate investments, and hospitality industry operations.
His practice’s particular strength in business succession planning — helping Orlando’s family business community, theme park and hospitality industry entrepreneurs, and real estate investment organizations structure the transfer of business ownership to the next generation or to third-party buyers in tax-efficient ways that accomplish family objectives — reflects specialized expertise at the intersection of estate and business law. The concentration of hospitality industry entrepreneurship in Orlando — driven by the enormous support economy that surrounds the theme park industry — creates significant demand for business succession planning that Bagen’s practice is specifically equipped to address.
His particular expertise in real estate investor estate planning — addressing the specific considerations that arise from Orlando’s enormous real estate investment community, including the proper structuring of real estate investment entities, the use of limited liability companies for real estate portfolio management, and the succession planning for real estate investment operations that have accumulated significant portfolio value — reflects specialized knowledge of the most practically important estate planning context for a significant segment of Orlando’s wealth-holding population.
4. Karen Lisko — Lisko Law PA
Karen Lisko is an Orlando estate planning attorney whose practice focuses on providing comprehensive estate planning services to Central Florida families across the full economic spectrum — from young Orlando professionals establishing their first estate plans to established families with complex multigenerational wealth transfer needs. Lisko has developed a reputation in the Orlando legal community for combining thorough Florida estate planning expertise with genuine personal engagement with each client’s specific family circumstances and planning objectives.
Her practice encompasses revocable living trusts, wills, powers of attorney, healthcare surrogates, living wills, irrevocable trusts, and beneficiary designation reviews — providing the comprehensive estate planning infrastructure that every Orlando family needs to protect their assets and ensure that their wishes are honored. Her particular commitment to making estate planning accessible and genuinely understandable for clients who are approaching these documents for the first time reflects a client education philosophy that ensures Orlando families leave her office with genuine comprehension of what their documents do and how their plans protect their families.
Her particular attention to planning for Orlando’s large international and multicultural community — addressing the specific estate planning considerations that arise for non-citizen residents, international property ownership, and families with assets in multiple countries — reflects specialized knowledge of the specific planning dimensions that Florida’s extraordinarily diverse multicultural population requires.
5. Matthew Gorden — Gorden Law Group PA
Matthew Gorden is an Orlando estate planning attorney whose practice focuses on comprehensive estate planning, charitable giving strategies, and trust administration for Central Florida families and the Orlando philanthropic community. Gorden has built a practice that combines comprehensive estate planning with particular depth in charitable planning — providing Orlando families with integrated planning that addresses both wealth transfer objectives and the philanthropic giving goals that many established Orlando families seek to accomplish through their estate plans.
His practice encompasses revocable and irrevocable trusts, wills, powers of attorney, healthcare surrogates, charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, private foundations, and donor-advised fund planning — reflecting the full range of estate and charitable planning services that Orlando families with both wealth transfer and philanthropic objectives require. His particular expertise in charitable planning strategies for Orlando’s substantial philanthropic community — including planned giving counsel for Central Florida’s major charitable institutions and the charitable trust and foundation planning that Orlando’s community-minded families use to accomplish their giving objectives — reflects specialized knowledge of the specific tax planning benefits that different charitable giving vehicles provide.
