David Dobreff | Estate Planning

Northern Michigan Elder Law PLC

David Dobreff | Northern Michigan Elder Law PLC

Rating:

Firm Summary

As the youngest of seven, I followed my father Edward Dobreff into the law business. Edward practiced in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties from 1950 until he passed in 2003. He was a people’s lawyer… and loved the practice of law, he litigated and tried cases all over.

Several of us followed him into the law business (see the photo below), pictured are my brothers William “Bill” Dobreff, Steven Dobreff, myself, and our father at my swearing into the Michigan Bar Association in Macomb County Circuit Court in 1997. Yes, the family has been the law business since the 50’s. Bill Dobreff now runs the family firm Dobreff and Dobreff PC; he and my brother Steven litigate personal injury and plaintiff cases.

I, on the other hand, am an Elder Law and Estate Planning Attorney, and I work at Northern Michigan Elder Law PLC in Traverse City, Charlevoix and East Jordan. My responsibilities include estate planning, Medicaid Benefits, probate work and the firm litigation.

I attended the University of Michigan on an athletic scholarship as undergraduate, played football and graduated with a history degree in 1993. After, I attended Wayne State Law School, graduating in 1997.

From 1998 until 2012, I worked in Chicago, options trading, not law, trading as a member on two of the Chicago exchanges for privately held trading firms. During my time at the CBOE, I traded The S&P 500®, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq and various equities and had the honor to be a member on the Chicago Board Option Exchange (CBOE) Arbitration Committee where we arbitrated trading disputes on the exchange. In 2005, I switched to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), now CME GLOBAL, to trade Eurodollar options. In total I spent just over 14 years trading, including the 2000 dot.com bubble and the 2008 crash.

In 2012, David Dobreff Law PLC opened in Michigan, handling auto cases, real estate transactions, business litigation, and estate planning. Soon after, my practice gravitated solely to probate and estate planning work after meeting Robert “Bob” Hoffman, amentor and friend, and taking Probate appointments in Allegan County. Since then, I have since completed my Probate and Estate Planning Certificate in 2014 and… in 2017 I formed Northern Michigan Elder Law PLC.

Now I am a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA). Robert Hoffman is of Counsel to us and we to him at Hoffman and Hoffman in Charlevoix. This gives us Bob’s experience and we give Bob a succession plan.

NMEL belongs to a National Network of Estate Planning Attorney’s called Wealthcounsel, which keeps us on the forefront of our field and lets us find you counsel in every jurisdiction in the United States and even abroad should you have assets in more than Michigan.