Why Choose Hildebrand Law Firm?

At Hildebrand Law Firm LLC, we understand that navigating legal matters can be complex and often personal. That's why we're dedicated to providing not just legal expertise, but a personalized, community-focused experience right here in southeastern Wisconsin. 

Experience You Can Trust, Personalized Service You Deserve

Since 2001, Hildebrand Law Firm LLC has been providing comprehensive legal services. We bring the extensive knowledge and experience of a large law firm, combined with the personalized attention and family-focused approach of a smaller firm. Our commitment is to our clients, ensuring you feel heard, understood, and confident in your legal journey. Call us today to speak with attorneys you can trust! 

Deep Roots in Southeastern Wisconsin

We are proud to serve the vibrant communities of southeastern Wisconsin. Unlike firms that focus solely on one city, we understand the unique needs of clients across southeastern Wisconsin. When you choose Hildebrand Law Firm, you're choosing a partner deeply invested in the well-being of our local community. 

Empowering You Through Knowledge

We believe that informed clients make the best decisions. That's why we go beyond traditional legal representation to empower you with knowledge. Our ongoing workshops, open to both clients and non-clients, are designed to educate and equip you with the tools to clearly express your goals for the future. We assist our clients by providing information that educates them and enables them to make informed decisions.

Recognized for Excellence

• Lawyers With Purpose Association
• North Shore Chamber of Commerce - People's Choice Award (2024): Presented to a "true supporter of the North Shore Business Community."
• Best of Business Rate 2025 in Milwaukee
• Women in the Law - 2011 Award from the Wisconsin Law Journal

When you choose Hildebrand Law Firm LLC, you're choosing dedicated, experienced attorneys committed to protecting your today and your future.

Estate Planning and Elder Law:

We have extensive knowledge and experience in estate planning for clients with diverse circumstances and needs. Following are just a few examples: 

• Worked with a real estate developer who owned several properties in his individual name to transfer some assets to an LLC we created, some assets to a revocable trust, and other assets to an irrevocable trust, resulting in ownership transferring to these entities properly owned by both the developer and his spouse.
• Retired engineer and his wife organized their estate plans so that they could hold properties for their children in a trust.
• Retired post office worker and teacher transferred their home into a Medicaid-protected trust, and created powers of attorney for health care and finances in order to prepare for the next stage of life. the transfer and created a trust to protect the assets.
• Advised a 21-year-old entrepreneur who became a millionaire through his online business; established a comprehensive trust structure to protect substantial assets and ensure smooth transfer outside of probate.
• Assisted an unmarried heiress in meeting her desire of transferring half her estate to her nieces and the other half to charity. Created a charitable remainder trust as well as a revocable living trust and educated the client on how asset protection worked in both.
• High volume of experience in assisting previously married couples with estate planning to make sure that wishes are solidified and not subject to modification in the future. 
• Assisted numerous married couples with trust planning and review, often discovering that assets they believed were protected were not, and subsequently created asset-protection trusts to ensure those assets were properly safeguarded.
• A disabled child was named to receive a substantial inheritance from his grandfather. We set up a special needs trust to avoid any future issues and make sure they receive the inheritance as intended.
• When clients feared that they had made a mistake in the transferring of property, we assisted in reversing the transfer and created a trust to protect the assets.
• Helped numerous clients with the updating from prior estate plans to make sure their wants and needs were properly accounted for, for instance, the proper naming of beneficiaries.
• Brother and sister owned a duplex together and needed to be sure that if one passed away, the other would inherit the property; we assisted in creating an asset protection trust and transferred the duplex into the trust so that their wishes would be followed. 

Probate and Trust Administration 

Our collective 60 years plus of probate and trust administration has resulted in innumerable satisfied personal representatives, trustees, and beneficiaries. Following are a few examples of our successes:

• Notifying beneficiaries of who are named in the trust can sometimes be no small task. We have located and informed beneficiaries in cases with up to 36 beneficiaries. 
• Collecting funds from unclaimed property can be challenging. We have successfully obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars for our clients through our tried and true methods. 
• Understanding what bills should and should not be paid, and in what order, is critical to the outcome of the estate. We have successfully negotiated favorable payoffs with credit card companies, lenders, and other debtors of the deceased on behalf of their estate, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Medicaid Planning and Applications 

Financial Guardians (unless a separate website that has a link to HLF – which I would prefer) 

Inheritance, Probate, and Trust Litigation

We have extensive experience achieving favorable outcomes for clients with the multitude of inheritance dispute issues that arise, both before and after death. Following are just a few examples:

• Children of a deceased 94-year-old father discovered the undue influence of a 55 year old female companion who unduly influenced him to switch all of his beneficiary designations to her, some of which occurred when the father was on his death bed. A full forensic investigation was required, along with substantial discovery. These techniques revealed how and when the female companion interfered with the father’s long-standing estate plans to the natural objects of his bounty, his children. We negotiated the return of all available assets to the children. 
• NOTE: protective estate planning would have prevented this scenario
• Successfully represented the client in defense of an undue influence claim related to an estate, achieving a favorable settlement of nearly the fully disputed amount in just three months. 
• Achieved a zero-dollar settlement for the heirs of an estate against an undue influence claim made by the personal representative. 
• Represented several petitioners in undue influence claims against trustees, successfully recovering funds in multiple cases, including some six-figure recoveries. 
• Successfully defended a personal representative against an objection to her serving and saved the client money by making a successful counterclaim for attorney’s fees due to a frivolous appeal. 
• Effectively defended the grantors children’s position as co-trustees against a challenge by the grantors spouse.
• Resolved a dispute with the successful removal of a co-trustee and a favorable settlement of the trust involving the sale of real estate.
• Negotiated the settlement of a real estate dispute on preferred terms for the co-trustee of a trust, while also arguing for and obtaining the removal of the other co-trustee. 
• Represented the wife of a deceased police officer who “disinherited” the wife from all marital assets, including life insurance and the marital residence. Utilized marital property law to successfully recover property from the estate for the client.
• Represented the nephew of an elderly woman with dementia in an undue influence dispute involving a will change orchestrated by her dog walker. After the dog walker isolated the decedent from family—blocking communication and removing family photos—the aunt amended her will to disinherit the nephew. Successfully negotiated a favorable resolution that reinstated the original will and its intended beneficiaries, preserving the client’s rightful inheritance.
• Achieved a favorable result when representing the beneficiary of a trust, the sister of the trustee, who was being blocked from all rightful payouts by the brother due to a prior feud. 

Business and Corporate Law

We like to think of ourselves as your in-house counsel, functioning as your go-to legal advisor and business partner. We have experience assisting businesses with everything from proper formation to legal issues involving contracts, business strategy, employment issues, and anything else that your in-house counsel would otherwise handle. Most importantly, we help avoid future legal issues. Following is a sample of our work:

• Created LLC’s for a real estate investor who had been purchasing the properties in his individual name, providing liability protection and tax benefits.
• Used our expansive experience representing clients in a variety of foreclosure suits, enforcing the foreclosure of real estate contracts and the affirmation of sales. 

Litigation and Disputes

Litigation arises in all sorts of situations. Following are just a few examples of our general litigation matters that we have resolved:

• Wedding accessory company had several expensive items taken by another vendor; we wrote demand letters on behalf of the client and through mediation were able to recover the items. 

Family Law

 We have consistently achieved successful outcomes for clients in divorce matters by securing fair asset distributions, protecting against over-contribution to the ex-spouse, and preserving parental rights. Specific examples:

• Prevailed against multiple claims brought by the client’s spouse in a divorce involving a successful business built by the client and a long-term marriage. The wife alleged that the husband had sold the business below market value to reduce her share, but we secured a divorce judgment with a roughly equal division of the estate.
• Obtained full restitution for the client after her husband hid $200,000 in bonuses he had been paid prior to the divorce, even after he assured he had provided accurate financial information.
• Represented the wife of a 30-year marriage when her husband insisted that she start working to help offset a long-term maintenance payment, even though she had not worked in a year due to cancer. Achieved a favorable maintenance payment that did not impute income to her.
• Assisted a client-husband through the divorce process when his ex-wife refused to divorce because she was on his health insurance and living in their marital home.
• After our client discovered that her husband’s gambling addiction had depleted approximately $300,000 from their marital estate, we successfully negotiated a favorable distribution that restored her full 50% share as if the funds had not been lost.
• Assisted a client in obtaining financial information from her husband when he refused to share. When it was discovered that his income was much higher than she believed, we helped her obtain the proper amount of child support and maintenance award.
• Represented a father seeking to prevent the mother from regaining placement of their 14-year-old son after she lost custody due to multiple instances of drunk driving with the child in the car; successfully persuaded the court to deny her placement request.

Prenuptial agreements:

Completion of over 50 complex prenuptial agreements for a wide range of circumstances, including second marriages for both.

Real Estate Law

• Successfully won a partition action between relatives who were fighting over ownership and control of lake property.
• Prevailed in enforcing multiple land contracts on behalf of the owner when payments were not made in accordance with the contracts.

Appeals

We have extensive and varied experiences in multiple types of appeals, ranging from individuals to large organizations. Examples of our extensive experience and successful outcomes are as follows:

Wisconsin Court of Appeals

• Successfully represented a national bank in a foreclosure action, obtaining summary judgment for the client and securing affirmation of the judgment on appeal before the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
• Prevailed on appeal against a writ of mandamus directed at a Circuit Court judge who ruled in favor of the client denying a motion for emergency contempt.
• Represented a national mortgage company in a foreclosure matter, obtaining default judgment and securing appellate affirmation based on procedural deficiencies in the mortgagors’ response.
• Prevailed on appeal related to a discovery dispute; in circuit court, the client successfully obtained an order compelling the medical examination of a party that the client alleged was being subjected to undue influence.
• Successfully made a motion to dismiss an appeal for lack of jurisdiction for client Bank, affirming a land sale.
• Successfully defended a circuit court order to compel the turnover of medical records in a discovery dispute.
• Successful on appeal for client Bank, obtaining affirmation of a foreclosure by arguing the untimeliness and failure of the defendants to meet the necessary burden of proof to vacate judgment.
• Prevailed in defending a circuit court order compelling the turnover of evidence that the circuit court ruled was relevant to the case.
• Obtained a voluntary dismissal on appeal for client banking a foreclosure suit.
• Successfully defended law firm on appeal, securing affirmance of the judgment by arguing that the opposing claims were barred by claim preclusion.
• Secured affirmance of summary judgment on appeal for Bank.
• Was successful in achieving the affirmation of a sheriff’s sale following a foreclosure request, by arguing that the enforcement of these sales rests with the broad discretion of the circuit court, and that the home owner failed to present any evidence which showed an erroneous exercise of discretion by the Circuit Court.
• Successfully represented loan servicing company on appeal, securing affirmance of summary judgment by establishing the company’s physical possession of the Note through an affidavit showing that homeowner’s counsel had declined an earlier opportunity to inspect it.
• Prevailed on appeal on behalf of bank in a foreclosure action by successfully arguing that the opposing party failed to meet their burden under the unclean hands doctrine, as they did not establish substantial misconduct or causation.
• Prevailed on appeal via voluntary dismissal after motions were granted for home lending client in a foreclosure suit.
  

Wisconsin Supreme Court 

• Petition for certiorari denied in undue influence and capacity litigation case related to discovery dispute.
• Petition for certiorari denied for review of court of appeals order that affirmed circuit court’s order to compel the turnover of documents.
• Petition for certiorari denied for review of court of appeals order that affirmed circuit court’s order to compel the turnover of medical records that was held to be relevant to the case.

Federal District Court of Appeals:

Successfully prevented removal to federal court on motion, solidifying a favorable ruling for client Bank.

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

• Prevailed on appeal in defense of Trust Company by arguing that the appellant’s repeated failure to appear at bankruptcy proceedings justified a bar on future filings, leaving him unprotected by an automatic stay and permitting foreclosure to proceed.
• Defended home lending company by securing dismissal for failure to state a claim and later prevailed on appeal by demonstrating that the amended complaint merely repeated arguments previously deemed frivolous.

Collections

We support businesses with their collections needs in small claims court and in circuit court, all the way through obtaining judgments and collecting on them. Examples of our collections work includes:



• Dentist had several outstanding collections needs: we were able to obtain collections on all but one, which resulted in a successful judgment in circuit court.
• Engineering company was refused payment for work completed. We obtained a money judgment and collected for him, after a bench trial before the circuit court.
• Commercial real estate owner had several months of rent owed. We obtained an out of court settlement on a payment plan.
• Law firm turned over all outstanding collections to us: we successfully recovered tens of thousands of dollars from past and current clients.
  

Highlights/Awards



• Lawyers With Purpose Association
• North Shore Chamber of Commerce – People’s Choice Award
• Presented to a “true supporter of the North Shore Business Community in 2024.”
• Best of Business Rate 2025 in Milwaukee
• Women in the Law – 2011 Award from the Wisconsin Law Journal