John Clarke: Your Fort Lauderdale Attorney

Law is my passion. I enjoy using my legal knowledge to help people plan for their future and to get justice when they have been injured by someone else's negligence. The two areas of law that I focus my practice on are estate planning and personal injury law.

Early in life, I recognized the importance of planning for the future. One of the law school courses I most enjoyed was wills and trusts, which encompassed estate planning. I learned how powerful wills and trusts can be to create a legacy that endures and to secure a family's financial well-being. I made estate planning a primary area of focus when I started practicing law, and that focus has only deepened in the years since.

My approach to estate planning is holistic. To craft an effective estate plan, I first get to know the client: their goals, dreams, relationships, and tax and financial circumstances. The process starts with a client's intention to pass on a legacy, but many other factors influence what an effective plan ultimately looks like, including the client's income tax situation, estate tax liability, avoidance of probate, and whether the client needs to qualify for Medicaid long-term care. Wealthy clients often have significant exposure to lawsuits and creditors, so privacy and asset protection strategies are frequently crucial parts of their plans.

Our estate planning workflow is client-focused. The first step is to gather information: we ask clients to provide a range of detail on their finances, goals, and life circumstances during intake, and we routinely consult with their other advisors and fiduciaries, including accountants and financial planners. Next, we explore a range of options and compare them from multiple points of view (asset protection, avoidance of probate, and lessening of the tax burden). Then the client selects the best plan from the options we provide.

Read more: Estate planning

Some of the probate avoidance techniques we employ include living trusts, enhanced life estate deeds, and operating agreements for limited liability companies and partnerships with inheritance provisions. The advantages of avoiding probate can include avoiding legal fees and costs, avoiding a public court proceeding in which estate creditors can file claims, and a more rapid distribution of assets to the decedent's intended heirs. Other documents we draft include last wills, living wills, durable powers of attorney, pre-need designations of guardian, and health care surrogate forms. We also draft and record deeds, contracts, and affidavits as necessary to re-title a client's real property.

When a client has significant wealth exposed to creditors, asset protection becomes an issue. Florida law provides several vehicles that can protect wealth from creditors. The most obvious is the homestead exemption, which covers a client's homestead property, so we advise clients to properly declare their homestead and, where possible, to hold investment properties in separate entities. Florida law provides several entities that protect member interests from direct seizure by creditors, including multi-member limited liability companies and limited liability limited partnerships. In those cases, a creditor's remedy is limited to a charging order against future distributions to the debtor-member.

Read more: Asset protection · Business planning

The second focus of my practice is personal injury law. While working as a registered nurse years ago, I saw first-hand the devastating effects that some of my patients suffered as a result of injuries caused by someone else's negligence. That experience helped spark my interest in going to law school and focusing on helping victims of negligence get compensated for their injuries. Personal injury law encompasses several types of cases, including defective products, slip and falls, car accidents, and motorcycle accidents, and I have acquired extensive experience in this field.

When I am not working, I am relaxing at my Hollywood home with my dog Taylor. I also enjoy travel, exploring the outdoors, and playing the piano. I am active in several community organizations, including the Broward Coalition on Aging.

Education

I graduated magna cum laude from the University of Miami in 1995, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. One of the most interesting courses I took was Philosophy of Law, which prompted me to consider a career in law. At that point, however, I had been in school for 16 years and urgently wanted to see the world.

So I spent that summer on a six-week course in teaching English to foreign language speakers, earning a certificate from Cambridge University, an accepted credential at language schools around the world. A week later I was on a flight to Jakarta, Indonesia, where I looked for work while exploring that exotic archipelago. I spent seven months teaching in Jakarta, then three more in Surabaya, East Java, before traveling around India, Malaysia, and Singapore for two months and heading back to the United States.

After returning home, I sold real estate for several years. I then became a registered nurse in 2007 and worked in the field for five years at several South Florida hospitals, including Mount Sinai Medical Center of Miami Beach. In 2011, I decided to follow my long-held dream of becoming a lawyer and applied to law school. In 2012, I enrolled at the University of Florida College of Law, and I graduated cum laude in May 2015. In August 2015, I passed the Florida Bar exam and started my solo practice shortly thereafter. I am a member in good standing of the Florida Bar and the Broward County Bar Association.