Wes Coulson

Wes Coulson is the founder and principal of Coulson Elder Law, LLC and the developer of the Better Estate Planning concept and website. He earned his B.A., with honors, from Northwestern University in 1975, and his J.D. from The University of Michigan Law School in 1978. He is a member of the Illinois and Missouri Bars, the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA), the St. Louis Estate Planning Council and the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis.  He has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1978 and in Missouri since 1997, and regularly serves clients from offices in both states.

He has been a Certified Elder Law Attorney (“CELA”) since earning that designation in 2004 from the National Elder Law Foundation (www.nelf.org), the only organization authorized by the American Bar Association to confer practice area specialization in elder law.* He is one of 16 CELAs in Missouri and one of 15 in Illinois.  He was the first Illinois attorney south of Peoria to earn that designation, and is currently the only actively practicing Illinois attorney south of Peoria to hold that designation.

Wes has also earned the AEP (Accredited Estate Planner) designation from the National Association of Estate Planners and Councils (www.naepc.org), which is awarded only to estate planning professionals in the fields of accounting, insurance and financial planning, law, philanthropy, and trust services who meet special requirements of education, experience, knowledge, professional reputation, and character.  Across all of those professions, there are only about 2,000 people who hold AEP designation.*

Wes’s practice is focused in the areas of elder law, long-term care asset preservation, special needs planning, and trust and estate planning and administration.  He is a member of the Illinois and Missouri chapters of NAELA, and has given numerous continuing legal education presentations for both, as well as being the author of several articles on various elder law topics.  The Illinois chapter of NAELA gave him the “Ron Runkle Award,” given annually to honor a member’s contributions of time and knowledge.

Wes lives in Waterloo, IL with his wife, Laura.  He is the proud father of two sons, Jonathon and the late Oliver Coulson, and the proud “dogfather” of the office mascot, Ziggy.  In his spare time, he wishes he had more of it, and daydreams about retirement.

*Neither the Supreme Court nor the Bar of Illinois or Missouri confers or recognizes practice area specialization in the field of elder law.