§ IV — Our Commitment
The measure of a plan is the day it's finally needed. We draft for that day — so what you built passes on intact, and the people you leave it to are spared the fight.Heritage Estate Law Strategies, LLC
Estate Planning · Asset Protection · Entity Counsel
Counsel for families and closely-held businesses across Texas, New Mexico, and Mississippi — built to serve the generation that earned it, and the ones it's meant for.
Out here, wealth rarely sits still. It's section land and cattle, a family company and the people it employs, minerals under the ground and water rights over it. Planning for property like that isn't a form-filling exercise — it's the careful, deliberate work of making sure what you spent a lifetime building passes intact, protected, and understood.
Heritage Estate Law Strategies practices at the intersection of estate planning, asset protection, and business law — because for the families we serve, those were never separate questions. The trust, the LLC, the succession plan, and the deed are one architecture, and we draft them that way. Our attorneys are licensed in Texas, New Mexico, and Mississippi, and the practice follows our clients' land and business wherever they reach.
We keep our counsel plain, our documents precise, and our relationships long. That's the whole strategy.
Wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, transfer on death deeds, and probate-avoidance design — drafted for Texas property, minerals, and blended families.
Learn moreStructures put in place before the storm, not during it — exemption planning, entity layering, and trust strategies that hold up under scrutiny.
Learn moreLLCs, family limited partnerships, and holding structures built to fit the operation — not the other way around — with governance documents worth the paper.
Learn moreBuy-sell agreements, next-generation transition planning, and closely-held business counsel for companies meant to outlast their founders.
Learn moreManager · Licensed in Texas & New Mexico
David Hutchens works in the firm's estate planning and asset protection practice and handles general litigation matters, serving individuals, families, and closely held businesses. He designs and implements wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and the instruments that carry a plan out, and counsels clients on probate avoidance, trust funding, and wealth-transfer strategy — along with entity formation, governance, and business succession for owners planning past their own tenure.
He earned his Juris Doctor cum laude from Texas Tech University School of Law in 2018, where he served as Articles Editor of the Administrative Law Journal, and holds a B.A. in History from Texas Tech. His litigation experience runs deep — general litigation at Crenshaw Dupree & Milam in Lubbock and insurance defense at Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons in Dallas — and that courtroom grounding shapes how he drafts, with an eye to how a document holds up when someone later has reason to challenge it.
Before law, David taught high school social studies and led the department. Today, alongside his practice, he helps run Buns Over Texas, a longtime Lubbock family business. He is licensed in Texas and New Mexico and belongs to the State Bar of Texas, the State Bar of New Mexico, and the Federalist Society. He lives and works in Lubbock.
Manager · Licensed in Mississippi
Keith Shelton concentrates on asset protection planning for high-net-worth clients and on commercial real estate development nationwide. Across a career spanning business consulting and law, he has advised on commercial real estate transactions, oil and gas, qualified and non-qualified executive compensation, and estate planning — interlocking work that rewards a planner who can see the whole structure at once.
He earned a B.S.E. in Mathematics from Delta State University in 1978 and, while running his own employee-benefits consulting firm, went on to a Juris Doctor from Mississippi College School of Law in 1988, entering practice before the state and federal courts of Mississippi in 1989. His work has taken him before business firms in Panama, Bermuda, and the United Arab Emirates. In 2010 he helped Alliance Trust Company develop and qualify its precious-metals common trust and collective investment funds, then joined the company as Co-Manager and a member of its Board of Managers.
A frequent speaker on estate planning and asset protection, Keith has presented at advanced estate-planning seminars from Lake Tahoe, Reno, and Las Vegas to Memphis, Nashville, Jackson, and Lubbock, and has published on the same subjects. He lives in Lubbock with his wife, the artist Cynara; they have two adult children.
The measure of a plan is the day it's finally needed. We draft for that day — so what you built passes on intact, and the people you leave it to are spared the fight.Heritage Estate Law Strategies, LLC
Liability, minerals, ag exemptions, and what actually changes when the land goes into an entity.
Estate PlanningWhen it works, when it doesn't, and how it fits alongside a will and trust.
Asset ProtectionWhy the timing of a structure matters as much as the structure itself.
A first consultation is a conversation, not a commitment — about what you have, who it's for, and what it would take to make the plan match the intent.