Jurist Law Group
A Plan For Care and Legacy

D. Kimbro Stephens, Managing Attorney & Co-Founder

A lifetime of savings should not disappear because long-term care becomes necessary.

That is often the fear people bring to Jurist Law Group.

People come to the firm at different stages of planning. Some seniors seek guidance early, hoping to prepare for future care needs. Other families arrive after a parent’s fall or hospitalization makes the need for long-term care more immediate. Across these situations, one question weighs heavily: “How can we get the care we need and pay for it without going broke?”

Jurist Law Group helps seniors and their families address this concern by guiding them through the legal and financial decisions surrounding long-term care.

A boutique law firm with more than a decade of experience, its elder law practice brings long-term care planning, asset protection and estate planning together to help seniors qualify and pay for care.

Distinguishing Jurist Law Group is its compassionate approach. It listens to each family’s concerns, helps them understand the best options and develops an estate plan and a feasible long-term care solution suited to their circumstances and goals.

“Our ethos is deeply entrenched in providing compassion and care that our clients need,” says D. Kimbro Stephens, managing attorney & co-founder.

Where Experience Meets Purpose

Stephens is driven by a people-first perspective that defines Jurist Law Group and its purpose.

His legal career began in the 1980s, while he was working in psychiatric health services and hospital administration. Along with his mother, a psychiatrist, he helped develop programs for patients and spent years learning the practical realities of accessing care, qualifying for services, understanding insurance and figuring out how to pay for treatment.

His focus on elder law became deeply personal during his mother’s experience with cancer. Despite being an attorney and having years of healthcare experience, he found himself struggling to understand how to navigate long-term care for his mother and get her on Medicaid before she passed away in 2010.

That experience deepened his passion for helping seniors and their families facing similar challenges. Understanding that elder law is not well comprehended even by many attorneys, he took a dedicated interest in learning the rules, regulations and benefit programs, and how they apply to each family’s circumstances. This specialized knowledge remains central to Jurist Law Group and informs how it approaches estate planning for seniors.

Planning for the Years Still Ahead

Traditional estate planning often emphasizes avoiding probate through measures such as revocable living trusts. Jurist Law Group takes a broader view, focusing on protecting seniors’ assets during their lifetime and preparing for potential long-term care needs. It encourages seniors to review their estate plans around age 65 or when they become Medicare recipients, considering how future care costs could affect their savings.
Stephens cautions seniors against assuming that a revocable living trust alone provides asset protection. While revocable living trusts can be useful for avoiding probate, they don’t protect assets from creditors, spend down for Medicaid or the VA. To protect a client’s home while planning for their Medicaid eligibility, Jurist Law Group may consider residence trusts, gift trusts or other structures as part of a broader plan, depending on the family’s circumstances. Similarly, using gift trusts for children allows parents to retain management and control.

The objective is to plan before the point of need. Medicaid, VA and other programs have look-back rules. Waiting until care becomes necessary can narrow the planning options available to a family. But Jurist Law Group also helps families already facing a care crisis.

“There’s no one-trick pony,” says Stephens. “Every family is different.”

Jurist Law Group is selective about the cases it takes on. While helping clients with probate, adult guardianship, estate planning and residential real estate services, it screens out cases where family members aim to fight each other. When a probate case creates conflict after a parent’s death, the team moderates or mediates the situation and provides supportive advice, focusing on families that genuinely want its help.

Jurist Law Group is a firm with a heart, a philosophy reflected in how it handles anxious families, ongoing client relationships and disputes it chooses not to pursue.

Client care begins with understanding what they actually need. When clients arrive with documents, asking whether they need a will, a trust or both, its first response is not necessarily to tell them which document they should sign.

Instead, it starts with what they are trying to accomplish.

A senior with few assets may have different requirements than someone with a home, substantial savings, long-term care insurance or veteran status. Asset protection may not be a major concern in every situation, and a revocable trust may be appropriate in some cases. Beneficiary designations, joint ownership and other approaches can also play a role, while blended families and more complicated,
estates may call for a trust mechanism. Jurist Law Group considers these individual circumstances and goals first, then develops the plan and prepares the documents to support it.

“We’re not selling trusts or documents,” says Stephens. “We’re developing a plan, a long term strategy, and the documents will take care of themselves.”

The individualized approach also means Jurist Law Group does not automatically view probate as something to avoid. In certain situations, particularly when one spouse passes away and there is no debt or Medicaid involved, it may take the family estate through probate. This allows it to protect the estate for the surviving spouse and establish a testamentary spousal needs trust.

When one spouse needs long-term care, the financial impact can extend to the entire family estate. For married couples in this situation, Jurist Law Group can often protect a significant portion, and in some circumstances, the entire family estate. Arkansas has special homestead rules that can also help preserve the home while qualifying for government benefits.

Since every case is different, education forms a major part of Jurist Law Group’s mission and vision. It holds free monthly estate-planning workshops and extends its educational outreach through its website, monthly podcasts and weekend shows on local network stations.

Lifting the Burden

The relationship does not end when the documents are signed. Clients get a lawyer with the plan. They can return with questions as circumstances change, ask questions and determine whether the original strategy still works before deciding whether amendments or new legal work are needed.

For clients, the practical result is often relief. Their desires and goals may be scattered, like pieces of a puzzle without the picture on the box. Jurist Law Group helps paint a clear picture, bringing the pieces together.

A client recently returned to a workshop a couple of years after Jurist Law Group prepared her plan. She wanted to make sure she was still thinking clearly about what she had done and discuss points that came up during the workshop. She felt comfortable reaching out again for the guidance she needed.

Behind Jurist Law Group’s exceptional service is a team with hands-on experience navigating government rules and regulations and ingrained industry knowledge. This expertise is paired with a commitment to creating a client experience grounded in personal care.

Compassionate care is the hallmark of its elder law services. Jurist Law Group works to create a warm, inviting experience that goes beyond the technical side of elder law. The warmth begins at the door, where its special fourlegged member, a service dog, greets clients. For families arriving with worries about senior care, this helps ease the anxiety that comes with an uncertain road ahead.

Jurist Law Group provides sliding-scale arrangements and does its share of pro bono work to make legal support more accessible to families who need it.

Extending the Mission across Arkansas

The need for elder law guidance extends well beyond Little Rock, Arkansas. Seeing an opportunity to serve seniors and their families more broadly, Jurist Law Group is aiming to expand statewide. It is also planning to establish satellite offices around Arkansas, particularly in rural communities where families may have limited access to attorneys specializing in elder law.

Stephens wants Jurist Law Group’s growth to preserve the culture on which it was built—a boutique practice centered on personal care and lasting client relationships. He also hopes his daughter will join him after law school and, over time, carry that mission into the next generation.

Jurist Law Group earns the Top Elder Law Services 2026 recognition for helping seniors and their families face long-term care with a plan that protects what they have built, supported by the compassionate guidance that defines the firm.