Darren Cherrington, Esq.
About Approach Why Me Practice Areas How It Works Pricing

Your business,
your property,
your family —
planned as one system.

Tax, entity, and estate planning for entrepreneurs, business owners, and investors — designed as one plan, explained in plain English.

Schedule a Consultation See What It Costs
Michigan attorney USPTO registered patent attorney Former mechanical engineer
Darren Cherrington, attorney, in a charcoal suit

The Approach

Strategic tax, entity, and estate planning — designed as one system.

Most legal planning feels like buying expensive, one-off documents from a stranger in a suit. I do it differently. I help entrepreneurs, business owners, and investors build tax, entity, and estate structures that actually fit together — and I explain every piece in plain English, so you know what you’re signing and why it’s there. We meet by video, wherever you are, and I work with clients across the country. Flat fees on the work that can be priced flat, and a clear hourly rate when it can’t.

Why Work With Me

Three reasons clients choose to work with me.

01

Strategic & Engineered Precision

I came to law from engineering. My first job out of college was as a thermal systems engineer for Hyundai-Kia — proving out vehicles in the hardest conditions on the continent, from Death Valley in July to International Falls in January. Then I spent years as a patent attorney, protecting the inventions that global automakers and Fortune 500 technology companies are built on. Same work, different asset: what I protect now is everything you’ve built — designed the way an engineer would, with every entity, trust, and tax election working as one system instead of bolted together as problems come up.

02

Casual & Transparent Collaboration

You shouldn’t need a law degree to understand your own estate plan. I explain every structure in plain English, walk through exactly why we’re building it and what it does for you, and never hide behind legal jargon. Working with me feels like talking strategy with a friend who happens to be an attorney — not sitting through an intimidating legal lecture.

03

Predictable & Transparent Pricing

Great legal work shouldn’t be a black box or a big-firm privilege. My core services are flat-fee and posted right on this page, and when work falls outside those packages, it’s a clear hourly rate quoted before we start. I’ll also steer you away from the out-of-state “silver bullets” that get sold as tax magic and mostly generate filing fees and headaches. You’ll always know what you’re paying, why it’s worth it, and what it’s protecting.

Practice Areas

Where I focus.

Tax Strategy

Many business owners overpay in taxes simply because their entity isn’t set up to take advantage of what’s already available to them. I put proven strategies to work — S-corp elections, a defensible salary-and-distribution split, and the elections that fit your actual numbers — to lower what you owe, legally.

Entity Formation & Compliance

Setting up your LLC or S-corp correctly protects your personal assets and keeps money in your pocket. I help you pick the right structure and keep the formalities and records in place so your liability protection holds up if it’s ever tested.

Estate Planning

A revocable living trust keeps your business, real estate, and hard-earned savings out of the public, costly probate process — the foundation everything else gets built on.

The Process

How the work actually goes.

Most people don’t start with all three. We start wherever the pressure is and build out from there.

01
The Foundation

Your Estate Plan

We start by building your revocable living trust along with the rest of your estate planning documents — financial powers of attorney, healthcare directives, and pour-over wills. Establishing this foundation first means every business entity or asset created later can be owned by your trust from day one.

02
The Framework

Your Business Structure

Next we structure the business itself — the entity that holds your operations, the liability protection around it, and tax elections like S-corp status that can cut self-employment tax. Because your trust owns the entity, your equity stays out of probate from the start.

03
The Portfolio

Your Wealth & Investments

Finally, we separate your long-term holdings — real estate, holding entities, and investment accounts — from the day-to-day risk of an operating business. Your plan is coordinated end to end and built to last.

Pricing

What it costs.

No mystery, and no meter running while you decide. Here’s what the core work costs, and how much of my time is built into each one.

Introductory CallUp to 1 hour by video, for new clients. A get-to-know-each-other call — your goals, where the business is headed, and one or two things that are pressing right now. $250
Entity FormationIncludes 1 hour of attorney time. $895 + state fee
Design ReviewTax planning and entity structuring, flat fee. Includes up to 1 hour reviewing your returns and business documents before we meet, a Preliminary Review call (up to 1 hour), up to 1.5 hours drafting your Master Schematic and Build Sheet, and a Final Review call (up to 1 hour) that closes out the engagement. That covers your personal return and one business return; additional entities or partnership returns run about 30 minutes each at my hourly rate, and I’ll ask before I spend the time. $1,495
Estate PlanIncludes 2 hours of attorney time. $2,495
Consultations and work outside these servicesQuoted in writing before anything starts. $450 / hour

Hire me for an Entity Formation or an Estate Plan and your $250 introductory call comes off the price. The Design Review is already priced below my hourly rate as a starting point for new clients, so the credit doesn’t stack there. Time beyond what’s included in a package is billed at $450 per hour.

Ready to build a plan that’s designed to last?

Schedule a consultation and let’s talk through what your business and family actually need. It’s a working call, not a sales pitch — we’ll cover where you are now, what’s missing, and what it would cost to fix it. And if you don’t need me yet, I’ll tell you that too.

Schedule a Consultation