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The Blum Firm: The Dallas Estate Planning Attorney Group the Wall Street Journal Picked as a National Advisor

The Blum Firm is a Dallas estate planning attorney practice — part of a Fort Worth-founded firm the Wall Street Journal selected as one of just eight national advisors to comment on estate planning, now one of the largest concentrations of estate planning specialists in the country.

The Blum Firm — Dallas Estate Planning Attorney At a Glance

Sources: theblumfirm.com (firm website), Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, tbepc.org (Tampa Bay Estate Planning Council). Compiled August 2026.

Origin: A Specialty Firm Built to Avoid “One and Done” Planning

Marvin E. Blum founded The Blum Firm in Fort Worth in 1980, after earning his B.B.A. in Accounting from the University of Texas (graduating first in his class) and his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law (graduating second in his class) in 1978. He is both an attorney and a Certified Public Accountant, and holds the rare combination of TBLS board certification in both Estate Planning & Probate Law and Tax Law, alongside an ACTEC fellowship. The firm’s own materials describe his founding goal explicitly: to build a firm where estate planning is a sustained relationship rather than a one-time transaction — “we listen, we care, and we create a thoughtful plan for your family,” as the firm puts it.

That specialty focus scaled into what the firm describes as one of the largest concentrations of estate planning attorneys in the United States, with offices added in Dallas, Austin, and Houston alongside the original Fort Worth office. The Dallas office is led by partner Jeffrey S. Hamilton, who earned his J.D. from St. Mary’s University School of Law and an LL.M. in Taxation from SMU’s Dedman School of Law, and who is himself TBLS board certified in Estate Planning and Probate Law and a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy — a credential focused specifically on charitable giving strategy inside estate plans.

Where the Firm Concentrates

The firm practices estate and tax planning exclusively, with named specialties in asset protection planning, planning for closely held businesses and business succession, charitable and family legacy planning, fiduciary litigation, and guardianships. Blum’s own individual practice, per the firm and Super Lawyers, centers on ultra-high-net-worth families and closely held businesses — the firm’s marketing describes serving “hundreds of high-net-worth families, several with a net worth exceeding $1 billion.” Fort Worth partner David C. Bakutis is separately recognized as a leading fiduciary litigator in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex specifically, giving the firm in-house litigation capacity when an estate plan later becomes contested. Readers comparing options can see how this profile fits alongside other Estate Planning & Probate attorneys covered on Awesome Attorneys.

Notable Work

As a transactional estate and tax planning firm, The Blum Firm doesn’t generate reportable trial verdicts in the ordinary course. Its most distinctive documented credential is national media standing: the Wall Street Journal selected Marvin Blum as one of just eight national advisors chosen to provide estate planning commentary (September 2010), and Worth magazine separately named him one of the “Nation’s Top 100 Attorneys.” Blum has also been quoted by the New York Times and serves on the Editorial Advisory Committee for Trusts & Estates magazine — a peer-selected role inside the specialty’s own trade publication.

Client Voice

The firm’s published client feedback, drawn from its own website, includes several longer-form, sustained-relationship accounts consistent with the firm’s stated multi-year planning model:

“I am happy to report that, due to your advice and guidance during the early years after Bill’s death and Andy’s wise counsel since, our family is in the 10% and thriving! … I am most grateful and thank you for your guidance and ongoing support.” — client review, firm website

“We could not have made it through this lawsuit without your expertise, your knowledge, and your ability to understand our pain and emotions.” — client review, firm website

These are drawn from the firm’s own published testimonials; Awesome Attorneys did not independently verify reviewer identities, a standard limitation across attorney-published testimonials.

Beyond the Courtroom

Blum’s civic involvement is concentrated in North Texas arts and philanthropic institutions: he serves as Treasurer for the Fort Worth Symphony and the Texas Cultural Trust, and as Secretary/Treasurer of the Pat & Emmitt Smith Charities, alongside board membership with the Multicultural Alliance and the B Sharp Youth Music Program. The Blum Firm itself received the Professional Advisor of the Year award from the Community Foundation of North Texas (2014), a recognition tied directly to the firm’s charitable-planning practice rather than a general civic honor.

Recognition

The strongest credentials here are the TBLS board certifications held across the firm (including Blum’s dual certification in Estate Planning & Probate and Tax Law, and Hamilton’s certification in Estate Planning & Probate specifically) and the multiple ACTEC fellowships — all peer-nominated, competency-vetted honors. The Best Lawyers in America inclusion (Blum: 2015–present, his ninth consecutive year as of a recent firm announcement) is a peer-review process. By contrast, “Top 100 Lawyer” placements from Thomson Reuters/Texas Super Lawyers, 360 West magazine recognitions, and D Magazine directory listings are a mix of peer-nomination and directory-style recognitions — real signals of standing, but not equivalent in rigor to the TBLS board certifications themselves.

Texas Legal Backdrop

Readers considering sophisticated Texas estate and tax planning should understand a few structural rules, presented as general information and not legal advice. Texas generally requires a will to be admitted to probate within four years of the testator’s death, with limited exceptions (Tex. Estates Code § 256.003). Trusts created in Texas are governed by the Texas Trust Code (Tex. Prop. Code ch. 111–115). On the federal side — central to this firm’s ultra-high-net-worth practice — the federal estate and gift tax exemption is unified and adjusted annually for inflation; estates or lifetime gifts exceeding the threshold in a given year may owe federal estate or gift tax regardless of Texas’s own lack of a state estate tax, and sophisticated planning techniques like grantor trusts, family limited partnerships, and charitable planning vehicles are commonly used to manage that exposure for high-net-worth families. Guardianship proceedings in Texas require clear and convincing evidence of incapacity before a guardian is appointed, with courts directed to consider less restrictive alternatives first (Tex. Estates Code § 1101.101) — directly relevant to the firm’s guardianship practice.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

The Blum Firm’s differentiator is scale combined with genuine, verifiable specialization at the very top of the estate planning market: a firm built for 45 years around nothing but estate and tax planning, with a founder who reached national-media-advisor status and a Dallas partner independently board certified in the specialty. For an ultra-high-net-worth family or business owner whose estate plan genuinely requires sophisticated tax and asset-protection strategy, that combination of depth and specialization is difficult for a smaller general-practice firm to match.

The honest trade-off is fit: this is a firm built for complex, high-net-worth planning, and its scale and specialization are unlikely to be cost-effective for a routine, moderate-estate will and power-of-attorney package. Prospective clients should also confirm directly which attorney would handle their specific matter, since the firm’s credentials described here span multiple offices and named partners rather than any single assigned attorney.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys’ editorial team in August 2026. Primary source: the firm’s own published website (theblumfirm.com), including its attorney biography, firm history, and testimonials pages. Secondary sources: Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, and the Tampa Bay Estate Planning Council’s biography page for Marvin Blum. Where sources gave varying figures for the firm’s age (“over 30 years,” “over 38 years,” “over 40 years” across different-dated materials), the firm’s own 1980 founding date was treated as authoritative. The firm did not commission, pay for, or pre-approve this article. All credentials and claims are attributed to their sources; past results do not guarantee or predict future outcomes. This article is general information, not legal advice.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Facts, figures, and claims in this profile were independently researched from public sources as described in the Methodology & Sourcing section above and are current only as of the research date; they are subject to change without notice, and readers should confirm any detail directly with the firm before relying on it. This notice supplements, and does not replace, the Attorney Advertising Notice at the top of this profile.