Client service and a commitment to our clients’ success have long been hallmarks of ZSWS, and remain bedrock principles today. There may be many things to know and learn about our firm, although to us none is more significant than the fact that we view our commitment to the success of our clients as our first and foremost priority.
Each of our practitioners focuses the substantial majority of his or her time in a discrete number of practice areas. This approach, combined with the sophistication of our clients’ legal needs, creates a synergy that enables our practitioners to develop a significant level of in-depth knowledge in their respective substantive areas. Our overall approach to practice development, complemented by our culture of teamwork and client service, means our clients are satisfied that they receive not only responsive and personalized attention, but also useful, measured and confident advice that stems from years of training and experience with the specific issues at hand.
The scope of our industry and legal experience is reflective of the region’s broad mix of business and industry. Our attorneys routinely advise clients in matters related to the following representative industries and practice areas:
Although we devote substantial time and energy to serving the direct legal needs of our clients, community service is also deeply imbedded in our firm culture. The firm and its members devote significant time and resources to civic and community activities, and serve as leaders of numerous boards and initiatives. Similarly, several of our members are actively involved in local and state bar activities. And, as leaders in our respective fields of practice, we frequently serve as faculty members for legal education seminars.
With roots that stem to the first half the twentieth century and a broad institutional clientele – many of whom we have served for several decades – we have a rich history to call upon. Yet, in today’s ever-changing legal and business environment, our firm is equally defined by our consistent pursuit to stay on the leading edge of our profession. Between substantial investments in both information technology and legal education, and a continuing commitment to the recruitment of talented colleagues, we strive to remain a leader in all aspects of client service.
Founded in 1970
50 people in their team
Our attorneys have extensive experience in many areas of Family Law which include:
• Divorce
• Child Support, Custody and Visitation and Distribution of Assets
• Paternity
• Protective Orders
• Post-Divorce Modifications
• Prenuptial Agreements
We understand that Family Law matters can be one of the most traumatic and painful experiences that an individual can experience. Our Attorneys will communicate and work with you to reach the best resolution for your situation
Our adoption and guardianship attorneys, led by Timothy J. Hubert a fellow of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, skillfully lead prospective adoptive parents and guardians through the legal process. We routinely represent a licensed child placement agency in guardianship and adoption proceedings.
We are also experienced in representing prospective adoptive parents in private (non-agency sponsored) adoptions, special needs adoptions, and step-parent adoptions. We know and understand the legal issues that face prospective adoptive parents and guardians. We also understand the emotional and financial toll that adoption and guardianship proceedings take on prospective adoptive parents and guardians.
Our experience and knowledge renders our attorneys uniquely qualified to guide clients through adoption and guardianship proceedings with legal skill and compassion.
Ziemer, Stayman, Weitzel & Shoulders provides a full-range of legal services to area banks and financial institutions.
In addition to providing counsel regarding banking regulations, the firm also provides counsel relating to Litigation, Compliance, Lending and Security, Guaranties, Letters of Credit and Banking-Related Opinion work. The firm represents national banks, state chartered banks, and has been general counsel to the region’s largest bank for over sixty years.
The firm’s significant banking experience also benefits its corporate and individual clients by allowing it to provide experienced advice on negotiating and structuring loans, restructuring existing loans and structuring seller financed mergers and acquisitions.
Ziemer, Stayman, Weitzel & Shoulders Bankruptcy Group primarily represents creditors. The firm provides counsel to secured creditors, creditor committees, debtors, and asset purchasers in the areas of workouts, bankruptcies, and loan restructuring. The firm has also represented clients in bankruptcy cases throughout the United States.
Our bankruptcy attorneys have significant experience litigating the wide variety of actions incidental to bankruptcy matters. Such experience includes claims issues, adversary proceedings, preference proceedings, reclamation rights, and confirmation issues
Business Services
ZSWS’ Business Services Group regularly provides general corporate representation and negotiates and documents contracts and complex transactions for both our publicly traded and closely held corporate clients. Our corporate attorneys work closely with the attorneys in all the other practice groups at ZSWS to provide the most efficient and appropriate legal services to corporate clients.
The Business Services Group at ZSWS has developed an outstanding reputation for providing a broad range of corporate legal services to both large and small businesses, predominantly in the tri-state area. ZSWS has consistently met the challenges of its clients by assembling a team of highly qualified and motivated attorneys to address all corporate issues arising in its clients’ day-to-day operations, including advice to directors and officers, contract law, mergers and acquisitions, state and local taxation and insurance law.
Our Business Services Group represents businesses in numerous industries, including, among others, manufacturing, insurance, service, real estate developers, financial institutions, healthcare organizations, gas and electric utilities and marketers, coal, oil and gas companies, construction, hospitality, gaming organizations, school corporations and religious entities. Many of our clients, including growth companies, expanding local businesses, and major international companies, look to our firm for all or the majority of their legal services. Our clients also include national companies whose needs require assistance with regional, or local matters or with specific transactions.
We assist our clients with all aspects of their general corporate and transactional needs. Services offered by our Business Services Group include, among others:
Our Business Services Group also provides a full-range of legal services to area banks and financial institutions. Our significant banking experience also benefits our corporate and individual clients by allowing us to provide experienced advice on negotiating and structuring loans, restructuring existing loans and structuring seller-financed mergers and acquisitions.
The healthcare industry is one of the most highly regulated areas in law. The Firm’s considerable experience in the many facets of law regulating the healthcare industry has been developed over decades of representation of the regions largest healthcare providers.
The Firm represents hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home healthcare groups, physician groups and individual physicians in a variety of complex legal issues including sales acquisitions, medical malpractice actions, risk management issues and advises in day-to-day operational issues. This experience and understanding allow us to tackle the complex issues that arise in this industry to provide practical, realistic solutions for our clients.
We are trusted advisors. Lawyers in the firm’s Estate Planning and Probate Practice Group have a strong reputation as trusted advisors to the region’s most successful businesses and individuals. Protection of our clients’ wealth for the benefit of future generations is of the utmost importance to us. Our lawyers use their considerable skills and experience to assist clients in achieving and transferring personal wealth, all while reducing applicable taxes.
We have a broad range of clients. Lawyers in the firm’s Estate Planning and Probate Practice Group have a diverse set of clients. Our lawyers routinely represent and advise clients in a range as broad as those having millions of dollars of wealth to those on a fixed monthly income.
We work with others to develop and implement the plan. Lawyers in the firm’s Estate Planning and Probate Practice Group routinely work with other wealth-planning professionals, such as bankers, accountants, financial planners and insurance agents, to develop wealth protection and transfer strategies, and to also successfully administer and settle estates and trusts. Our approach to estate planning and wealth transfers is that a client is typically best served by a team of qualified professionals working together to achieve that client’s goals.
We do a lot for our clients. The practice areas of the lawyers in the firm’s Estate Planning and Probate Practice Group are broad and diverse. We routinely advise clients as to:
In today’s global economy, we recognize that our clients can enhance their productivity and profitability through the use of foreign workers. Our attorneys work with clients to provide temporary and permanent solutions in the expanding field of immigration matters.
The Immigration Practice Group’s experience includes:
• I-9 Compliance
• Citizenship for U.S. Residents
• Work Visas
• Change of status
• Employment-Based Temporary Visas
(H-1B, H-2B, H-2A, L-1, E-1, E-2, R-1, TN, etc.)
• Family-based temporary visas (i.e., K-1, K-3)
• Employment and family-based immigration
• Labor Certifications (PERM)
• National Interest Waivers
• Adjustment of status
Our experience in dealing with government agencies responsible for overseeing immigration allows us to effectively respond to the challenges facing employers who wish to employ foreign workers. Our experience also allows us to effectively represent individuals who seek to obtain family-based immigration benefits such as lawful permanent residence and naturalization.
Employment claims and litigation are an ever-increasing part of doing business, and because of this fact, one of the most valuable services that our labor and employment law counselors provide is assisting employers in minimizing employment problems and the risk of lawsuits and claims before they arise through sound planning, counseling and training. We help employers create effective and defensible policies, such as those concerning workplace safety and health, positive employee relations, family and medical leave, absenteeism, drug testing and wage and hour.
We also understand that one of the best measures of prevention is to make sure that those responsible for the day-to-day contact with employees receive appropriate training in lawful and effective employment practices. Our labor and employment professionals provide our clients’ managers and supervisors with interactive and cost-effective training on key employment issues, such as:
• Workplace Harassment
• Positive Employee Relations
• Defensible Discipline
• Managing the FMLA, ADA and Workers Compensation
We also offer a variety of other preventive legal services for our clients, including wage and hour compliance audits, preparation of essential employment documents (such as applications, handbooks and personnel policies), positive employee relations and labor relations and vulnerability audits.
Jim Casey, a partner in the firm, is a contributing author to the Employment and Labor Law Handbook for Indiana Lawyers (2014 Edition) published by the Indiana State Bar Association, Labor and Benefits Law Section.
Our firm’s litigation and employment law professionals have many years of experience in handling complex employment discrimination and wrongful discharge claims. We defend our clients in litigation in the state and federal courts and before various federal, state and local civil rights agencies. Our Employment Litigation Group is devoted to defending clients in jury trials against allegations of wrongful discharge and civil rights, FMLA, ADEA and ADA violations.
Our labor counselors collectively have practiced in the area of traditional labor law for well over 96 years. They have extensive knowledge and training in assisting employers in defending unfair labor practices charges before the NLRB. Our professionals have represented employers before the National Labor Relations Board and in Federal Court in connection with union representation elections, collective bargaining agreements and illegal strikes. We have also successfully represented clients against strikers and their unions in connection with the host of labor concerns that are unique to the construction and utility industries, such as secondary boycotts, project labor agreements and picketing with unlawful objectives.
Given the geographically diverse nature of our clientele, we have helped many employers located in Indiana and elsewhere assimilate into the global economy through our immigration practice. Our employment law professionals have handled numerous immigration matters for our clients and have been successful in enabling many persons to enter, remain and work in the United States to the benefit of the employing organization.
As part of our policy to work with our clients as part of their human resources team, our labor and employment attorneys have helped assist numerous employers in developing procedures and practices to minimize the number and severity of workers’ compensation claims and the cost of insurance. Our experienced workers’ compensation practitioners also represent insured and self-insured employers with claims pending against them before the Worker’s Compensation Board and in state court.
Our firm’s employment law professionals have vast experience in providing its clients with a better understanding of how Indiana and other states’ unemployment insurance programs work. Wm. Michael Schiff, a partner in the firm, is the author of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s Unemployment Compensation Handbook, a comprehensive reference tool now in its 6th Edition, that discusses the procedures used in unemployment hearings and appeals, suggestions for representing the employer’s interests in such hearings and a description of the various forms and filing requirements established by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
Ziemer, Stayman, Weitzel & Shoulders represents individuals and businesses in regard to the many complex issues that can arise in real estate transactions. The firm routinely advises and represents clients in the following areas of real estate law:
• Acquisition and Sales
• Lending and Financing
• Land Use, Environmental and Zoning
• Development & Construction
• Leasing
• Condominium, Subdivision and Community Development
• Real Estate Licensing and Agency Law Matters
• Title
• Condemnation and Eminent Domain
Our real estate group has vast experience working with developers, brokers and local, state and federal government officials in achieving its clients’ goals. The firm regularly represents clients before local government governing bodies such as zoning boards, county councils and city councils.
Our Litigation and Appellate Advocacy Practice Group assists clients throughout the region in all aspects of trial and Appellate work, aggressively representing clients in proceedings before State and Federal Courts and Government Agencies.
We have experience across virtually every area of business litigation, including: anti-trust and trade regulation, employment discrimination, franchise suits, insurance defense, medical malpractice, securities, mineral and energy, product liability and contract disputes. Our attorneys also recognize that in some cases, alternatives to Litigation, such as Arbitration or Mediation, may be in the client’s best interest.
The diversity of experience within the firm allows us to effectively serve our clients in litigation-related matters by using a team approach to problem-solving that serves to reach an effective and efficient outcome for our clients. We call upon the expertise of attorneys in various disciplines throughout the firm in consultation with our clients to assure that the client’s needs are addressed. This philosophy and approach enables us to give our clients specialized expertise in a specific legal area while at the same time avoiding unnecessary, duplicative work and expense.
Ultimately, our objective is to provide our clients with value by providing the highest quality of representation while keeping an eye on monitoring costs. This overriding goal leads to our successfully resolving disputes in a prompt, effective and cost-efficient manner.
