Whitfield & Hayes is a four-attorney firm advising families and family-owned businesses across South Carolina on the long, careful work of estate planning, trust administration, and succession. We do one kind of law, and we do it well.
The work is patient.
The relationship, long.
We represent families our founders represented forty years ago, and their grandchildren now sit in the same chairs in our conference room. That continuity is the work.
The work the firm was built on. Comprehensive estate planning, revocable and irrevocable trusts, charitable giving structures, and the careful execution of plans we drafted decades earlier.
Serving alongside or as successor trustee, with thirty-plus years of administrative experience across closely-held family trusts. We handle the routine work and the difficult conversations with equal care.
Counsel to closely-held and family-owned businesses across the Carolinas — from initial buy-sell agreements through generational transition. We work alongside accountants and wealth advisors as a coordinated team.
When estate or trust disputes cannot be resolved otherwise, we represent fiduciaries and beneficiaries in the South Carolina Probate and Circuit Courts. Reluctantly, thoroughly, and with discretion.
Daughter of the firm's founder, Margaret joined the practice in 1991 after five years at Robinson Bradshaw. She leads the trusts & estates practice and serves as successor trustee for a dozen long-standing family clients.
A founding partner of the firm in 1986, Robert focuses on closely-held business succession and probate litigation. He has tried matters in every probate court east of Columbia and represented three generations of several local families.
Eleanor joined the firm in 2009 from the Charleston office of K&L Gates. Her practice focuses on charitable planning, irrevocable trust design, and the increasingly complex landscape of state and federal estate taxation.
Most of our clients have been with the firm for two or three decades. We plan in that arc — not for the engagement in front of us, but for the relationships and the documents that will outlast it.
If a client cannot read their own will and explain what it does, the planning has failed. We write documents that hold up in court and at a kitchen table. Both audiences matter.
Flat fees for nearly all planning work; hourly billing only where the matter genuinely requires it. Engagement letters are signed before work begins, and there are no surprises in the final invoice.
Most engagements begin with a one-hour, no-charge introductory consultation — either at the firm's offices on Broad Street, by video, or at a location of the client's choosing. We will be candid about whether we are a fit before any retainer is discussed.
The introductory consultation is by appointment. To schedule, please write to the firm directly — Margaret or Eleanor will respond within one business day. A brief description of the matter helps us route the request, but is not required.