Why these prices.
Not a partner draw.
I'm Elton Johnson. After twenty years as a uniformed attorney in the U.S. Army JAG Corps — including combat-deployment service in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom — I retired in July 2025 and opened this practice in Elizabethtown.
This is a second-career practice, not a partner draw. I'm not stretching to hit a number. I need enough to keep the office running and the lights on. That's a different financial shape than a firm with associates to support and equity partners to compensate.
Legal help as service, not transaction.
In the military, lawyers serve service members at no cost. A 20-year-old Private with a question about a will, a custody concern, a power-of-attorney problem — they get a JAG attorney for free. That's the ethic I was trained in for two decades, and it's the ethic I'm carrying forward in civilian practice.
I can't offer Cornerstone documents for free — I run a private firm now, not a JAG legal-assistance office — but I can offer them at prices low enough that “I can't afford a lawyer” stops being a barrier for ordinary Kentuckians. A clean Kentucky will at $99. A durable power of attorney at $79. A healthcare power of attorney at $59. An LLC formation at $299. Real numbers, real Kentucky-licensed attorney behind every one.
Most Kentucky attorneys don't publish flat fees. I do.
Most Kentucky boutique estate-planning firms don't publish their fees online. The standard pattern is “schedule a consultation, then we'll quote you.” That's not a criticism — it reflects a real practice constraint: when each matter requires custom hourly work, you can't predict the cost.
I can publish prices because my workflow is structured differently. AI tools handle the first-draft assembly on the routine documents — wills, POAs, advance directives, LLC papers, the categories where Kentucky law sets the shape and the variation is in your specific facts. That cuts the drafting time materially. My attorney review then focuses on the parts that need judgment: does this clause fit your family? does this beneficiary designation cover the actual scenario? is there a special situation we need to flag?
The result: predictable cost-per-matter for me, predictable price for you, written on the page before you commit.
“Doesn't flat-fee pricing encourage cutting corners?”
It's a fair question, and the traditional concern is real: when a firm gets paid the same whether they spend two hours or twenty on your matter, the incentive runs toward two. That's a legitimate criticism of poorly-designed flat-fee structures.
Here's how it actually works in this practice. AI handles the routine first draft, which means my hours-per-matter go down — but the attorney-review time per matter holds steady or goes up, because I have more time to look at the parts that need judgment. The flat fee covers a workflow where the high-judgment portion is more thorough, not less.
I'm also the only attorney on your matter. There's no associate hiding a missed issue from a partner. The review happens at my desk before the document leaves the firm. KBA Ethics Opinion E-457 (March 15, 2024) governs this AI-assisted workflow under Kentucky's Rules of Professional Conduct, and I sign off on every output.
The documents that protect your people shouldn't be a luxury.
Estate planning, probate, LLC formation, real-property planning — these aren't luxuries. They're the documents that keep the people who depend on you protected when you can't. They're also among the most common things people defer because the cost feels prohibitive.
If you've been putting off a will because you can't justify a four-figure fee for a one-page document, that's the problem this practice exists to solve. The $99 will isn't a shortcut version. It's a real Kentucky will, drafted from your answers, reviewed by Durward Elton Johnson (KY Bar # 101547), delivered with execution instructions, valid under KRS 394.040 the moment you sign it properly.
That's the math.