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Eichman Law
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Individual attention on a few specialties
Eichman Law PLLC now in its 11th year, is owned by Karen Eichman, Esq., and has offices in Jennersville and Kennett Square.
Karen has been working in southern Chester County for nearly 40 years. A majority of that time has been spent working in and with many of the local mushroom farms, and associated businesses, and the unusual employment laws by which the farms must comply.
Karen spent what she dubs “her formative career years” working for one of the largest mushroom growers in the United States, based in Kennett Square. Karen was hired soon after the Pia family purchased the former Grocery Store Products mushroom growing farm in Kennett Square from the Clorox Company. “They literally went from about 30 employees to 300 employees overnight. There were a lot of things we all had to figure out,” she says. When she departed their employ nearly 28 years later, the organization had close to 1,000 employees.
Through those years, Karen learned a lot about business, and the mushroom industry specifically. Karen’s extensive business experience, coupled with her undergraduate dual majors in accounting and business administration, enabled her to venture out on her own and begin her law practice in 2012, where she was in a good position to understand how to operate her own business, as well as how to help other mushroom-growing farms with compliance and other legal issues.
Today, the firm mainly focuses on estate planning, guardianships, probate, employment law and contracts. “We keep our areas of practice to just a few areas of law, so that we are able to be really, really good at what we do,” she said.
Over the years, the firm’s attorneys have offered services in immigration law, divorce and family law, landlord/tenant law and criminal defense. Karen says that the current aim is to focus on just those areas of law she, personally, does best.
When it comes to employment law, Karen represents both employers and employees. With employers, she assists them with compliance, and provides defense if sued or fined, anyway. She also works with employees who have been treated illegally. “It is a win-win for everyone concerned when we work for employers. By assisting them through often complex labor and employment law issues, there is the added benefit for employees of being treated the way the law defines. This works to everyone’s best interest. We don’t [knowingly] work for employers who intentionally break the law.”
On the flip side, when an employee has been illegally treated on the job, the employee is often left feeling afraid and overwhelmed. “We try to allay their fears and give them a voice,” says Karen. Karen has successfully taken on multimillion-dollar employers on behalf of her employeeclients. Those employers often hire large, expensive firms many may find intimidating. “You don’t have to be large to be good,” Karen says. “You just need to be good.”
In the world of estate planning, the firm often receives calls about “writing a will.” That’s not always just what the client wants or needs. Karen personally works with each estate planning client and takes the time to walk through various scenarios, in order to learn exactly what the client wants to achieve, before suggesting ways to accomplish that goal. Sometimes, what they already have in place does the trick, and “we don’t hesitate to tell them.” Steadfast in the belief that clients value honesty and integrity, Karen asked “isn’t it nice when a lawyer tells a client ‘you don’t need to hire me’?”
“I also like to provide my estate planning clients with depth in their plans,” she said. “I like to prepare them for the contingency that the person they choose to be an executor or agent might not be around when the time comes. So many wills I review list only one or two people, and they may be of the same generation or older, such as my spouse, my parent, my sibling. Having people of varying ages/generations helps to make your plan works long after it is made. Sometimes a corporate entity is appropriate.”
Karen shares her experiences frequently in articles on employment law, in publications such as The Mushroom News. She is also an “expert contributor” (a term the publication uses) and frequent author of estate planning articles
for Kennett Square Neighbors.
Karen actively volunteers in the community she serves, through her membership in the American Mushroom Institute, Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce, Oxford Area Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club of Kennett Square, and she is the vice president of the board of directors of Family Promise of Southern Chester County.
Eichman Law PLLC has offices at 8 Federal Road, West Grove, and 148 W. State St., Kennett Square. It’s available by phone at 484-734-0378 and online at https:// eichmanlawgroup.com.
Courtesy photo
Owner Karen Eichman, Esq., has been working in southern Chester County for nearly 40 years. Eichman Law PLLC is now in its 11th year, with offi ces in Jennersville and Kennett Square.
