When people hear the words estate planning, they often think about legal documents, wills, and paperwork. But for LaShawnda Jones, estate planning is something far more meaningful. It’s about protecting families, preserving dreams, and ensuring that the love people spend a lifetime building doesn’t unravel when they’re no longer here.
As the owner and Managing Attorney of Legacy Design Counsel, LaShawnda has dedicated her career to helping families, entrepreneurs, and professionals prepare not only for life’s uncertainties but for future generations. Her mission is simple yet profound: Design the Plan. Protect the Dream.
Through her signature Life and Legacy Planning process, she transforms conversations that many people avoid into empowering opportunities for clarity, confidence, and peace of mind.
“We’re not just creating legal documents,” she explains. “We’re helping people make intentional decisions about the people and the life they’ve worked so hard to build.”
A Vision Born from Purpose
Although LaShawnda has practiced law since 2007 and founded her firm in 2008, her entrepreneurial journey wasn’t driven by prestige—it was fueled by service.
Working both as an attorney and a federal government financial analyst, she noticed something troubling: families were making life-changing decisions without the legal protection necessary to preserve their futures.
She saw business owners without succession plans.
Parents without guardianship plans.
Families leaving behind confusion instead of clarity.
Rather than accept the status quo, she built a law practice centered on education, compassion, and relationships—one that helps clients understand not only what they need, but why it matters.
That commitment has become the heartbeat of Legacy Design Counsel.
Success Doesn’t Always Look Like Success
From the outside, LaShawnda appears to balance it all.
She leads a thriving law firm.
She serves families throughout Georgia and Missouri.
She’s active in community leadership, serves on nonprofit boards, hosts educational workshops, and remains deeply involved in her children’s lives.
But behind every accomplishment has been sacrifice.
For years she balanced full-time federal employment, motherhood, and building her legal practice after hours. Today, she’s navigating one of the most challenging seasons of her career—not practicing law, but learning what it truly means to lead and scale a business.
“I’m learning leadership while actively leading,” she says.
It’s required her to create systems, delegate responsibilities, develop revenue strategies, and embrace lessons no law school could teach.
Rather than allowing uncertainty to discourage her, she has chosen to remain teachable.
She invests in coaching.
She seeks wisdom.
She prays through difficult decisions.
Most importantly, she continues moving forward.
The Strength Found in Becoming
Like many successful women, LaShawnda knows self-doubt well.
As a first-generation attorney and a Black woman entering rooms where few looked like her, she often questioned whether she truly belonged.
But experience taught her an invaluable truth:
Confidence doesn’t always come before action.
Sometimes confidence arrives because you took the step anyway.
Her setbacks have replaced perfectionism with resilience and strengthened her compassion for the families she now serves.
Every probate case reminds her that planning isn’t simply about wealth.
It’s about protecting relationships.
It’s about preserving peace.
It’s about making sure loved ones aren’t left navigating unnecessary confusion during life’s hardest moments.
The Woman Beyond the Law
While her professional accomplishments are impressive, LaShawnda’s greatest title is one she treasures most:
Mom.
Motherhood has shaped every decision she’s made.
When she first launched her practice, flexibility mattered because she refused to miss the moments that mattered most—field trips, sporting events, and the everyday milestones that often become lifelong memories.
Even today, as her children grow older, they remain her greatest grounding force.
“They remind me that success isn’t just about what I build,” she says. “It’s about how I show up at home.”
Outside the office, she enjoys traveling, spending time with family and friends, serving in her community, and creating meaningful experiences that remind her life isn’t measured solely by professional achievements.
Learning the Power of Grace
One of the greatest lessons this season has taught LaShawnda isn’t about business.
It’s about herself.
She’s learning to forgive herself.
To release perfection.
To accept that growth often looks like adjusting instead of arriving.
She has become intentional about protecting her peace by establishing healthier boundaries, investing in her emotional well-being, and giving herself permission to rest without guilt.
For a woman accustomed to carrying so much, that may be her greatest act of courage.
Because even leaders need space to breathe.
A Legacy That Lives Beyond Documents
Every day, LaShawnda meets families who believed they had prepared for the future—only to discover incomplete paperwork, outdated plans, or no plan at all.
She has witnessed firsthand the heartbreak that follows.
That is why her work is so deeply personal.
She hopes her legacy will be measured not simply by the legal documents she prepares, but by the families she protects.
The businesses that survive.
The children who inherit opportunity instead of conflict.
The entrepreneurs whose life’s work continues because someone planned ahead.
She wants people to understand that estate planning isn’t reserved for the wealthy.
It’s for anyone who loves someone.
Anyone building something.
Anyone hoping today’s sacrifices become tomorrow’s blessings.
A Woman Worth Watching
Being recognized as a Woman2Watch is more than an award for LaShawnda.
It’s a reminder that purpose is still unfolding.
She embraces the recognition not because she believes she has arrived, but because she’s still growing.
Still learning.
Still becoming.
Her journey is proof that leadership doesn’t require perfection.
It requires faith.
Consistency.
Compassion.
And the courage to keep showing up.
For LaShawnda Jones, every will drafted, every family protected, every entrepreneur empowered, and every difficult conversation navigated is another brick in a legacy built to last.
Because at the end of the day, true wealth isn’t simply what we leave behind.
It’s the peace, preparation, and love we leave with the people who matter most.
Connect with LaShawnda Jones
Legacy Design Counsel, LLC
352 University Avenue SW, Unit N106
Atlanta, Georgia (Pittsburgh Yards)
Website: www.ldclegal.com
Instagram: @LDCLegal
Facebook: @LDCLegal
Whether you’re protecting your family, securing your business, or planning your legacy, LaShawnda believes the best time to prepare is before a crisis arrives—because the greatest gift you can leave your loved ones isn’t uncertainty, it’s peace of mind.
