Gierach and Gierach, P.A.

Who keeps a Florida law firm staffed by the same people for a quarter of a century? Gierach and Gierach, P.A. appears to, and that single fact tells you more about the place than any practice-area copy does. The firm has run out of Winter Park, in the Orlando area, since 1986, when Elroy and John Gierach opened it. Decades later, several of the people answering the phone and handling files have been there over 25 years. Continuity like that is rare in legal work, where associates churn and clients get handed around.

Estate planning and probate services

The work at Gierach and Gierach, P.A. splits into three clear lanes. Estate planning is the headline: wills, trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare proxies, advance directives, plus asset protection and the gift and estate tax planning that becomes relevant once an estate is large enough to draw IRS attention. Probate is the natural companion, covering the full span from straightforward estate administration and will probate through the messier territory of probate litigation, will contests, and real estate matters tangled up in a deceased owner's holdings.

Handling fiduciary matters over time

Fiduciary representation rounds that side out. A family can take a single relationship from drafting the documents to settling the estate years later, which spares them hunting for a new lawyer at the worst possible moment. That breadth of coverage is what makes Gierach and Gierach, P.A. a practical choice for families who want one firm to handle the full arc instead of splitting it across different practitioners.

Workers' compensation defense for employers

The third area sits a little apart: workers' compensation defense, where Gierach and Gierach, P.A. represents employers facing claims. That is a different client and a different posture from the estate work. John R. Gierach is board-certified in workers' compensation law by the Florida Bar. Board certification is not a marketing badge a lawyer can self-award; it requires demonstrated experience, peer review, and an exam. For an employer weighing who to put on a comp claim, that credential has genuine weight behind it. The fact that Gierach and Gierach, P.A. carries it on the workers' compensation side is one of the more concrete differentiators visible in the public record.

Peer recognition through AV Preeminent rating

Gierach and Gierach, P.A. holds an AV Preeminent peer review rating from Martindale-Hubbell, the top tier in that system. The point people often miss about this rating is who hands it out: other lawyers and judges, scoring on legal ability and ethics. It is not a tally of happy clients or a star average bought with review requests. For someone trying to gauge whether a small firm commands respect from its peers, client reviews and peer reviews measure genuinely different things, and only one of those two is an AV rating.

What client reviews show

On the client side, the picture is limited but consistent. A Birdeye profile for Gierach and Gierach, P.A. shows a 5-star average across 22 reviews. That is a modest sample, and anyone reading carefully should treat 22 as a data point rather than a verdict from thousands. Still, a perfect average with no obvious counterweight is a reasonable indicator for a firm of this size. There is also an Avvo profile for John R. Gierach, though the rating details did not surface in the listing, so it is one more place to look rather than a number to lean on. No Google, Yelp, or Trustpilot counts turned up, which is common for estate and probate firms whose clients rarely think to post about a will the way they would about a restaurant.

Serving Florida families from afar

Reach is broader than the Winter Park address suggests. Gierach and Gierach, P.A. serves individuals and families across Florida and specifically takes on out-of-state clients who need Florida legal help, the classic situation being someone who inherited property or holds assets in the state while living elsewhere. Estate and probate law is jurisdiction-bound, so a Florida-licensed firm accustomed to coordinating with out-of-state heirs solves a real logistical problem. The free initial consultation lowers the cost of finding out whether the fit is right.

How to reach the firm

The phone number, a fax line, and the full street address in Winter Park all sit in the listing alongside an online contact form. For a practice that pre-dates most of the internet, that is more transparency than you sometimes see; many firms publish only a form and skip the direct line. Picking up the phone and calling directly counts for something when you are about to discuss the details of an estate. The listing files under estate planning lawyers, and the board certification plus the AV rating do the rest of the work from there.

Where estate planning depth remains unclear

What the available material leaves open is depth on the estate side specifically. John Gierach's board certification is in workers' compensation, and the AV rating addresses the firm broadly, but neither is an estate-planning credential. The listing offers no named estate specialist, no published writing, and no indication of how complex an estate the firm regularly handles. The longevity and peer rating are genuine reassurances. Whether they translate into sophisticated tax and trust work that a high-net-worth estate demands, or whether the firm is best suited to straightforward wills and ordinary probate, is a question a first conversation would need to resolve. Gierach and Gierach, P.A. has clearly built a durable practice over four decades; the published record just does not show the ceiling of the estate work.