Mike Biederstadt

First and foremost, congratulations on finding yourself on the Personal Family Lawyer site and taking action to begin your journey of protecting your family, wealth and legacy by getting a plan in place!  Since 2019, my experience with NLBM and PFL’s is that this is amazing group of like-minded and caring attorneys who are looking to provide families with the care, compassion and competence that your family deserves in designing a plan to protect your family and proactively design the legacy that you will leave behind. 

My name is Michael Biederstadt and I am a certified mediator, collaborative divorce and estate planning attorney.  I like to tell people that I am a recovering litigator and divorce attorney who saw the light. After nearly twenty years of witnessing the mental, emotional, and financial devastation of families at the hands of an adversarial legal system, I considered hanging up the towel and leaving the practice of law altogether. After years of spending my days in a courtroom, I saw far too much pain and the long-lasting effect of divorce and domestic violence. Even worse, the life-long effect litigation was having on children caught up in the controversy. It was heartbreaking and I realized that I could no longer be a part of the problem, perpetuating conflict in a broken legal system, so I made the decision to find a better way to serve my community, or a new career.   

From 2017-2020, I became a certified mediator, trained in collaborative divorce and estate planning. After doing so, I quickly discovered that my experience in courtrooms across the state of Illinois and front row seat to the devastation that comes along with probate and divorce litigation allowed me to approach planning from a different perspective. There is a significant overlap in these areas of the law and my experience allowed me to identify obvious solutions to prevent common problems that weren’t being offered to the public. It became apparent that when it came to life’s most common legal problems: Death, Disability and Divorce, the public simply wasn’t aware of their options and how to avoid the potential pitfalls that can destroy their family financially, morally and emotionally along the way. To cure these all-too-common problems, I came to the realization that if couples were simply educated before marriage, or as a young family, and put a plan in place before anyone was unhappy, sick or dead, a majority of life’s most common legal problems could be prevented to keep families out of court and out of conflict. That discovery is what led to the formation of my firm, Family, Wealth and Legacy Legal Solutions (FWLLS), located in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois.  If you’d like to learn more about what we do, please take a look at our website and give us a call to determine if we’d be a good fit to serve your family. 

To fulfill the standard requirements of a professional bio: I graduated from Loyola University and earned my Juris Doctorate in 2½ years from Valparaiso School of Law. In 2014, a former client and I founded Rise From the Ashes, a non-profit providing legal assistance to victims of domestic violence in Illinois. After practicing for boutique law firms in the Chicagoland area for over a decade, in 2016 I opened my law firm, Biederstadt Law, P.C., and in 2023, I founded Family Wealth and Legacy Legal Solutions (FWLLS) to better serve Illinois’ families, their children and the legacy they will leave behind.

I have now dedicated my life and legal practice to providing education and solutions to potential problems before the damage has been done, and if any bumps arise along the way, to help families settle disputes in a healthy manner, to make sure your family will never see the inside of a divorce or probate courtroom. 

On a personal level, I am an avid reader, who enjoys anything related to the markets, finance, estate planning and personal development. I am a proud husband to my wife Kristin and my baby girl, Kaia.  As a family, we love scuba diving, hiking and traveling (the Morton Arboretum, Kauai, Snowbird and Grand Cayman are our family’s home away from home).  

Education: 

• Standford University: National Student Leadership Conference (1998)
• Loyola University Chicago, B.S. (2004)
• Valparaiso University School of Law, J.D. (2006)
• Northwestern University: Mediation Certification  (2017)
• Collaborative Divorce Illinois: Collaborative Law Training (2018)

Associations: 

• DuPage County Bar Association (2007)
• Kane County Bar Association (2007)
• Will County Bar Association (2020)
• Illinois State Bar Association (2016)
• Collaborative Divorce Illinois: formerly Collaborative Law Institute of IL (2018)
• New Law Business Model:  Personal Family Lawyer (2019)
• WealthCounsel (2020)
• DuPage County Estate Planning Council (2024)
• Fox Valley Estate Planning Council (2024)
• Lisle Planning and Zoning Commissioner (2019-2024)
• The Sheridan at Oakbrook: Senior Lifestyle Partnership (2023)
• Lombard Chamber of Commerce (2023)
• Chamber 630: Chamber of Commerce in Downers Grove (2024)
• PADI: Certified Scuba Diver (2014)
• Sigma Pi (2000)