J. Amber Drew
Partner
Ms. Drew concentrates her practice in estate planning, probate and trust administration, and guardianships. She advises clients regarding estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax issues, as well as non-tax issues, such as planning for retirement, providing for family members with special needs, and planning for varied family situations. She prepares wills and trusts of all levels of complexity and handles estate and trust administration including litigated matters. Amber is the Treasurer for the Fox Valley Estate Planning Council, is on the Advisory Board of the Naperville Area Human Society, is past Chair of the Illinois State Bar Association’s (ISBA) Elder Law Section Council, a member of the ISBA’s Trusts and Estates Council, and is on the Northern Illinois Food Bank’s Planned Giving Advisors Council. She is a former member of the DuPage Foundation’s Next Generation Initiatives Steering Committee.
Prior to joining CCM, Amber worked as an estates and trusts attorney for many years at a law firm in Urbana, Illinois. She was a mediator with the Sixth Circuit’s Foreclosure Mediation Program. Amber served as Treasurer of the Champaign County Bar Association for most of that time, as well as spending many years on the board of the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum. Amber continues to engage in philanthropic work in connection with and outside of her work at CCM.
Practice Admissions, Affiliations & Memberships
Admissions
- Supreme Court of Illinois
- Supreme Court of Minnesota
- Supreme Court of Washington D.C.
- U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Central Districts of Illinois
- Prior Member of Supreme Court of New Jersey
Memberships
- Illinois State Bar Association
- DuPage County Bar Association
- DuPage County Estate Planning Council
- Fox Valley Estate Planning Council
- Illinois Guardianship Association
- Kane County Bar Association
- Minnesota State Bar Association
Current Board/Committee Positions
- Fox Valley Estate Planning Council (Treasurer, Board Member)
- Naperville Area Humane Society (Advisory Board)
- Illinois State Bar Association Elder Law Section Council (Ex-Officer, past chair, vice chair, and secretary)
- Illinois State Bar Association Trusts & Estates Section Council
- Northern Illinois Food Bank Planned Giving Advisory Committee
Affiliations
- DuPage Foundation – Next Generation Initiative Steering Committee
- East Central Illinois Women Attorneys Assoc. (past Treasurer and VP of Membership)
- Champaign Bar Association (past Treasurer)
- Eastern Illinois Estate Planning Council
- Former member of the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA)
- Junior League (past Treasurer)
- PEO
- Orpheum Children’s Science Museum (past board member)
Education
- Juris Doctor, University of Illinois College of Law (2007)
- Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, DePauw University (1999)
Articles/Resources
- Estate Administration from Start to Finish: Marshalling Assets, J. A. Drew, Ch. III, National Business Institute – CLE; Seminar Presenter, Dec. 5, 2016
- Estate Administration from Start to Finish: Handling Creditor Claims and Debt, J. A. Drew, Ch. III, National Business Institute – CLE; Seminar Presenter, Dec. 5, 2016
- Don’t Forget Dad! Short-term Guardianships Aren’t Just for the Kids, ISBA: Elder Law, Feb. 2016 (reprinted in ISBA: Trusts & Estates, Nov. 2016)
- Protecting Assets While Qualifying for Medicaid: Trust Based Medicaid Planning in Detail, J. A. Drew, Ch. III, National Business Institute – CLE; Seminar Presenter, Mar. 10, 2015
- Protecting Assets While Qualifying for Medicaid: Using Special Needs Trusts, J. A. Drew, Ch. IV, National Business Institute – CLE; Seminar Presenter, Mar. 10, 2015
- Webber, Carl and J. Amber Drew, Every Will Needs a Paragraph Allowing for a Supplemental Needs Trust, ISBA: Elder Law, Apr. 2013, vol. 18, no. 4
- “A Comprehensive Look at Guardianships” Amber Drew and Roaa Al-Heeti – continuing legal education presentation to the Champaign County Bar Association, Mar. 23, 2013
- The Military, Veterans, and the Law: A Primer for Young Lawyers, ISBA: Young Lawyers Division, Jun. 2012
- Death of Dawn Donut: The Demise of Concurrent Trademarks, J.L. Tech. & Pol’y Spring 2007, pg. 101 et seq.
Representative Cases
- Estate planning for modest to large estate clients. Recent plans have included:
- Complex beneficiary schemes including charitable giving plans;
- Stand-alone or backup supplemental needs trust provisions to protect beneficiaries who participate in needs-based aid programs; and
- Provisions to ensure compliance with and enforcement of marital settlement agreements
- Representative trust and estate administration matters have included:
- matters that had real estate (ranging from residential properties to apartment complexes, to farm land) that required being sold or transferred from the estates
- matters that had unusual assets to be managed (e.g. art collections, coins, guns, doll collections, old private bank stocks)
- estates with holographic wills, wills that were found after the estate was open, and where there were will contests
- Represented all sides of guardianship actions, including having served as guardian ad litem and having represented the respondent. These matters have ranged from simple and/or consented to guardianships to contested guardianships.
- As a mediator for a court-run foreclosure mediation program, she has mediated cases with results ranging from home retention to the graceful negotiation of non-retention options.
- Recently she chaired the Aurora/Pratt Survivor’s Fund Steering Committee that was set up by parent company Mueller Water Products in response to the Aurora, Illinois tragedy.
