Florida's board-certified estate lawyers

How Florida's Wills, Trusts and Estates board certification works, and how to check whether a named attorney currently holds it on the Bar's own roster.

Florida is one of the states that runs its own state-bar board certification for attorneys who work in wills, trusts and estates: the Florida Bar's Wills, Trusts and Estates Law Certification. What follows is about that program specifically, plus how to check whether a named attorney currently holds it. Other states run their own certification programs in this specialty, if any; they are not addressed here.

The Florida Bar states the purpose of the credential in its own words: "To identify those lawyers who practice in the area of wills, trusts, and estates and have demonstrated special knowledge, skills, and proficiency to be properly identified to the public as board certified in wills, trusts, and estates law."

Source: The Florida Bar, Wills, Trusts and Estates Law Certification

The basic standards, briefly

Florida's Rule 6-7.3 lists minimum standards to apply, including a practice-history requirement, a practice-concentration test, continuing legal education, peer review and a written examination, and this list is not exhaustive. All applicants are told to read the full Rules Regulating The Florida Bar to confirm they have met each requirement before filing.

ACTEC Fellow vs. board certification sets out the specific years, percentage and hours Rule 6-7.3 attaches to each of those standards, next to a different attorney credential, ACTEC Fellow status, for comparison.

Source: The Florida Bar, Wills, Trusts and Estates Law Certification

Using the Bar's own certified-lawyer search

Separately from the standards to apply, the Florida Bar publishes a searchable roster of lawyers currently certified in Wills, Trusts and Estates. A name search takes optional city, county, state or country fields and offers a "sounds like" option for approximate name matches. Searching by Bar number instead only produces results that are an exact match to the number provided.

Results on the roster include the lawyer's Bar number, a membership-status line such as "Member in Good Standing" or "Retired," whether they are currently eligible to practice law in Florida, their firm and contact details, and a "Board Certifications" line, which can list more than one certification for the same lawyer.

Source: The Florida Bar, Wills, Trusts and Estates Certified Lawyers

What a search result does and doesn't tell you

A listing on this roster is not the same as being currently eligible to practice. Some entries on the roster carry a membership status of "Retired" together with "Not Eligible to Practice Law in Florida" while still showing a "Wills, Trusts and Estates" board certification. The certification line and the eligibility line answer two different questions, and a search result is worth reading for both.

When this page was last checked, in August 2026, the roster listed 280 currently certified Wills, Trusts and Estates lawyers, shown ten at a time across multiple pages of results. That count changes as lawyers newly certify, recertify or leave the roster, so a search result is only current as of the day it's run.

Source: The Florida Bar, Wills, Trusts and Estates Certified Lawyers

A roster listing or a Rule 6-7.3 checklist are both a starting point, not the whole picture. How to choose a probate litigator covers what else is worth asking at a first consultation. ACTEC Fellow vs. board certification covers a different attorney credential, ACTEC Fellow status, and the full Rule 6-7.3 standards side by side with it. California runs a comparable but separate state-bar program; California's certified specialist program covers what that state's program specifically requires.

This page describes Florida's own board certification and its own public roster only, and is general information, not legal advice.