Kristen E. Simmons is a member of the law offices of Oshins & Associates, LLC in Las Vegas, Nevada. She practices in the areas of estate, business and asset protection planning. She has received the prestigious AV® Rating from Martindale-Hubbell. Ms. Simmons is certified as an Estate Planning Law Specialist by the Estate Law Specialist Board, Inc., an organization accredited by the American Bar Association and affiliated with the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils. She has been designated as an Accredited Estate Planner (AEP®) by the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils. In 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 she was listed as one of Nevada's Rising Stars in the Mountain States Super Lawyers magazine in (1) Tax and in (2) Estate Planning & Probate, an honor earned by less than 2.5% of attorneys.
Ms. Simmons is a Florida native and was raised in Boca Raton, Florida. She attended the University of Florida, graduating cum laude in 2001 with a B.A. in English (focus in Technical Writing) and a minor in Business Administration. During her undergraduate studies, she was inducted as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Following her undergraduate studies, Ms. Simmons continued at the University of Florida and in 2004 she graduated cum laude with a Juris Doctorate from University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. Ms. Simmons focused her law studies in estates and trusts, earning a specialized Estates and Trusts Practice Certificate, receiving a pro bono certificate for her work at the probate court and serving as the President of the Estates, Trusts and Elder Law Society. She also clerked for the Honorable Judge Stephan Mickle of the U.S. District Court, Northern District.
Ms. Simmons was admitted to the Nevada State Bar in 2004 and to The Florida Bar in 2005. She is the current President of the Southern Nevada Estate Planning Council and serves on the editorial board of the Nevada Lawyer.
Ms. Simmons has authored or co-authored several published articles: Efficient Use of Nonqualified Stock Options as a Wealth Transfer Vehicle," Estate Planning (Sept. 2005), "Minimizing the Risks of Owning Hot Investment Properties," Broker Agent (Sept. 2005), “Nevada’s Homestead Exemption – A simple way to protect the equity in your home,” Around Your Home and your Neighborhood (May 2008), “The SCIN-GRAT – A new hedging technique takes the mortality risk out of estate planning,” Trusts & Estates (June 2008), “The Beneficiary Defective Inheritor’s Trust© (“BDIT”): Finessing The Pipe Dream,” CCH Practitioner’s Strategies (2008), "Utilizing Private Split Dollar in Estate Planning," NAEPC Journal (2009), "Combining Cash Value Life Insurance with the Beneficiary Defective Inheritor's Trust," CCH Practitioner's Strategies (2009), "The Completed Gift Nevada Asset Protection Trust: A Unique Way for People to 'Have their cake and eat it too,'" Communique (2010), “Diagnosing the Proper Trust Technique for the Physician Client,” Estate Planning Review Journal – CCH (2012), “Did the American Taxpayer Relief Act Put a Nail in the Coffin of Estate Planning? Uses of Traditional Estate Planning Components for Non-Tax Purposes,” Nevada Lawyer Magazine (2013) and “Shifting Income Tax through the Use of Trusts,” Nevada Lawyer Magazine (2014).
In 2011, Ms. Simmons served on the legislative committee of the probate and trust section of the Nevada Bar, and was the primary author of the 2011 legislative changes to Nevada’s self-settled spendthrift trust states. She co-authored an article about those changes for Steve Leimberg’s Asset Protection Planning Newsletter: “Simmons & Oshins on SB 221: Nevada Passes Updates to Self-Settled Spendthrift Trust Laws.” She has spoken at local seminars regarding estate planning and has appeared multiple times as a speaker on estate planning for national broker-dealer firms.