Meet Our Staff at Dent Coulson Elder Law
Lisa “Kaye” DeSelms Dent
Partner
Kaye attended law school with plans to practice disability law. Having worked her way through college at the University of Illinois in Urbana assisting students with disabilities, she graduated from Hofstra University School of Law in 1996. She initially worked with a non-profit providing legal services exclusively to persons with disabilities, and, after years of practice as both a State’s Attorney and Public Defender, she returned to private practice, providing an array of Elder Law and estate planning services, focusing on Nursing Home Planning, Special Needs Planning, and Estate Planning.
As a member of Elder Counsel and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Illinois Chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Kaye has an array of resources available for her clients’ planning needs. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Children’s Advocacy Centers Of Illinois (previously as Treasurer) and is also a member of The Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation Advisory Board for Effingham County. Kaye also Chairs the Fifth Circuit Pro Bono Committee of the Public Interest Law Initiative and enjoys accepting pro bono cases referred from various non-profit agencies, a very rewarding part of the practice of law.
Kaye speaks frequently to public and private groups regarding Estate Planning, Nursing Home Planning, Special Needs issues and other topics. She is happy to speak to any group on request, without fee.
An avid traveler and cook, Kaye considers herself to always be “between trips.” While her children have now left the nest, seeing the world through her teenagers’ eyes was very rewarding. With her family, she traveled the entire width of the country via automobile (not in a single trip!), visiting many Civil War battlefields and other National Parks sites, for a total of 29 states and 15 foreign countries visited together. Over the years, Kaye has hosted 14 foreign exchange students and maintains contact with most of them, even including a couple in travel plans over the last several years.
Kaye KNOWS that the security and peace of mind a comprehensive estate plan offers allows people to enjoy life more fully.
William “Bill” W. Horton
Associate Attorney
Accessible and a clear communicator, Bill focuses his legal practice on estate planning and tax matters. Bill is driven most by helping clients find security and “Win/Win” types of solutions to their legal concerns. In the years since graduating from Saint Louis University (with a degree in Finance, with honors) and Washington University School of Law, Bill has found that estate planning is a practice area which aligns with those principles quite well. Bill gained his initial years of experience in estate planning, tax planning, and business succession planning at large law firms in St. Louis and Chicago.
Bill joined Dent-Coulson Elder Law because of the exciting opportunity to work more directly with clients and to serve a much broader portion of the community (as the fees of large law firms can be cost prohibitive for so many). Bill also saw the promise of mentorship from Wes Coulson and Kaye Dent – and they have taught Bill new and more specialized Elder Law topics, beyond his background in estate planning. Bill enjoys the relationship-driven and personal nature of his practice. He understands that his counsel has a direct impact on the financial and personal well-being of clients. Because of this, Bill takes pride in being a clear communicator who is widely accessible to his clients. So that he can serve clients in Missouri and Illinois, Bill is licensed in both states.
Bill and his wife, Alicia, live in St. Louis. They are happy to be frequent visitors of Forest Park by walking from their home in the Dogtown neighborhood. Thankfully, almost all of Bill and Alicia’s extended family members live in the St. Louis metro area and get together for quality time together often. The group is fond of sampling all varieties of restaurants, breweries, and wineries – whether in town or while traveling together. Bill and Alicia are animal lovers, with three pets at home (Zelda, Arya, and Oliver). As far as other free time, if he isn’t busy trying to keep up with Alicia on a hike or on a local volleyball court, Bill is likely supporting the local sports teams: the Blues, Cardinals, Tigers, and his alma mater, SLU. He was thrilled to add two more teams in the past few years: St. Louis CITY (pro soccer, MLS) and the St. Louis Battlehawks (pro football, UFL).
Education
J.D., Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
ean’s Fellow
Certificate in Business Law
LL.M., Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
Taxation
B.S.B.A., Saint Louis University
Finance, magna cum laude
Admissions
Missouri
Illinois
Karen Webster
Practice Manager | Paralegal
Karen has been working side-by-side with Attorney Kaye DeSelms Dent since 2012. Karen wears many hats inside our Firm. Her main roles are Practice Manager and Paralegal.
As a Paralegal she works directly with clients to get the most out of the estate plans that Kaye has created, assisting with Long Term Care Planning, Probate and Trust Administration, Guardianships, and Estate Planning. As Practice Manager she works directly with staff and attorneys to make sure the day to day office is
running smoothly and she also does the accounts receivables for the Firm.
Karen grew up in rural Jasper County and now makes her home in rural Northern Edgar County with her husband of 30+ years. Having raised three boys and juggling time spent on family, work and raising livestock, she understands and is compassionate to young families trying to find their way. Karen and her husband, Tom, live on a small livestock farm raising pigs for the showpig industry and boer goats. Having grown up in a family farm situation, Karen understands the challenges that many of our farm family clients face in planning for the next generation. Whether that is trying to pay for your parent’s long term care without having to sell the family farm or dividing the farm once your parents are gone.
Karen has been a 4-H Volunteer/Leader for the past 20 years and is a past member of Chrisman School Board (2017 – 2023), serving as president for 2 years. Karen is also the song leader at her church and sings in the church choir. In her spare time, Karen enjoys being with family and friends, gardening, reading, traveling to new places, U of I basketball and the St. Louis Cardinals. As a new project, Karen has started piano lessons. Karen hopes to do more traveling in the coming years and has recently visited Helsinki, Paris, London and Madrid in a whirl wind trip through Europe. She is already planning her next trip for 2025 where she is planning a cross country trip with her mom and sister. Stay tuned to see how that works out!
Heidi D. Hagen
Paralegal
Heidi, who assists Dent Coulson Elder Law as a paralegal, is a native of Michigan and a proud Michigan State University Spartan. She holds a Juris Doctorate from Western Michigan University Cooley Law School and Bachelor of Arts degree from Michigan State University. She has practiced and worked within the legal arena in some fashion or another since 2003. Her legal experience and knowledge in several areas of law make her an asset to our team.
Heidi resides in O’Fallon, IL with her family and enjoys dappling in genealogy and spending time with friends in her spare time.
Karie Wines
Administrative Assistant
Karie has been with the firm since 2020 as a Front Desk Receptionist and is the first person clients meet when coming to the Effingham location. She keeps busy answering the phone, scheduling appointments, and making sure the proper documents are scanned for meetings, along with a multitude of other tasks.
Born and raised in Effingham County she is the oldest of 3 children, and still resides in Effingham County. In 2006 she bought a quilting machine and started her own business quilting for others. Her hobbies include sewing, reading, gardening and spending time with family and friends, especially her 3 very active nephews, who are the love of her life.
She also enjoys sewing quilts for children’s charities, and regularly participates in “sew-days” with the local Project Linus Chapter to help complete many quilts to donate. She also is a member of the Nine Patchers Quilt Group and coordinates one day per month sew-days for the group, also making quilts to donate.
Wesley J. “Wes” Coulson
Of Counsel
Wes Coulson is the founder and principal of Dent-Coulson Elder Law, LLC and the developer of the Better Estate Planning concept and website. He earned his B.A., with honors, from Northwestern University in 1975, and his J.D. from The
University of Michigan Law School in 1978. He is a member of the Illinois and Missouri Bars, the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA), the St. Louis Estate Planning Council and the Bar Association of Metropolitan St.
Louis. He has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1978 and in Missouri since 1997, and regularly serves clients from offices in both states.
He has been a Certified Elder Law Attorney (“CELA”) since earning that designation in 2004 from the National Elder Law Foundation (www.nelf.org), the only organization authorized by the American Bar Association to confer practice area specialization in elder law.* He is one of 16 CELAs in Missouri and one of 15 in Illinois. He was the first Illinois attorney south of
Peoria to earn that designation, and is currently the only actively practicing Illinois attorney south of Peoria to hold that designation.
Wes has also earned the AEP (Accredited Estate Planner) designation from the National Association of Estate Planners and Councils (www.naepc.org), which
is awarded only to estate planning professionals in the fields of accounting, insurance and financial planning, law, philanthropy, and trust services who meet special requirements of education, experience, knowledge, professional reputation, and character. Across all of those professions, there are only about 2,000 people who hold AEP designation.*
Wes’s practice is focused in the areas of elder law, long-term care asset preservation, special needs planning, and trust and estate planning and administration. He is a member of the Illinois and Missouri chapters of NAELA,
and has given numerous continuing legal education presentations for both, as well as being the author of several articles on various elder law topics. The Illinois chapter of NAELA gave him the “Ron Runkle Award,” given
annually to honor a member’s contributions of time and knowledge.
Wes lives in Waterloo, IL with his wife, Laura. He is the proud father of two sons, Jonathon and the late Oliver Coulson, and the proud “dog father” of the office mascot, Ziggy. In his spare time, he wishes he had more of it,
and daydreams about retirement.
*Neither the Supreme Court nor the Bar of Illinois or Missouri confers or recognizes practice area specialization in the field of elder law.
