Faculty Profile: Ashley Stearns

Stearns has built a law practice that focuses on all aspects of estate planning ranging end-to-end from living trusts to complex wills to decedent estate administration. She is the current President of the Murfreesboro Estate Planning Council and is a member of the Middle Tennessee Estate Planning Council, the Rutherford/Cannon County Bar Association, and the Tennessee Bar Association where she serves on the Executive Council for Estate Planning and Probate.  Stearns attended the 2018 and 2016 University of Miami School of Law Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning. In 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 Stearns was named as a “Rising Star” in the area of Estate Planning and Probate for the Nashville Area by Super Lawyers. Stearns started her professional career while still in college as a legislative intern to Tennessee State Representative John Hood. Later, while attending law school, Stearns worked as a law clerk with the late Tennessee State Representative W. Kent Coleman in his estate planning law practice in Murfreesboro. Eventually, this working relationship blossomed into the law firm of Coleman & Stearns, which continued successfully after Mr. Coleman’s untimely death in 2016. In March of 2018, Trail, Coleman & Stearns, PLLC, Attorneys at Law was formed when Stearns and Sandra Y. Trail merged their practices. The firm, located in Murfreesboro, is uniquely focused on all facets of estate planning, probate, and business transactions. Outside of her profession, Stearns devotes her time to her family, and the Murfreesboro community through philanthropic service.