Practice Areas

Harshman Ponist focuses on five main practice areas: criminal defense, family law, estate planning, civil litigation, and business law.

Our criminal defense attorneys may be able to help if you find yourself in any of these situations:

• The police or other law enforcement agencies are investigating a crime and you believe that you may be a suspect. No matter how innocent you are, you should resist the urge to talk to the police before you have spoken to a lawyer. If you think it will all go away if only you explain your side of the story to the police – don’t do it, at least not until you have spoken to an attorney.
• You’ve been charged with a crime. If you don’t already have a lawyer, don’t delay any longer! You need someone on your side, and you need it now.
• You are not willing to enter into a plea bargain or you have been unable to negotiate a deal you can live with, and now you’re going to trial. Our criminal defense attorneys have tried hundreds of cases.
• You’ve been found guilty. Now is the time to appeal, and the Harshman Ponist attorneys have handled well over a hundred appeals in both the Indiana Court of Appeals and the Indiana Supreme Court.
• You’re serving a sentence, and you want to get it modified. We can help you assess the possibility of success and help you put forth the best possible case to persuade the court to reduce your sentence.
• You have an arrest or a conviction on your record, and you would like to have it expunged to improve your employment chances or to get admitted to college or a graduate program. Talk to our attorneys to find out if you are eligible and, if so, to help you though the process.

Regardless of the crime you are charged with, the odds are good that Harshman Ponist’s lawyers have handled similar cases before. We have experience with charges from infractions like traffic tickets, to misdemeanors, to major felonies and murder.

A divorce may be one of the most difficult, stressful experiences you have ever gone through. The Harshman Ponist family law attorneys can be with you every step of the way, protecting you and your interests. We understand the law; we understand your rights to a fair division of property and debts; and we understand the rights of custodial and non-custodial parents. We will clearly explain to you all those rights and guide you through the process. More importantly, we will serve as your bold advocates to assure that your rights are respected.

In addition to divorce, we can represent you in establishing paternity; in modifying child custody, support, and parenting time (or visitation); in obtaining a legal separation; in obtaining a protective order against you spouse or former spouse; or in securing grandparent visitation rights. In addition, we can represent you in adopting a child, whether it is in adopting a child as a couple or a single person or in adopting your spouse’s children.

Everyone has an estate plan, whether he or she knows it or not. If you die without a will or a living trust, your assets will be distributed to your relatives based on rules set out in the Indiana Probate Code. So by default, you have an estate plan; it’s the one the Indiana General Assembly designed for you. We can help you design one for yourself to make sure that your assets go where you want them to go.

An estate plan is not only the way that you tell the world where you want your assets to go after you die; it is also your way of declaring who you want to make decisions for you if you’re even unable to make them for yourself.

Wills, living trusts, standby guardianships, living wills, life-prolonging procedures declarations, powers of attorney, appointment of health care representatives, transfer-on-death declarations, funeral planning directives … our estate planning attorneys can help you with all of those.

We also have active practices in the areas of business law and civil litigation. You can read more about any of them by selecting from the Practice Areas menu in the bar at the top of this page.