Get to Know… Amy Earing

August 1, 2025

By: Amy L. Earing

Amy Earing loves her hometown as much as for the things it doesn’t have (crowds, traffic, noise) as for what it does have. Castleton, New York, a Hudson River town south of Albany, may be small, but Amy appreciates the lifelong connections engendered by its “huge sense of community. You know everyone and their families.”  She has predominantly resided in Castleton throughout her life and with her husband, Chris, and is raising their son, Carson, there.  

Her connection to Castleton has helped to shape Amy’s outlook, her education and her profession. 

In her trust and estate practice, Amy pairs her hometown identity with sound, creative advice and legal solutions as she helps her clients plan for and grapple with some of the most difficult personal and financial situations in life, such as incapacity or death, the passing of a loved one, Medicaid planning or successfully bypassing probate.  She also provides counsel for business succession planning or the sale of a business while protecting assets and minimizing estate tax exposure.

Amy has been a numbers whiz from early on, with mathematics class a perennial highlight of each school day. With these skills, she expected that accounting would be a fulfilling career. However, while pursuing an accounting degree at Siena College, she began to have doubts. She sought the counsel of a professor, who happened to be a Castleton neighbor. He suggested that an accounting degree could be a terrific asset for a potential attorney.  After giving her future some more thought, Amy followed his advice. She enrolled at Albany Law School, graduating magna cum laude.  While Amy can’t identify exactly what it was about accounting that didn’t suit her as a career choice, her success as a trust and estates practitioner bears out the value of her professor’s advice.   

“Before I ever stepped foot into my first law class, I knew that I was not meant for the courtroom. Even so, as it turned out, Iaw school was where I could really excel.” Amy credits her early success to a shared experience of community among the first-year class, where she was able to readily join a group that took the same classes together.

“I was introduced to trusts and estates as a people-centric practice that allowed me to exercise my native understanding and love of math and apply it creatively to the tax laws that govern the practice. Law as a profession made perfect sense to me in this context and everything fell into place.”

“With estate planning there is an interplay of numbers and tax laws. You also get close interaction with people. This is what makes the difference for me. My work demands that I get to know my clients on a different level. Over time I gain a depth of understanding of my client families and become close with them. This is how I can do my best work. The only downside to this is when I lose clients to age and illness.”

“I’m helping people in a different way than is afforded by other areas of the law. When meeting with clients, it is critical to really listen to what is being said, as well as what isn’t being said. I have to listen to their cues and piece together what’s most important to them, working a delicate line with sensitive topics in search of a solution. This also requires having the hard conversations that help them see the realities that lead to difficult but ultimately sound decision making. You can’t just force something to work for them.”

“Elder law practice requires empathy and compassion. I may be meeting with someone at the worst part of their life and in some cases, I’m the first person they’ve been able to talk to about an emotional and life-changing situation. Patience is essential while helping clients plot a road map to their future. I have to address the realities of the situation, but always as a person first and then as a lawyer.”

When Amy is not puzzling out solutions to client matters, she can often be found working on puzzles of a different kind. There is rarely a time when her living room is not hosting a jigsaw puzzle. Completing 1000-, 1500-, or 2000-piece puzzles helps her to unwind and takes her mind to a different place.   

“Puzzling and estate planning are both about organizing—putting the pieces in the right categories. As a type A personality, I enjoy fitting things together in their boxes. When I’m baking, I organize all the ingredients ahead to make it go more smoothly. Likewise, when I’m working on an estate plan with a client, I organize the people and their goals into a chart that lays it out for them, as there’s no perfect solution; there’s always give and take. There has never been any situation that isn’t as unique as the person behind it.”

Before joining Bond, Amy was a partner at a much smaller boutique estate planning firm. “While the thought of joining a much larger firm was nerve-racking, I saw the benefits of the resources and support a bigger firm could offer and recognized that this is where I should be. There’s always someone to answer a question or direct you to someone who can answer it. It’s a broader network, but at the same time doesn’t have the feel of big law.  I’ve found a new community.”