Serving Florida Families in Every County
We help families step in when a loved one's mental health or substance use crisis has gotten bigger than the family can handle alone.
By the time most families reach us, they have carried this a long time. They are not looking for the closest office, but for someone who knows how these cases move in front of a judge.
We do that across Florida, mostly by phone and video, so you rarely have to travel.
Where you live does not change how we help
We are a Florida firm. Not a storefront on one corner in one city, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What decides how your case goes is not how close our office is to your house. It is whether the people handling it know how the court in your county tends to work, and how its judges tend to think about these cases.
We would rather be the firm that knows the courtrooms across Florida than the nearest name on a sign.
How it works from anywhere
1
You talk.
You tell us what has been happening, in your own words, with nothing to prepare first.
2
We answer.
You hear honestly whether we can help, what your choices are, and what each one would mean. If your situation does not meet the legal standard yet, you will hear that too.
3
You decide.
Nothing moves without you. From there we handle the filings and the court dates in the county where your case belongs, and we keep you in the loop the whole way.
Find your area
Baker Act, Marchman Act, and guardianship cases are heard in the circuit court for your county, and every county in Florida sits inside one of the state’s judicial circuits.
We already have local pages for these cities, and each one goes deeper on its court and how filing works there. If yours is on the list, start there.
Areas we serve, by region
South Florida
Hialeah →
Fort Lauderdale
Port St. Lucie
West Palm Beach
The Treasure Coast
The Keys
Tampa Bay
Tampa →
St. Petersburg →
Clearwater
Sarasota
Bradenton
Central Florida
Orlando →
Kissimmee
Lakeland
Ocala
The Villages
Northeast Florida
Jacksonville →
St. Augustine
Gainesville
Daytona Beach
Southwest Florida
Cape Coral →
Fort Myers
Naples
North Florida & Panhandle
Tallahassee →
Panama City
Pensacola
Do not see your county here?
Call anyway.
We work statewide, and where you file does not change how we work with you.
Why a statewide firm, and one honest thing about it
Knowing how a specific division and its judges tend to handle these cases matters far more than a local address ever could. That is the real thing we bring to your case, in whatever county it belongs.
The division, not the address
Cases live in a circuit court’s probate and guardianship division. Knowing that room is what moves a case.
One firm, every circuit
We file where your case belongs, so you are not starting over with a new attorney in a new county.
What most firms leave out
You deserve that conversation before you spend a dollar.
There are a few counties where we would tell you not to file, because we cannot get a reliable result for families there.
We would rather say that to your face than take your money and hand you an outcome we cannot stand behind.
What we help Florida families with
Marchman Act
Baker Act
Mental Health Guardianship
Protective Estate Planning
Psychiatric SSDI
Complex Family Probate
Mark literally wrote the book on Florida's Marchman Act.
Mark Astor wrote Breaking the Cycle for families trying to help a loved one who won't accept it yet, a plain-English guide to the Marchman Act built from hundreds of real Florida cases. Call our office and we'll mail you a physical copy and send the digital version to your inbox right away. Free, and yours to keep.
Why Florida families call us
By the time most families reach us, they have been carrying this a long time, and they have often talked to people who did not really understand it. What they want is someone who knows this specific corner of the law cold and will be straight with them.
He will lay out your options and what each one means, and then the decision stays with you. And if he does not think your situation fits, he will tell you that too.
Mark was a prosecutor and a defense attorney before he built this practice. He knows how the criminal system and the behavioral health system collide, and how to keep a loved one from getting stuck in the wrong one.
That is what families across Florida are really calling for, not an office nearby.
Meet Mark Astor
These are personal problems with a legal solution, not the other way around.
Mark Astor
You will feel better once this is moving
Right now the hardest part is not knowing. You do not know whether the law can help, whether your situation is bad enough or already too far, or whether stepping in will make it worse.
That weight does not lift on its own, and it will not lift by reading one more page. It lifts the moment you talk to someone who has seen this before and can tell you where you actually stand.
