WEBB & MORTON

Clients want a law firm that is very good at a few important things – not mediocre in many things. That specialization in success is what sets local law firm Webb & Morton, PLLC, apart from others. Webb & Morton concentrates on a few very important areas of the law, including Tax Law, Estate Planning/ Probate, and Asset Protection. As a small boutique firm, it’s able to provide clients the attention they need without sacrificing the institutional knowledge of a large law firm. It’s a trait that attracts clients from around the world, from Moore County to the Ukraine to Japan. Each client can be confident they are in good hands, relying on the firm’s nearly 90 years of legal experience to best protect their interests.

Senior Partner Alex Webb (JD, CPA, PFS), who recently celebrated 50 years of practicing law, is best known for his success lobbying for a state-of-the-art North Carolina Captive Insurance law in 2013, which provides business owners tremendous opportunities for tax savings and asset protection. When away from the office, Alex enjoys snorkeling and spending time with his wife, Dianne, in her wine shop in Carthage, “The Watering Can”, and traveling to France and Italy.

Partner Jason Morton (JD, CCE), a Pinebluff native, has 15 years of experience as a first-class tax lawyer, and was an early adopter of digital assets, which led him to cryptocurrencies before they made headlines. He now advises many crypto clients, blockchain startups, and produces videos for the firm’s YouTube Channel with nearly 50 videos and more coming. Jason also specializes in all aspects of tax defense, including audit defense, foreign compliance, innocent spouse claims and more. Jason also serves his country as an Army NG JAG officer and lives in Carthage with his wife, their son, and beloved canines and other farm animals.

Senior Attorney

Austin Chestnut (JD, MBA, CTFA), a Southern Pines native, has focused his over 20-year career on Fiduciary Law matters and

Estates and Trusts, and is a former Vice President with SunTrust Bank. Austin is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys spending time with his two teenage sons. Webb and Morton’s motto is “we help clients sleep at night” because it aggressively protects its clients when facing some of life’s biggest challenges, be it health issues and needed estate planning, planning for a special needs child, proactively protecting hard-earned assets from attack, or fending off overbearing tax authorities, the IRS and NC Dept. of Revenue. At Webb & Morton, find comfort in knowing this team will defend you smartly with a caring and thoughtful hand.

PETER ELLMAN, M.D., FACS CARDIOVASCULAR & THORACIC SURGEON

FirstHealth leads the region in advanced heart care, and that tradition continues with the Reid Heart Center. The state-of-theart heart center is in the top five% nationwide, though that’s not its defining factor.

“The physical plant itself is special; but it’s the people who work here that make it great,” says Dr. Peter Ellman, MD. He is a cardiothoracic surgeon with over 22 years of experience and is convinced there is nowhere better to go for heart care. “You can build the most technologically advanced hospital in the world, but if you don’t have great people inside of it, it’s not going to be worth anything. So you put great people together with a great place in central North Carolina, and it’s an anomaly, it really is.”

Dr. Ellman is among the terrific people that make Reid Heart Center so special. Medicine has always been a part of his life, with a general surgeon father and a gastroenterologist maternal grandfather, who fostered his own aptitude for the sciences. After earning a medical degree from University of Pennsylvania, his training took him up and down the east coast with a residency in General Surgery at the University of Virginia, followed by a second fellowship in Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery at the University of Florida. With technical expertise secured, Peter Ellman had his pick of hospitals but chose Moore Regional. He has loved the area for years, having first visited Pinehurst for a golf camp at the age of 12. It was something about the landscape, the long leaf pines, “the magic of the resort” that really made him want to call the Sandhills home. When the opportunity arose to actually move here to practice heart surgery, it seemed like destiny calling for him and his wife, Sarah, co-owner of Southern Pines Crossfit. They have certainly put down permanent roots since they answered the call.

The Moore County health community touched Dr. Ellman’s own life last year, when a former surgery patient, (also a colleague and friend) whose life he had saved seven years ago, saved his life through a kidney donation. “Here, we don’t have residents or medical students – we are here because we want to be able to provide focused care to our patients directly,” he says. “To walk into a room and engage with somebody and know that’s what it is all about – helping somebody feel better.”

That’s what you call heart warming.