Jessica Lyle, TEP

Jessica was excited to found Touchstone with Jamie in 2019. She is proud of the team they have grown at Touchstone and the service they provide to their clients.

Jessica enjoys a practice focused on estate and trust planning, incapacity planning and elder law, guardianship and representation applications, and probate administration. 

Jessica’s success in estate planning is due to her ability to quickly develop a rapport with her clients. She attributes this to her exposure to other cultures and places – her life experience has confirmed that every family has their own unique story. Jessica delivers in-depth advice to assist her clients in the simplest to the most complex of estate plans, focusing not only planning for death but equally important, planning for incapacity. Jessica has extensive experience in creating plans that may include trusts for individuals and estates, discussion of general tax implications, and canvassing of potential elder law issues and issues relating to the guardianship of minors and representation of beneficiaries with disabilities, including incapacity. 

Jessica is a member of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society, the Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners (“STEP”), the Canadian Bar Association (“CBA”), and the Halifax Estate Planning Council. She is consistently ranked in Canadian Legal Lexpert® Directory and Best Lawyers. Jessica is a Past President of the CBA-Nova Scotia Branch, when she also sat on the national board of the CBA, and of the Halifax Estate Planning Council. She is a Past Chair of the CBA National Elder Law Section and the Nova Scotia Elder Law Section, and a former member of the CBA National Sections Subcommittee as well as past chair and member of several other committees of CBA-Nova Scotia. She sat on the Atlantic board of Make-A-Wish Foundation before its amalgamation with Children’s Wish Foundation and is a past secretary of the Dartmouth Whalers Masters Swim Club. She is currently the chair of the STEP Atlantic Branch and sits on the STEP Canada national board. 

Jessica is a frequent speaker on estate planning topics. She presents to varied audiences, including professional associations, financial advisors and their clients, local churches, and charities. Jessica is a repeat guest on CBC Maritime Noon (particularly for the call-in portion of the radio show) on estate planning topics. 

When not planning estates, or speaking about planning estates, Jessica and her husband Ken are adjusting to being empty nesters. Their oldest son and daughter-in-law are Coast Guard officers. Their younger two children attend university at McGill and Acadia. When Jessica has a moment to relax, she enjoys reading, walking her dogs (who, in turn, enjoy being the Touchstone canine support team), and watching movies, preferably on the big screen.