ABOUT

Our Story

For the past several years, we have been sitting with families, separately and together, at some of the most significant moments of their lives.

Erin as an estate planning attorney who has prior extensive experience also practicing family law, helping families face the hard questions that come with the hardest of life and family transitions. Dan as an ICF Professional Certified Coach, walking alongside people navigating burnout, grief, failing marriages, parenting struggles, and the quiet desperation of a life that looks fine from the outside but doesn't feel that way from the inside.

Whether it was nuclear scientists or baristas, new parents or empty nesters, we began to notice how so many of the people we worked with seemed to have everything figured out at work, and yet often seemingly nothing figured out at home.

What struck us, over and over, is how often the same struggles surfaced regardless of background, income, or circumstance. And how often people were facing them alone without a trusted guide, without a community, without even the right questions to ask.

We knew this to be true, because that was the experience we were living as well. Dan convinced Erin it would be a good idea to start her own law practice just a month before giving birth to their first child (ha!) in 2017 and that soon required Dan to become a stay-at-home father for a year to help her pull it off. And as many of you know without us saying any more, the responsibilities and stressors of adult life in America didn’t stop there for us.

Yet, we continued to step into the work of at least bringing some peace of mind to those we served. Erin's legal work gave families a foundation. Dan's coaching gave individuals a space to think. But we kept sensing that something was missing. Each of our roles only addressed a part of what we both felt families really need, which we later identified is a place the whole family can come, at any season of life, and find honest guidance, trusted people, and a community on the same growth journey seeking to live a good story, a legacy worth leaving.

That's what Oak & Iron Family is.

It started as a question we kept asking each other across the dinner table: what would it look like to help families more holistically. Not just with their legal affairs, but with the deeper work of becoming the family they actually want to be? It's taken shape slowly, built on the foundation of what we've each learned in our respective work and what we're actively learning in our own family.

We don't have it all figured out. We're on the same journey. But we have experience understanding the challenges we face are the challenges everyone faces, and having seen how terribly wrong things can go in our work, we’ve cultivated a deep conviction that families are worth fighting for. We’re genuinely committed to being a family on the front lines.

This is deeper than a business enterprise to us. We want every family who encounters Oak & Iron to feel genuinely seen, accepted, loved and cared for.

We believe struggling is guaranteed in life. Struggling alone is not.

More About Us

What We Believe

We believe every family has natural strength: roots, story, people, love. Even the scars can be a source of unique strength.

We also believe that strength alone isn't enough. It has to be tended, intentionally forged over time through the rhythms, conversations, and decisions that shape who a family is becoming.

We believe suffering is part of every family's story. But suffering alone doesn't have to be.

We believe the most important work most of us will ever do happens at home and that it deserves the same care, investment, and intentionality we give to our careers, our finances, and our health. Families today are navigating more complexity and isolation than any previous generation and to be simply well-adjusted to the status-quo, or better than the Jones’s isn’t the right kind of standard for a flourishing family.

We believe community matters. That the best things happen around a table, not a screen. That families grow stronger when they're not trying to figure everything out in isolation. It’s time for the pendulum to swing away from individualism.

Most importantly, we come to this work shaped by our worldview informed by our faith in Jesus Christ, and that conviction quietly informs everything we do. It would be dishonest for it not to. Our beliefs inform how we listen, what we value, and why we believe that genuine flourishing is possible in a broken world. We share that openly not to draw a boundary around who we serve, but to be honest about who we are. Oak & Iron is for every family who wants to grow with intention regardless of background, belief, or where they are on their own journey. Much of what we offer will resonate across many different worldviews, because the deepest questions of family life tend to. We simply want to be honest about the source of our faith, hope and love for family.

A Note on How We Work

We've learned how much of a joy it is to work together as a family serving families. As we journey with others, we learn and grow together.

Oak & Iron Family is how we seek to more holistically support families, and not just after the ink dries on a will, but through every season of life that follows.

If any of this resonates or if something in you recognizes what we're describing, we'd love to meet you.

Dan Johnson is an ICF Professional Certified Coach with years of experience walking alongside people navigating the full range of human struggle — grief, career burnout, marriage strain, identity, purpose, and loss. He has coached both high school students and global executives, and found that the core human questions don't change much regardless of the title on the business card. Dan built Oak & Iron Family from the ground up and serves as its primary guide and convener.

Erin Johnson is an estate planning attorney and the founder of Erin Johnson Legal. Calm, compassionate, and deeply committed to helping families plan well and navigate loss with clarity, Erin brings both legal expertise and genuine care to every family she serves. She’s been practicing law since graduating from IU Maurer School of Law in 2014.

Together, Dan and Erin live in Carmel with their two young daughters and dog. You'll find them on walking local trails, reading at the library, cheering on the Colts, enjoying live music, and active in their church.