Estate Planning

A comprehensive estate plan starts with understanding each client’s circumstances, family dynamics, and goals — not with a template. Our attorneys advise on the full spectrum of planning, from foundational documents (revocable living trusts, pour-over wills, durable powers of attorney, and advance health care directives) through sophisticated multi-generational wealth transfer structures.

For clients with significant assets, the work extends to gift, estate, generation-skipping transfer, and income tax integration; advanced wealth transfer structures including GRATs, SLATs, IDGTs, ILITs, charitable trusts (CRATs, CRUTs, CLTs), and dynasty trusts; and California-specific property tax planning under Propositions 13 and 19. Our practice includes a Certified Legal Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law — a designation conferred by the State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization, and held by less than 1% of California attorneys.

Specialized planning includes asset protection, special needs trusts, business succession, planning for non-U.S. citizens, and multi-jurisdictional matters across California, Florida, Nevada, Utah, and Washington.

Trust and Estate Administration

When a trust or estate becomes administrable — typically following the grantor’s death or incapacity — fiduciaries face a maze of state and federal compliance obligations, tax decisions, and family dynamics. Our role is to help the executor, trustee, or successor trustee carry out the decedent’s wishes while protecting the fiduciary from personal liability.

The work spans the full administration lifecycle: assessing whether probate is necessary; complying with statutory notice and accounting requirements; inventorying and valuing assets; coordinating fiduciary income tax filings and federal estate tax returns where applicable; making post-mortem tax decisions including qualified disclaimers, §645 elections, and retain-versus-distribute analyses; subtrust funding and asset allocation; managing real property transfers and Proposition 19 reassessment exclusions; and final distribution to beneficiaries. We represent both fiduciaries and beneficiaries (in separate matters), and our experience on both sides of the table informs our approach to either role.

Probate Court Practice

The firm appears regularly in probate court on the full range of matters within the court’s jurisdiction: conservatorships and guardianships; capacity and competency proceedings; petitions to confirm or recover trust assets (including Heggstad petitions and Probate Code § 850 petitions); petitions to interpret, modify, reform, or terminate trusts under Probate Code § 17200; spousal property petitions; ancillary probate and small-estate procedures; and contested petitions of all kinds. If the matter belongs in probate court, the firm handles it.

Estate and Trust Litigation

When disputes arise, our litigation practice addresses the full range of estate and trust controversies: will and trust contests, trustee removal and surcharge petitions, breach of fiduciary duty claims, accounting disputes, and contested capacity and undue influence matters.

Our planning and administration work is informed directly by our litigation experience. Having seen what goes wrong when an estate plan is challenged or an administration goes sideways, our attorneys draft and advise with disputes already in mind — building plans that anticipate friction and reduce the likelihood that conflicts ever reach a courtroom.