Guide to Finding California Estate Lawyer

What is a California Estate Lawyer?

A person’s estate is equal to the net worth of their assets, with assets including liquid funds, properties, and debt. California estate lawyers work on managing a person’s estate after they die, appropriating its worth according to a will if one is available or else working through the court probate system to make sure a person’s descendants are given what they deserve.

What Does a California Estate Lawyer Do?

Good California estate lawyers can be hard to find because estate law is such a multi-faceted field that requires of its workers many different types of skills. Different clients have different needs, but here are a few tasks your California Estate lawyer should be ready to handle for you:

1. Locate all the funds of a deceased person, including funds located in retirement accounts, IRAs, etc

2. Get appraisals of the value of all property

3. Handle debt payment

4. Collect life insurance

5. Help sell all property, including real estate property

6. Settle disputes among the descendants

7. Re-title all assets and put them into the names of the descendants

8. Keep track of all tax payments, such as estate taxes and income taxes

9. Establish the validity of a will

California Estate Lawyers and Specializations

During law school, future lawyers are trained in every area of law so that upon graduating and passing the bar examination, they are perfectly qualified to practice in all areas, from criminal law to estate law. However, you may be worried that your California estate lawyer is more experienced in other areas of law that estate law. If that’s the case, you may be interested to know more about the program that the State Bar of California offers to honor lawyers who’ve especially distinguished themselves in the area of Estate Planning, Trust and Probate.

To get a State Bar specialization in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate, one must meet several stringent requirements, including additional education and a set number of cases in each branch of Estate Planning, including at least:

1. Writing thirty tax plans for at least twenty separate clients

2. Writing fifty estate plans, at least twenty of which must include tax issues

3. Writing forty administration procedures for at least twenty separate clients

4. Completing transfers of a decedent’s assets for at least forty persons

5. Litigating twenty matters for at least ten separate clients.

Such experience should bode well for a CA estate lawyer’s ability to represent your interests. While you should never disqualify any CA estate lawyers without specializations, if you think that level of experience recommends itself you can find a CA estate lawyer with an Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Specialization through the State Bar’s website, here.

How Can I Find a California Estate Lawyer?

As the American population ages, estate planning will continue becoming a more and more popular field of law. However, all those CA estate lawyers in practice can make finding one an increasingly intimidating process. If you’ve already looked through the specialization search engine and didn’t find a CA estate lawyer who met your needs, then learn more about these other tried and proven methods for getting great CA estate lawyers.

1. Getting a recommendation: Mortality is a universal human condition, and tragic though it is, that universality means that there are many resources there for us to learn from. When someone you’ve loved has passed, remember that it’s surely the case that one of your friends or family members know of a good CA estate lawyer that you can contact. Even if the California estate lawyer is too busy to take your case, they may be able to make a referral for you to another CA estate lawyer who can do an even better job with your legal needs.

2. Using a referral service: Referral services work like recommendations from people whose jobs are knowing about California law. The way it works is you call the referral service and tell them about what you want in a CA estate lawyer. They then recommend to you the attorney who can best meet your desires. The services usually cost a small fee, but the first consultation with your recommended CA estate lawyer is included. All the lawyers recommended by the service are pre-screened so you can feel better about trusting them with your estate planning. A list of referral services by California county is on the State Bar website here.

3. Using a search engine: Make sure that no matter the CA estate lawyer you find and where you find them, that you do some research into their past before you commit to using their services. Look to see if their practice has been reviewed before or if they’ve ever appeared on the news. If a complaint has ever been filed against an attorney, then it will show up when you find their name using the “Attorney Search” function available on the website of the State Bar of California. Of course, if an attorney doesn’t appear to be registered with the State Bar, that may also be a cause of some concern.

If You Have a Problem with Your California Estate Lawyer

The great majority of California estate lawyers are ready to do everything in their power to make your time of grief like stressful. If an argument occurs between you and your California estate lawyer, this isn’t unusual given the high-stakes of the issues at hand, nor is it necessarily anyone’s fault. A difference of strategies is completely normal and to be expected. However, if you think that your California estate lawyer has committed a serious breach of ethics, such as lying to you or embezzling funds, then you should contact the State Bar of California and file a complaint against them. Call 1-800-843-9053 for more information.

Arguments concerning fees shouldn’t be dealt with by the filing of a complaint. Instead, the State Bar also offers a Fee Arbitration service to help clients and California estate lawyers to work through their fee-related conflict in a supervised setting with trained arbitration professionals. Call 415-538-2020 to learn more.