Our guests for this episode are two former IRS Estate and Gift Tax Attorneys, Eva Wolf and Michael Perlmutter. Eva and Michael will discuss the general audit process for Estate and Gift Tax returns. They will also cover common mistakes made based on their extensive experience in auditing hundreds of these returns.

About Our Guests:

Eva Wolf is currently a Senior Attorney in the Passthroughs & Special Industries division of the IRS Associate Office of Chief Counsel, where she advises IRS examination groups and taxpayers regarding the correct interpretation and application of federal transfer tax laws, in part by writing Treasury Regulations, PLRs, and CCAs. At the beginning of her legal career, she worked in the IRS Estate & Gift Tax division as an estate tax attorney. She then moved to private practice and, until a year and a half ago, she was a partner at Withers Bergman, and prior to that she was a partner at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp – both in their Los Angeles offices. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Loyola Law School, where she teaches Estate & Gift Tax. She can be reached at: (202) 317-3893

Michael Perlmutter is a licensed attorney, CPA and Valuation Specialist at Perlmutter Law and Valuation, Inc. Michael is an experienced valuation expert with an extensive 27-year career at the Internal Revenue Service as an Estate Tax Attorney, Revenue Agent and Valuation Specialist. His IRS career provided invaluable exposure to complex valuation issues involving a multitude of different assets. Michael has written IRS valuation related training materials, taught and mentored IRS attorneys, is a frequent presenter at seminars, and is also an instructor at UCLA Extension. He can be reached at: [email protected]

About Our Host:
 Host Anna Soliman is Trust Counsel and Managing Director for Fiduciary Trust International of California out of the Los Angeles Office. Prior to joining Fiduciary Trust International, Anna was an estate tax attorney for the Internal Revenue Service and also worked in private practice, specializing in estate planning and trust administration for ultrahigh net worth individuals.  She is also a TEXCOM member and is involved with the Fiduciary Income Tax Section of the American Bar Association.  

Thank you for listening to Trust Me!

Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra Studios
Edited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek

Our guest for this episode, Terrence M. Franklin, shares an incredible story of a Last Will and Testament from 1846 that played a very important role in his family history. He hopes that telling this story can help bend the arc of history towards justice.  

About Our Guest:

Terrence M. Franklin is a partner at Los Angeles based firm Sacks Glazier Franklin & Lodise.  He is a seasoned attorney with nearly three decades of experience handling trust and estates and probate litigation, disputes and appeals. Terry is also a member of ACTEC (the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel) and was the immediate past Chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.  He’s also served as Chair of the Diversity Committee of the Real Property Probate and Trust Law Section of the American Bar Association.  He can be reached at: [email protected]

About Our Host:
 Host Anna Soliman is Trust Counsel and Managing Director for Fiduciary Trust International of California out of the Los Angeles Office. Prior to joining Fiduciary Trust International, Anna was an estate tax attorney for the Internal Revenue Service and also worked in private practice, specializing in estate planning and trust administration for ultrahigh net worth individuals.  She is also a TEXCOM member and is involved with the Fiduciary Income Tax Section of the American Bar Association.  

Thank you for listening to Trust Me!

Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra Studios
Edited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek

In this month’s episode of Trust Me! we interview Chelsea Suttmann and Melissa Karlsten, authors of a recent article entitled “Advanced Planning—A Decade in Review: What Have We Learned Over the Last Decade and Where Are we Headed?” The article appeared in Volume 27, Issue 1 of the California Trusts and Estates Quarterly published by the Trusts and Estates Section of the California Lawyers Association.

We discuss changes and threatened changes in estate tax law from 2010 forward, from the fiscal cliff “use-it-or-lose-it” estate tax exemption planning to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. We next turn our attention to the estate tax proposals before Congress, particularly the Biden Administration’s “Build Back Better” plan. Although the legislation is still very fluid, listeners will get a sense of what might be coming our way in the near future. We also reflect on the lessons learned through the twists and turns of estate tax law in the last decade, and what planners should be thinking about and discussing with their clients as we move into 2022.

Thank you for listening to Trust Me!

Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra Studios
Edited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek

In writing or performing, it is important to know your audience.  In probate litigation, your audience is often the judicial officer presiding over the case.  In this podcast, we sit down with Judge David J. Cowan to get his view on some key topics in handling contested probate proceedings.

First, we explore the subject of pleadings and crafting a petition to tell a story.  We next discuss bench trials and how Judge Cowan approaches them, including how he considers testimony on mental capacity and susceptibility to undue influence.  Lastly, we discuss a bit narrower of a topic, relating civil cases to probate cases, which Judge Cowan currently oversees.

This podcast should provide some insight on how a judicial officer may look at your case.

About Our Guest

Judge David J. Cowan is Supervising Judge of the Civil Division of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.  He previously served as Supervising Judge of the Probate and Mental Health Division of the Superior Court.  Judge Cowan is also a member of the Probate and Mental Health Advisory Committee to the Judicial Council of California as well as former vice-chair of the Probate Law Committee of the California Judges Association.

About Our Host

Ryka Farotte is a research attorney at the Los Angeles County Superior Court.  He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the California Lawyer Association’s Trusts and Estates Section.

Thank you for listening to Trust Me!

Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra Studios
Edited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek

The trustee is in the driver’s seat in how a trust is administered, deciding when and how assets will be allocated.  Parents who create trusts to benefit their children often pick one or more of them to serve as trustee.  The beneficiaries become unhappy with what the trustee is doing or failing to do.   A lawyer hired by the beneficiaries may file a petition in the Superior Court asking the judge to remove the trustee.

When is enough, enough?  What factors will a California probate judge consider when deciding whether to remove a trustee?  In this episode, we discuss Trolan v. Trolan, a case involving six sibling co-trustees, the Court of Appeal provided guidance to trustees, beneficiaries and their lawyers and explore the subject of trustee removal litigation.  The key statute is California Probate Code section 15642.  We’ll also talk about how disputes might be resolved in mediation, which a probate judge can require under Breslin v. Breslin.

About Our Guests:

Denise E. Chambliss is a shareholder at Hoge Fenton Jones & Appel based in San Jose.  She chairs the firm's Trust and Estate Practice Group and its Trust and Estate Litigation Practice Group.  She litigates trust and estate cases across California and wrote an article on Trolan that appeared in Trusts and Estates Quarterly.  Denise was the lead attorney in a published case of first impression, Wilkin v. Nelson, in which the court granted judicial reformation of a decedent’s pour-over will to exclude unintended community property.  

As an Alameda County Superior Court judge for over 20 years, Judge Marshall Whitley developed a statewide reputation as an expert in trust and estate cases.  He served as Supervising Judge, Judicial College faculty, Chair of the Probate Section for the Judicial Council’s Education & Research Committee, and Chair of the Council’s Probate Advisory subcommittees on Trusts and Rules & Forms.  As a law professor, Judge Whitley taught Taxation, Wills & Trusts, Probate Procedure, and Mediating Trust & Estate Disputes.  Currently a mediator – arbitrator - special discovery master, Judge Whitley helps resolve complex disputes involving technical and highly emotional issues.  He is a member of the panel at ADR Services, Inc.  

About Our Host:

Jeffrey Galvin is a partner at Downey Brand LLP based in Sacramento.  He litigates trust and estate cases around Northern California, representing trustees and beneficiaries.  He created and edited the blog Trust on Trial, which covers on California trust and estate litigation.  He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Trusts and Estates Section of the California Lawyers Association. 

Thank you for listening to Trust Me!

Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra Studios
Edited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek

Inheritance forgery can take many forms, including phony estate planning documents that redirect assets to a scammer and fake deeds that spring the family home from the decedent’s estate.  Forgery used to be a crime that could result in the death penalty.  But in the mid-twentieth century, concern about forgery waned.  Based in part on the perception that counterfeit estate plans are rare, several states relaxed the formalities traditionally associated with wills in an effort to avoid technical deficiencies that might cause them to fail.  

 Has the pendulum swung too far?  In California and elsewhere, inheritance forgery may be more common than many folks assume and perhaps we should find new ways to combat it.  Certainly we should keep forgery risks in mind as we consider statutory innovations like electronic wills created on smartphones.  

 Professor David Horton is our guest for this episode.  The topic of this podcast, his co-authored piece Inheritance Forgery, appeared in the Duke Law Journal and can be downloaded along with his other articles here.  

 The podcast begins with a tale about high stakes fraud in rural Kansas.  As reported in an appellate opinion, an elderly widower named Earl Field hired Wanda Oborny to be his bookkeeper.  She forged a codicil (i.e., amendment) to his will and nearly ended up with half of his $20 million estate, to the detriment of a local university.  Justice prevailed (after a lengthy trial and appeal) and Oborny eventually pleaded guilty to mail fraud.  Along the way, a murder/suicide took the lives of the two “witnesses” to the codicil.   

 About Our Guest:

 David Horton is a Professor of Law at UC Davis. He received his B.A. cum laude from Carleton College in 1997 and his J.D. from UCLA School of Law in 2004. At UCLA, he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as Chief Articles Editor of the UCLA Law Review.  He then practiced at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco and clerked for the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Horton teaches and writes in the areas of wills and trusts, arbitration law, and contracts.  His work has won several national awards and appeared in the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, N.Y.U. Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, California Law Review, among many other journals. 

About Our Host:

Jeffrey Galvin is a partner at Downey Brand LLP based in Sacramento.  He litigates trust and estate cases across Northern California.  He created and edited the blog Trust on Trial.  He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Trusts and Estates Section of the California Lawyers Association.  This is his first foray into podcasting.

Produced by: Foley Marra Studios

Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra Studios
Edited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek

Our returning guests for this episode are Bryan Kirk of Fiduciary Trust International and Daniel Lorenzen of Fox Rothschild, LLP.  We discuss issues that arise when trust companies administer trusts from a drafting attorney’s point of view and a trust company’s point of view.  This is the second of a two-part series.  In this episode, we review specific distribution provisions and issues that may arise through the lens of a corporate trustee.

About Our Guests:

Daniel Lorenzen is a partner in the California offices of Fox Rothschild, LLP, and has been practicing in the trusts and estates field for 18 years. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan law school.  He can be reached at: [email protected] 

Bryan Kirk is Director of Estate and Financial Planning for Fiduciary Trust International.  He is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trusts and Probate, and a graduate of UC Berkeley School of Law.  He can be reached at: [email protected]

About Our Host:
 Host Anna Soliman is Trust Counsel and Managing Director for Fiduciary Trust International of California out of the Los Angeles Office. Prior to joining Fiduciary Trust International, Anna was an estate tax attorney for the Internal Revenue Service and also worked in private practice, specializing in estate planning and trust administration for ultrahigh net worth individuals.  She is also a TEXCOM member and is involved with the Fiduciary Income Tax Section of the American Bar Association.  

Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra Studios
Edited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek

Our guests for this episode are Bryan Kirk of Fiduciary Trust International and Daniel Lorenzen of Fox Rothschild, LLP.  We discuss issues that arise when trust companies administer trusts from a drafting attorney’s point of view and a trust company’s point of view.  This is a two-part series.  In the first episode, we discuss the need for a corporate trustee, certain discretionary language and how a corporate trustee may feel about holding certain types of assets.  In the second episode, we review specific distribution provisions and issues that may arise through the lens of a corporate trustee.

About Our Guests:

Daniel Lorenzen is a partner in the California offices of Fox Rothschild, LLP, and has been practicing in the trusts and estates field for 18 years. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan law school.  He can be reached at: [email protected] 

Bryan Kirk is Director of Estate and Financial Planning for Fiduciary Trust International.  He is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trusts and Probate, and a graduate of UC Berkeley School of Law.  He can be reached at: [email protected]

About Our Host:
 Host Anna Soliman is Trust Counsel and Managing Director for Fiduciary Trust International of California out of the Los Angeles Office. Prior to joining Fiduciary Trust International, Anna was an estate tax attorney for the Internal Revenue Service and also worked in private practice, specializing in estate planning and trust administration for ultrahigh net worth individuals.  She is also a TEXCOM member and is involved with the Fiduciary Income Tax Section of the American Bar Association.  

Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra Studios
Edited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek

Our guests for this episode are Scott Frasier and Matt Owens, authors of an article to be published in the Trusts and Estates Quarterly called “Let’s Get Digital! ESI in Trust and Estate Litigation.” We discuss the ethical duties of attorneys in regard to E-discovery, preservation letters to clients and opposing counsel aimed at avoiding spoliation of evidence issues, and common sources of electronically stored information, or (ESI). We learn what “native format” and “meta data” are, and when you might request it. Finally, we talk about how to sift through mountains of ESI to find the relevant information and address privacy concerns.

Their article is a must-read for all trust and estate litigators, as well as planners and those who represent trustees. Today’s episode will be eye-opening to those who have not dealt extensively with ESI issues.

About Our Guests:
Scott Fraser is an attorney at Crist Biorn Shepherd Roskoph located in Palo Alto, California.  Scott is a frequent contributor to CEB, having acted as the update author for  chapters in Drafting Revocable Trusts, California Will Drafting, and California Estate Planning, and has been recognized by Super Lawyers in the category of estate planning and administration.  

Matt Owners is a partner at Withers in the law firm’s San Diego office and handles matters all across California. Matt is a certified specialist in estate planning, trust, and probate law, is a TEXCOM member, and has been recognized by Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, and Private Client Global Elite in the category of trust and estate litigation. https://www.withersworldwide.com/en-gb/people/matthew-r-owens

About Our Host:
Host Herb Stroh is a partner at McCormick Barstow LLP, and practices out of the San Luis Obispo office. Herb is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust, and Probate by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. He is past chair of the Trusts and Estates Section of the California Lawyers Association and represents the Section on the CLA Board of Representatives. He is also Treasurer of CLA for the 2020-2021 year.  Herb has extensive experience in all aspects of trust, probate, conservatorship, and guardianship conflict resolution.  He also has experience in all aspects of estate planning and administration of trusts, probate estates, special needs trusts, and conservatorships. Mr. Stroh has also served as a mediator in a variety of trust and estate disputes both in Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo counties.

Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra Studios
Edited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek

Guests for this episode of “Trust Me!” are Tom Shaver and Neil Wertlieb. Tom served as Editor to the Fourth Edition of the Guide to The California Rules of Professional Conduct for Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Counsel. Tom discusses the process of reviewing and updating the fourth edition of the Guide. He also explains the effort to make this edition even more of a practice guide with  expanded sample discussions and new chapters on litigation and technology. For more information about the Guide, including how to purchase your own copy go to:

https://calawyers.org/trusts-and-estates/the-trusts-and-estates-ethics-guide-is-here/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=te

Co-Chair of the California Lawyers Association’s Ethics Committee Neil Wertlieb joins the podcast to tell us about the work of the Ethics Committee as well as ethical issues relevant to trusts and estates attorneys. We talk about conflicts—who is and who isn’t a client, conflicts when the fiduciary is also a beneficiary, and current and advance client conflict waivers. Finally, we consider ethical issues relevant during a pandemic.

Thomas Shaver was an attorney with Hartog Baer & Hand in Orinda for over seventeen years, with a practice focused on estate planning, post-death administrations, and related estate and gift taxation. He served for six years as a member of the Executive Committee of the Trusts and Estates Section.  In his final two years of that term he chaired the Ethics Subcommittee that coordinated the research, updating and revision of the Ethics Guide for trusts and estates practitioners that the Section published at the end of last year.  

Neil J. Wertlieb brings more than three decades of experience as a corporate transactional lawyer, including two decades as a partner at Milbank LLP.   Mr. Wertlieb’s areas of expertise include: corporate governance and business transactions (including acquisitions, securities offerings and restructurings); and attorney ethics and attorney standard of care.  He served as an ethicist as a Founding Member and Co-Chair of the California Lawyers Association Ethics Committee, a past Chair of  California State Bar’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct, past Chair of  Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Professional Responsibility and Ethics Committee and as Special Deputy Trial Counsel for California State Bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel. For additional information, please visit www.WertliebLaw.com. 

Host Herb Stroh is a partner at McCormick Barstow LLP, and practices out of the San Luis Obispo office. Herb is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust, and Probate by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. He is past chair of the Trusts and Estates Section of the California Lawyers Association and represents the Section on the CLA Board of Representatives. He is also Treasurer of CLA for the 2020-2021 year.  Herb has extensive experience in all aspects of trust, probate, conservatorship, and guardianship conflict resolution.  He also has experience in all aspects of estate planning and administration of trusts, probate estates, special needs trusts, and conservatorships. Mr. Stroh has also served as a mediator in a variety of trust and estate disputes both in Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo counties. 

Trust Me is Produced by Foley Marra Studios
Edited by Cat Hammons and Todd Gajdusek