California Lawyers Association - Trusts & Estates
69 episodes listed below
California trusts and estates, carefully explained.
Trust Me treats trusts and estates law as a practical craft, not an abstract specialty. Episodes move through statutes, client scenarios, court procedures, and drafting consequences with lawyers and subject-matter guests who stay close to practice.
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Trust Me is a working legal education series for the trusts and estates bar, with a strong California orientation and a habit of translating technical rules into client situations. The show is formal, but not remote. Episodes tend to begin with a defined problem: preserving a family home during probate, using a new non-probate transfer procedure, noticing state agencies after death, assessing capacity concerns, or spotting anti-SLAPP issues in probate litigation. Then the conversation moves carefully through the rule. Details matter here. Dates, dollar thresholds, Probate Code sections, court timing, valuation questions, and notice requirements are treated as the material of practice rather than background noise. A probate loan episode, for example, frames the problem through an estate where cash is short but a house matters, then walks through payment reserves, deferred payments, lender conversations, and distribution mechanics. A discussion of AB 2016 looks at primary residences, California real property, small estate affidavits, and the places where the statute helps or leaves judgment calls. Legislative episodes keep the same practical bent, especially around virtual representation and new notice obligations tied to state departments. The show also reaches into adjacent practice areas when trust work demands it. Community property and divorce enter through tracing and valuation. Cognitive impairment enters through the lawyer’s difficult task of recognizing capacity concerns without pretending to be a clinician. Probate litigation enters through anti-SLAPP motions and no-contest clause strategy. The format is usually a moderator or episode host guiding one or more knowledgeable guests. It rarely rushes. The value is in the controlled repetition: a technical point is stated, narrowed, tested against facts, and restated in plainer terms. For a general audience, that may feel dense. For practitioners, fiduciaries, and legally sophisticated listeners, it offers a clear record of how these problems are being talked through by people close to the field.
Made for: Trust Me is for trusts and estates practitioners, probate litigators, estate planners, fiduciaries, and legally sophisticated listeners who want California-specific analysis. It also suits professionals who need practical context around estate administration, capacity, and family-property disputes.
What sets it apart: The show stands out for its practitioner-first precision: it ties statutes and procedural changes to concrete family and estate scenarios. It gives legal rules room to breathe, with enough repetition and example work for complex points to land.
Conversations brought to you by the Trusts and Estates Section of the California Lawyers Association..
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Trust Me makes the financial mechanics of California estate administration legible through detailed, practitioner-led conversations.
Trust Me turns California trusts and estates practice into a working study of how law shapes financial decisions. Rotating hosts question practitioners about new legislation, probate procedures, trust disputes and ways to preserve estate assets, keeping the discussion close to…
A family home, a probate clock, and a changed statute: suddenly your legal update has stakes.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical look at trust and estate lending for situations where one party needs cash and another wants the house.
A trust and estate lending specialist walks through what happens when one party needs cash and another wants to keep the house. Tanis Cleaver stays on the practical side of the subject, laying out loan structures, monthly payments, interest reserves, and deferred payment options…
A grounded look at probate lending and how interim payments can be structured.
Trust and estate lending is treated here as a bridge between illiquid estate assets and the costs that keep an estate moving while probate is still open.
A clear, practitioner-focused guide to California's new primary-residence probate workaround.
Judith Tang and Lisa Roper walk through Assembly Bill 2016 with a steady, practical hand, moving from the statute itself to the drafting questions it raises and back again to a plain-English account of how primary residence can be determined from the facts and circumstances.
A practical probate-law update that turns statutory changes into usable deadlines.
This season opener reads like a straightforward legislative update for trusts and estates practitioners. It focuses on what changed in 2025 and what takes effect on January 1, 2026, and it stays practical when it gets into notice mechanics and AB 1521.
Trusts, divorce, and house math make community property feel immediate.
Trust Me makes a trust-and-divorce dispute feel grounded by staying close to community property questions and the practical work of tracing and valuation.
German law, tested against real cases.
Family court strategy without the fog.
Plain talk for Idaho senior planning.
A family home is where the problem starts.
Sam Price frames a practical estate headache: the family home is valuable, but the estate or trust is short on cash while probate drags on.
Anna Solomon hosts a focused conversation on California’s new rules for avoiding probate on a decedent’s primary residence.
Season six opens with a legislative briefing.
Ben Schwefel opens the conversation with Anthony Lai.
Estate planning lawyers discuss how to handle clients with potential mental function deficits, featuring a clinical psychologist.
This episode discusses the application of anti-SLAPP motions in trust and estates law, exploring their use in probate court, related policy issues, and practical tips for attorneys.