A Conversation with Vanessa Terzian
Today I am meeting with Vanessa Terzian, an Estate Planning Attorney in Pasadena, Ca; but, with Zoom we can work with clients all over California. I limit my practice to family law in
California, and Vanessa limits her practice to California as well.
My mediation and litigation practice involves participants and clients who are often small to medium sized business owners, or have certain investment assets that involve issues beyond just their divorce. Because these issues are broader than just their divorce, they require that I bring into the mediation room (or as consulting attorneys) additional professionals. With close to 20 years of experience in estate planning legal matters, Vanessa is a great resource to bring into either setting.
Here are ten ways that she has assisted in these matters and can assist both in the
mediation and litigation setting going forward:
1. Review and advise the parties on what the trust terms actually provide and how these terms impact their estate plan as a whole.
2. Creative solutions for dividing shared assets.
3. Re-structuring a trust. This may be re-titling or changing beneficiary designations.
4. Helping couples determine key role players. For example, who they would like to serve as guardians for their children.
5. Act as un-bundled counsel for estate issues.
6. Help draft bespoke orders, agreements or judgments to ensure the estate plan, or trust document, carries out the parties’ wishes.
7. Vanessa can assist with certain complex provisions within the agreements as they relate to the estate plan.
8. Assist with targeted discovery requests and review surrounding the trust assets.
9. Assist with preparation for deposition or examination of issues surrounding the estate plan.
10. Because Vanessa has a background working for a corporate trustee, she is able to spot drafting issues with a trust to avoid litigation down the road.
Vanessa and I met in Provisors years ago and also attended the same Law School.
An adjunct professor of Wills and Trusts at Southwestern Law School and recently named a top attorney and a Rising Star by Super Lawyers, Vanessa Terzian began her legal career as a Trust Officer for Wells Fargo, N.A. Her experience at Wells Fargo, working closely with clients, portfolio managers, beneficiaries and other attorneys, shed light on how a poor estate plan can ruin a family’s fortune and more importantly, their relationships. After witnessing firsthand the importance of proper planning, Vanessa has pursued her own practice, helping countless families through her expertise in estate and tax planning, probate and trust administration. What sets Vanessa apart is her understanding of the needs of growing families, her ability to relate to working parents who desire a better life for themselves and their families and her know-how to implement strategic estate planning tools in the most cost efficient and seamless manner. Vanessa also draws on her real estate and business background in crafting comprehensive plans for her clients.
In January 2020, Vanessa merged her practice with the Pasadena law firms of Lagerlof, Senecal, Gosney & Kruse and Phelps Law Group, now known as Lagerlof, LLP.
As a family woman, Vanessa understands the importance of protecting assets, planning for the future and building your own legacy. She takes pride in providing her clients with the sense of comfort and security that comes along with having an effective and comprehensive estate plan in place. Ashley Andrews has practiced exclusively family law for close to 20 years. Her firm is set apart because she handles high-conflict and complex child custody matters, divorce cases with business owners, high-asset divorce cases, and domestic violence cases. She has an in-house forensic accountant who works on all her cases in some capacity. She has litigated family law cases all over California, including multi-week trials in the following counties: Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange County, and Riverside. While still taking the litigated family law cases, she is optimizing her practice by adding in mediation and collaborative divorce, a shift that she finds harder for the family law practitioner but better overall for the participants and their families. In her spare time, she is learning tennis, growing orchids, walking her Yorkshire terrier, frequenting the Norton Simon, and attending every Mosten Guthrie class she can fit into her schedule.
This material is provided for educational purposes only. Providing this information does not establish an attorney/client relationship. None of the information contained in this post should be acted upon without first consulting with an experienced family law mediator and attorney. Should you have questions about the content of this post, please arrange to discuss via a consultation.