Roisman Henel LLP was founded in 2002, after branching out from the law firm of Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May, to form a new firm specializing in estate and trust law. We are committed to providing our clients with superior service and personalized attention. Three of our attorneys are certified specialists in estate planning, trust, and probate law. Our senior attorneys are rated "AV" by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory (the highest rating of skill and ethics), and are included among Northern California's "Super Lawyers," selected by their peers and the publishers of Law & Politics and San Francisco Magazine.

We assist clients with all aspects of estate planning to ensure the orderly and efficient management and transfer of property during life, upon incapacity, and at death. We partner with our clients to analyze and implement strategies to minimize estate and gift taxes, property taxes, and other expenses, while keeping in mind the personal and family issues that accompany such planning. Our estate planning services include:

• Wills and revocable trusts
• Preparation of gift tax returns
• Planning for incapacity with durable powers of attorney and advance health care directives
• Life insurance trusts
• Personal residence trusts and grantor retained annuity and income trusts
• Business succession planning, including advice about family limited partnerships and LLCs
• Charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, and other planned-giving techniques
• Special needs trusts
• "Crummey" gift trusts and other irrevocable trusts for younger beneficiaries
• Dynasty trusts, generation-skipping transfer tax-exempt trusts, and other specialized trusts for long-term succession planning
  

We also advise trustees and executors (including professional fiduciaries, such as banks), and beneficiaries on the legal and tax issues resulting from the death or incapacity of an individual. We have experience in probate courts throughout the Bay Area, as well as many other counties in California. Our trust and estate administration services include:

• Post-mortem tax planning and trust administration
• Probate and other court proceedings
• Preparation of federal and California estate and gift tax returns with emphasis on valuation and disclosure issues, marital deduction reporting and allocation of GST tax exemption
• Administration of lifetime trusts
• Court-supervised and non-supervised accountings

Our office is located in downtown Oakland overlooking scenic Lake Merritt. There is valet parking in the building and we are located just two blocks from BART.

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