Estate and Trust Advisors: How to Choose the Right Team in California or Washington

By Kevin Luu, Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer. Reviewed on 2026-09-30.

Estate and trust advisors are the small team that turns your wishes into documents that work: an estate planning attorney who drafts the trust, wills and guardianship nominations, a CPA who handles gift and trust tax filings, and a fiduciary financial adviser who makes sure every account is titled and named to match the plan. To choose them, check credentials in public databases, ask how each one is paid, and pick people who will coordinate with each other rather than work in silos.

For a dual-income household in the Bay Area or Seattle with young children, equity compensation and a seven-figure home, the risk is rarely a bad document. It is a good document that nobody connected to the accounts, or a plan written for a state you do not live in. This guide covers who does what, how to vet each role, and two worked examples that show what is at stake in California and Washington.

The three roles on an estate team, and what each one owns

Most families with children under 12 need three professionals, plus one decision they make themselves (who serves as trustee and guardian).

The attorney is the only one who can give legal advice or draft documents. The adviser and CPA cannot replace them. What they can do is make the documents real: a trust that owns nothing does not avoid probate.

Step 1: Confirm credentials in public databases

Every role has a free public lookup. Use it before the first meeting.

• Attorneys in California: the State Bar certifies specialists in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law, one of 11 certified areas. Certification requires a written exam, at least five years of practice with 25% or more of the work in the specialty, and peer review (State Bar of California). Plenty of strong estate lawyers are not certified, but certification is a useful filter.
• Attorneys in Washington: confirm active license status through the Washington State Bar Association, then ask what share of their practice is estate planning and how many plans they draft each year that include Washington estate tax planning.
• Financial advisers: look the firm and person up on adviserinfo.sec.gov and read the fees, conflicts and disciplinary sections of Form ADV Part 2A. If they claim the CFP mark, check it at CFP Board.

Step 2: Ask how each advisor is paid

Pay structure shapes advice. An attorney billing a flat fee for a trust package has no reason to add documents you do not need. An insurance agent paid by commission may steer you toward permanent life insurance when term coverage fits a family with young children better. A fee-only adviser is paid only by you, not by product sales, which removes that pull. Ask every candidate the same three questions and get the answers in writing:

1. How are you paid, and by whom?
2. Will you receive any compensation from a product or service you recommend?
3. What will it cost to update the plan after a birth, a move between states, or a large RSU vest?

For a deeper look at whether your adviser should also take on a formal role in the plan, see can my financial advisor be the executor of my will.

Step 3: Test whether they understand your state

California and Washington create different problems, and an advisor who treats them the same will miss the main risk.

California: the cost is probate, not estate tax

California does not levy its own estate tax, and the federal basic exclusion is $15,000,000 per person for 2026, made permanent by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and indexed from 2027 (IRS). Most families in our income range will not owe federal estate tax. Their exposure is California probate, where both the attorney and the personal representative are entitled to statutory fees calculated on the gross value of probate assets, without subtracting the mortgage (Cal. Probate Code §10810 and §10800). The schedule is 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000 and 1% of the next $9,000,000.

Washington: the cost is the state estate tax

Washington’s estate tax exclusion is $3,076,000 for deaths from January 1 to June 30, 2026 and $3,000,000 for deaths from July 1 to December 31, 2026 (WA Department of Revenue). Washington also does not allow portability: “Washington law does not have, nor does it incorporate, the federal provisions of portability for estate tax” (WA DOR estate tax FAQ). If everything passes outright to the surviving spouse, the first spouse’s Washington exclusion is simply lost. A Washington attorney should raise a credit shelter (bypass) trust without being asked.

Worked example: what the wrong plan costs in each state

California family (assumptions, illustrative). A Genentech scientist and a physician in San Mateo County earn $1.2 million combined. They own a $3,200,000 home with a $1,400,000 mortgage, $900,000 in a joint brokerage account holding vested RSU shares, and $700,000 in 401(k)s. They signed wills years ago but never created a trust.

Say one parent dies, everything passes to the other, and the surviving parent later dies still without a trust. The home and brokerage account (gross value $4,100,000, with today’s values held constant) go through probate in the survivor’s estate. The 401(k)s pass by beneficiary designation and stay out. Statutory attorney fees:

• 4% of the first $100,000: $4,000
• 3% of the next $100,000: $3,000
• 2% of the next $800,000: $16,000
• 1% of the remaining $3,100,000: $31,000

That is $54,000 to the attorney and another $54,000 to the personal representative, about $108,000 before court costs and any extraordinary fees, on an estate that owes no federal estate tax. A funded revocable trust typically keeps these assets out of probate. At the first death, property going to the surviving spouse can often pass through a simpler spousal property petition, which is why the full exposure usually arrives when the second parent dies, exactly when the children are the heirs. If both parents died together, each spouse’s share would generally be administered as a separate estate, and the fee math would change.

Washington family (assumptions, illustrative). An Amazon director and a software engineer in Bellevue own a $2,500,000 home, $1,800,000 in brokerage and RSU shares, $900,000 in 401(k)s, and $4,000,000 of term life insurance on each spouse that they own personally. Life insurance owned by the insured is generally included in the insured’s gross estate (IRC §2042). If one spouse dies in late 2026 and everything passes to the survivor, the survivor’s estate could reach about $9,200,000 ($5,200,000 of assets plus the $4,000,000 death benefit), roughly three times the $3,000,000 exclusion that applies to deaths in the second half of 2026, and more if the survivor’s own $4,000,000 policy is still in force at death. The first spouse’s exclusion is gone. A credit shelter trust at the first death, and possibly an irrevocable life insurance trust to own the policies, are the questions a capable Washington attorney raises in the first meeting. The federal exclusion is not the issue for this family either; the state tax is.

Step 4: Make sure the team actually coordinates

A common failure is not a drafting error. It is a signed trust with nothing in it. After signing, someone has to:

• Retitle the home and brokerage accounts into the trust.
• Decide whether the trust or individuals should be beneficiaries of 401(k)s and life insurance. See naming a trust as beneficiary of your brokerage account.
• Check that new RSU shares land in an account the trust owns, or is named on, after each vest.
• File Form 709 when gifts to a child exceed the $19,000 per donor annual exclusion for 2026, for example when superfunding a 529 (IRS Form 709).

Ask each candidate who owns these tasks. If every answer is “someone else,” that is the gap. Our estate planning work is built around coordinating these steps with your attorney and CPA.

Choosing a guardian and trustee is your decision, not theirs

California law lets a parent nominate a guardian of the person and of the estate for a minor child (Cal. Probate Code §1500). Advisors can explain the trade-offs: the person who raises your children does not have to be the person who manages the money, and a professional or co-trustee can sit alongside a family member. For how trustee duties work in practice, see what is a fiduciary trust.

What to document for your children

Documents say who gets what and when. They rarely say why. A short letter kept with the trust, explaining why you chose these trustees, why distributions are staged the way they are, and what you hope the money makes possible, gives a trustee something to work from when your children are 25 and asking for a distribution. As Kevin Luu puts it: “Your kids will inherit your money. Will they inherit your judgment?” The family governance side of our work uses the FamilyKnowledge® Library for exactly this.

Common questions

Do we need an estate and trust advisor if we will never owe estate tax?

Yes, in most cases. In California, the main reasons for a trust are avoiding probate fees and delays, naming guardians, and controlling when children receive money, none of which depend on estate tax. In Washington, the $3,000,000 state exclusion for deaths after June 30, 2026 means many dual-income households with life insurance and home equity are closer to the line than they expect.

Can one person handle everything?

Not safely. Only a licensed attorney should draft trusts and wills. A CPA should prepare gift and trust tax returns. A fiduciary adviser coordinates titling, beneficiaries and updates. The best results come when one of them takes responsibility for keeping the other two informed, and you know who that is.

How often should the plan be reviewed?

After any birth, move between states, large equity event, or change in marriage, and otherwise every few years even if nothing obvious has changed. A family that moves from Seattle to the Bay Area, or the reverse, needs its documents checked against the new state’s rules, because the risks in the two states are different.

Next step

Pull your current documents and list every account with how it is titled and who is named as beneficiary. Then interview one attorney and one adviser using the questions above. If you want a second opinion on how your plan, accounts and tax picture fit together, the Tax & Wealth Assessment from Bright Advisers is a place to start. This is general education, and the right move depends on your family’s full picture.

Written by

Kevin Luu

Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer, Bright Advisers

Kevin has advised high-income W-2 tech and biotech families since 2015, and leads the education-first Age Five Family Office from Brea, California.

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