Top Estate Planning Attorneys in Thousand Oaks, CA (2026)

Thousand Oaks is the largest city in the Conejo Valley, with about 127,000 residents, a median home value near $1,053,000, and a median household income around $135,600. That combination of high property values and high professional income makes it one of the wealthiest cities in Ventura County, and the estate planning stakes reflect it. Amgen alone employs thousands of people who live within a few miles of the Thousand Oaks Boulevard corridor, and the company broke ground in fall 2025 on a $600 million Center for Science and Innovation on its campus. Those employees’ estate planning needs look different from a family that built wealth in real estate or a small business: restricted stock units, deferred compensation, and 401(k) balances that often exceed the value of the house.

The Conejo Valley also has one of the highest concentrations of estate planning attorneys with verifiable credentials in Ventura County. Residents here can choose from multiple Certified Specialists without driving to Ventura or downtown Los Angeles. That is unusual. Most of the cities in this region have one or none. Below are estate planning attorneys who actually serve Thousand Oaks, with credentials you can check yourself. This is not a ranking. It is a starting point for doing your own homework.

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How to vet an estate planning attorney

The California State Bar certifies attorneys as Legal Specialists in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law. Fewer than 1% of California attorneys hold this credential. It requires passing a written exam, demonstrating substantial experience, and submitting to peer review. You can verify any attorney’s specialist status at calbar.ca.gov.

A certified specialist is not automatically the right fit. But the designation tells you the attorney has submitted to outside scrutiny in this specific area of law, which is more than most marketing claims can say.

Beyond certification, look for:

• A practice focused on estate planning, not a general practice that also “does” trusts.
• Direct access to the attorney, not a paralegal-driven mill that hands you a binder.
• Flat, disclosed fees. If an attorney won’t tell you the cost before you sign, that tells you something. See what flat-fee estate planning actually costs.
• Membership or participation in the Conejo Valley Estate Planning Council, a local professional organization where attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors discuss estate planning issues specific to this community. It is not a credential, but it signals that the attorney is active in the local professional network.
• Familiarity with Ventura County probate procedures. Thousand Oaks probate matters are heard at the Juvenile and Probate Courthouse at 4353 E. Vineyard Avenue in Oxnard, not the main courthouse in Ventura.

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Estate planning attorneys serving Thousand Oaks

Ridley Law

Eric D. Ridley has practiced estate planning in Ventura County since 2010, working with families across Thousand Oaks, the Conejo Valley, and the surrounding area. The firm handles living trusts, wills, powers of attorney, advance healthcare directives, trust administration, and probate. Flat-fee pricing, disclosed before engagement. Free 30-minute initial consultation by phone or video.

567 W. Channel Islands Boulevard, Suite 210, Port Hueneme, CA 93041. (805) 244-5291.

Law Offices of Gregory M. Hultgren

Gregory Hultgren (State Bar #100910) was admitted to the California Bar in 1981 and is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law. He has practiced in the Conejo Valley for over 45 years, making him the most senior estate planning practitioner in the area. His office is physically located in Newbury Park, within the City of Thousand Oaks.

2820 Camino Dos Rios, Suite 301, Newbury Park, CA 91320. (805) 375-7300.

Westlake Law Group

David Esquibias (State Bar #171327) was admitted in 1994 and holds both a Certified Specialist designation in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law and an LLM in Taxation from Villanova. That combination is relevant for Thousand Oaks households with equity compensation, deferred comp, or business interests where the tax consequences of a planning decision can dwarf the legal fees. The firm also handles trust litigation.

30699 Russell Ranch Road, Suite 210, Westlake Village, CA 91362. (805) 497-4582.

Botti & Morison

Christopher Botti (State Bar #150071) was admitted in 1990 and is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law. The firm maintains offices in both Westlake Village and Santa Barbara, giving it reach across the full coastal corridor.

2625 Townsgate Road, Suite 330, Westlake Village, CA 91361.

Pederson Law

Grant Pederson (State Bar #249433) was admitted in 2007 and served as past chair of the Conejo Valley Estate Planning Council. The firm also includes Camille Aceituno, a Certified Specialist, giving the practice two attorneys with distinct credentials under one roof.

920 Hampshire Road, A1, Westlake Village, CA 91361.

Gray & Barba LLP

Chris Gray (State Bar #153550) and Claudia Barba (State Bar #207381) are both UCLA Law graduates. Barba is bilingual in English and Spanish, which matters in a county where Spanish-speaking families may need estate documents and conversations in their own language. The firm’s office is on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, physically within the city.

1333 E. Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Suite 212, Thousand Oaks, CA 91362. (805) 374-2424.

CunninghamLegal

James Cunningham (State Bar #171843) runs a multi-office estate planning firm with a location on Thousand Oaks Boulevard near the Westlake Village border. The firm focuses on living trusts, trust administration, and probate.

4165 E. Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Suite 145, Westlake Village, CA 91362. (805) 860-1000.

Mary Kulvinskas, Attorney at Law

Mary Kulvinskas (State Bar #201469) was admitted in 1999 and runs a solo practice with a focus on estate planning, trust administration, and probate litigation. For families facing a contested trust or will, the litigation experience is a distinguishing factor.

2625 Townsgate Road, Suite 330, Westlake Village, CA 91361.

Ferguson Case Orr Paterson LLP

John Mark Andersen (State Bar #162930) has been a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law since 2008, holds a JD from UC Hastings, and is known for representing clients who value discretion. The firm is based in Ventura but serves the broader county, including Thousand Oaks.

1050 S. Kimball Road, Ventura, CA 93004. (805) 654-0100.

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What Thousand Oaks families actually deal with

Amgen, biotech equity, and the retirement account problem

A significant share of Thousand Oaks households built their wealth inside employer retirement plans and equity compensation rather than in taxable brokerage accounts or rental properties. That changes which parts of an estate plan carry the most weight. A 401(k) or IRA does not pass under your trust or your will. It passes to whoever is named on the beneficiary designation form filed with the plan administrator, and if that form still names an ex-spouse, was never updated after a second marriage, or defaults to “estate,” that is where the money goes regardless of what any other document says.

The SECURE Act, effective for deaths after 2019, compressed the payout window for most non-spouse beneficiaries from a lifetime stretch to a hard 10-year distribution requirement. For a Thousand Oaks household where the 401(k) is worth more than the house, that 10-year acceleration can push beneficiaries into higher tax brackets in the years they can least afford it. Naming a trust as the IRA beneficiary is sometimes the right call, particularly in a blended family, but it requires drafting that meets specific IRS tests. If your retirement accounts are your largest asset, the beneficiary forms deserve as much attention as the trust document.

Blended families and the QTIP question

The Conejo Valley has a high rate of second and third marriages, often with children from earlier relationships on both sides. The planning challenge is straightforward to describe and difficult to execute: a surviving spouse needs financial security for life, but the deceased spouse’s children need assurance that the assets ultimately reach them and do not end up with a new partner or the surviving spouse’s own children.

A QTIP trust (qualified terminable interest property) is one of the standard tools for this. It gives the surviving spouse income from the trust assets for life while locking in who receives the principal after the surviving spouse dies. It is not the only tool, and it is not always the right one, but the point is that a blended-family plan requires more than a simple “everything to my spouse, then to our kids” structure. If your family looks like this, ask directly how the attorney handles it.

The Westlake Village county-line trap

Westlake Village straddles the Ventura County/Los Angeles County line. The western portion (the city of Westlake Village, incorporated 1981) is in Ventura County. The eastern portion (the Westlake Village neighborhood of the city of Thousand Oaks, plus unincorporated areas) is also Ventura County. But the community of Westlake Village that sits south of the 101 freeway, on the LA County side, falls under Los Angeles County Superior Court jurisdiction.

This matters for probate. If the decedent’s residence was on the LA County side, the petition is filed in LA Superior Court, not Ventura County. Filing in the wrong county does not just cause a delay; it can result in a dismissed petition and refiled fees. If a family member died in what everyone calls “Westlake Village,” the first question your attorney should ask is which side of the county line the house sits on. You can check this yourself on the Ventura County Assessor’s parcel map. If the parcel is not there, the property is in LA County.

Prop 19 and Thousand Oaks’ 1960s-70s housing stock

Thousand Oaks was largely built out between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s. Families who bought during that period have property-tax assessments based on purchase prices of $50,000 to $150,000. The current market value of those same homes is $800,000 to well over $1 million.

Under Proposition 19 (effective February 2021), a child who inherits a parent’s primary residence and moves into it within one year gets a partial exclusion: the first $1,044,586 of reassessed value above the existing base is excluded. Everything above that is reassessed to current market value. A child who does not move in within a year gets no exclusion at all.

On a Thousand Oaks home assessed at $100,000 with a current market value of $1,053,000, a child who moves in keeps the low basis on the first $1,044,586 of the gap (which covers nearly all of it). A child who does not move in faces full reassessment to $1,053,000, which can mean a property-tax increase from roughly $1,100 per year to over $12,600. Whether the plan is for children to keep the house or sell it should be addressed in the trust, not discovered afterward. Our trust-or-will comparison tool can help you think through whether a trust makes sense for your situation.

The probate math on a Thousand Oaks home

Probate fees in California are set by statute (Probate Code §§ 10810 and 10800), calculated on the gross value of the probate estate, not the net equity. On a Thousand Oaks home worth $1,053,000 with a $200,000 mortgage, the fee is calculated on $1,053,000.

The statutory fee on a $1,053,000 estate: $24,060 for the attorney and $24,060 for the executor. That is $48,120 in statutory fees alone, before court costs, filing fees, appraisals, or any petition for extraordinary compensation.

A funded living trust avoids probate entirely. The cost of a trust is a fraction of those fees. The difference is that you pay for the trust while you are alive and in control, or your family pays for probate after you are gone and has no say in the cost.

Where Thousand Oaks probate is heard

If an estate does go through probate, Thousand Oaks matters are filed at the Ventura County Superior Court, Juvenile and Probate Division, located at 4353 E. Vineyard Avenue, Oxnard, CA 93036. This is a different building from the main courthouse at 800 S. Victoria Avenue in Ventura. There is no Thousand Oaks courthouse that handles probate. Your attorney should know this without being told.

If you want to understand what California’s intestacy rules would do with your estate if you have no plan at all, that is worth checking before you decide whether planning is worth the cost.

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Credentials listed are drawn from the firms’ own public information, the State Bar of California, and public court records. This page is not a ranking and is not an endorsement. Ridley Law is listed first because we publish this page, not because of any ranking; we are included because we serve Thousand Oaks. We wrote this page, and we think you should know that. Verify any attorney’s license status and specialist certification at calbar.ca.gov.