Short answer: A California trust lawyer drafts and funds your revocable living trust, prepares the pour-over will and incapacity documents that go with it, and then represents trustees and beneficiaries once the trust has to be administered after someone dies. At Ridley Law a complete trust-based plan is a flat $4,100 for a married couple or $3,700 for an individual, and trust administration work that turns into a dispute is billed at $500 an hour. The job is not just paperwork. It is making sure the trust is actually funded, that the trustee follows the notice and accounting rules the Probate Code sets, and that the family does not end up back in court.
What does a trust lawyer actually do when you set up a trust?
A trust lawyer drafts the revocable living trust itself, along with the documents that go with it: a pour-over will to catch anything left out of the trust, incapacity documents, and the deed that moves your California home into the trust’s name. Drafting is the easy part. The harder, more overlooked part is funding: retitling bank accounts, brokerage accounts, real property, and business interests into the trust’s name so the trust actually controls them. A trust that is never funded, meaning the assets are never retitled into it, does not avoid probate for those unretitled assets.
A living trust attorney walks each asset through that retitling process rather than handing you a signed trust and calling it done.
How does a trust actually avoid probate?
A will, by itself, does not avoid probate. It only takes effect once a court validates it through the probate process. A funded revocable living trust is different: because the trust, not you personally, holds legal title to the asset, there is nothing left in your individual name for a court to probate when you die. Assets held in joint tenancy, and accounts with a payable-on-death, transfer-on-death, or named beneficiary designation, also generally pass outside of probate without needing a trust at all. Part of a trust lawyer’s job is figuring out which assets need the trust and which are already handled by a beneficiary designation.
What does a trust lawyer do after the person who created the trust dies?
This is where a trust lawyer’s work shifts from drafting to administration. A trustee must administer the trust according to its terms and California law, and while there is no fixed statutory deadline for finishing the job, the trustee owes a duty to act within a reasonable time under Probate Code § 16000. When a revocable trust becomes irrevocable, which typically happens at the grantor’s death, the trustee must send formal notice to every beneficiary and legal heir within 60 days under Probate Code § 16061.7. That notice starts a 120-day window during which the trust can be contested.
Beneficiaries are also entitled to accountings from the trustee under Probate Code §§ 16060 through 16063, and a trustee is barred from using trust property for personal benefit under Probate Code § 16004. A trust lawyer advises the trustee through each of these steps, or represents a beneficiary making sure the trustee actually follows them. A typical uncontested trust administration runs about 6 to 18 months, though that is a practical range rather than a statutory deadline. Learn more about what that process looks like on our trust administration page.
Trustee compensation is not the same fixed percentage schedule used in probate. A trustee is paid whatever the trust document specifies under Probate Code § 15680, or, if the trust is silent, “reasonable compensation under the circumstances” under Probate Code § 15681. There is no statutory percentage for trustee fees the way there is for a probate executor.
What happens if a beneficiary and the trustee disagree?
A beneficiary or other interested party can petition the court to compel an accounting, instruct the trustee, or, in serious cases, remove the trustee, under Probate Code § 17200. A trust lawyer represents either side of that fight: the trustee defending a decision, or the beneficiary pushing for information or removal. This is the work that usually moves from flat-fee planning into hourly billing, since litigation and extended administration disputes are not covered by a flat estate-planning fee.
Does a trust lawyer do more than just help you avoid probate?
Part of the job is correcting assumptions clients bring in. A revocable living trust does not reduce income tax, property tax, or estate tax, and California has no state estate tax or inheritance tax in the first place. Putting your house in a revocable trust also does not protect it from Medi-Cal counting the asset toward eligibility, because you can revoke the trust and reclaim the assets at any time, so the assets remain countable. And moving a home into a revocable trust does not, on its own, prevent Proposition 19 reassessment when it later passes to your children. Reassessment turns on whether a child occupies the home and files the homeowners’ exemption within the statutory window, not on whether title sits in a trust. A trust lawyer explains where a trust actually helps and where it does not, before you pay for the wrong tool.
What does it cost to hire a trust lawyer in California?
At Ridley Law, a complete trust-based estate plan, meaning the revocable living trust, pour-over will, incapacity documents, and the deed moving a California home into the trust, is a flat $4,100 for a married couple or $3,700 for an individual. Trust administration disputes, or other matters that go beyond straightforward administration, are billed hourly at $500 an hour rather than as part of a flat fee. You can see the full breakdown on our fees page.
Figures verified July 2026.
What to do next
If you are setting up a plan for the first time, start by identifying which assets need to be retitled into a trust and which already pass outside of probate on their own. If you are administering a trust as trustee or waiting on one as a beneficiary, get the notice and accounting timeline in writing before assuming everything is on track. Either way, talk to an estate planning attorney before signing anything or missing a deadline you did not know existed.
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