Cornerstone Law Center, Inc.

Welcome to Cornerstone Law Center

At Cornerstone our focus is on providing innovative and personal service to our clients with both their estate planning and business services.

With our estate services we assist you with both the legal and personal advice that enhances your ability to transfer wealth to future generations, or charities, in a constructive manner that avoids unnecessary costs, taxes (property, gift, income or estate) and family strife. We help you make effective plans for life events including gifting, business transfers, and health care goals. We are experienced in all facets of estate work. Our services range from the design of your estate plan, to the implementation of that plan, review and maintenance, and ultimately the administration of your estate. Cornerstone uses a wide variety of tools, including trusts, wills, advance health care directives, powers of attorney, charitable trusts, insurance trusts, grantor trusts, estate freezing techniques, gifting and discounting to accomplish your goals.

Our business services can assist you in structuring your business from its creation; contracts, risk management, entity maintenance, general consultation, and transfers, buy-sell agreements, gifting, buy-out or sale. Because your business is a complex undertaking we work closely with you and your accounting, tax and financial advisors to avoid unintended consequences and to let you focus on managing your business.

Cornerstone is centrally located on the border of Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks (near Ventura and Los Angeles Counties), across the street from the Thousand Oaks Post Office. Many of our clients are from the Conejo Valley; Agoura, Agoura Hills, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, and Newbury Park; along with Moorpark, Simi Valley, Camarillo, San Fernando Valley, Oxnard and Ventura.

Cornerstone Law Center, Inc. was established in 2011. It is the successor firm to Entrust Legal, LLP.
Example cases
Estate Planning:

1. When a second parent dies, it is a traumatic event for the remaining family. Worse yet the person who normally keeps disagreements in check is often the one who is no longer there.

I was the attorney for a trust administration with several adult beneficiaries who came to physical blows trying to divide the personal property. I had not drafted the Trust document but it was legally adequate if not inspired in its drafting. Between the children, their spouses and their children, the potential for the situation to explode into litigation and permanent estrangement was high. The real key to managing the administration was not how to divide the bank account or whether to sell the house; it was how to handle the pictures and the china.

I took all of the family pictures (several albums worth) and had them digitally scanned at high resolution. Every family was able to have the entire picture collection and could reproduce the physical pictures whenever they wished. Dividing the original albums became much simpler.

With regards to the one complete set of china and flatware that had been used for family gatherings, I purchased sturdy travel containers and the family agreed that whoever was going to host the next family gathering would take them from most recent event - tying the responsibility of hosting with the reward of using the heirloom china.

Once the tensions over the pictures and china had been relieved, the beneficiaries drew cards (2,3,4 etc.) to determine the order in which the rest of the disputed items would be selected. With the choices going from high to low and then from low to high until I ran out of items that were contested. While not everyone was overjoyed by the outcome, they were talking, planning the next family get-together and no one wound up in court.

2. A childless client wanted to give his considerable estate to charity. However, he had very specific scholarships he wanted to endow and the University would not guarantee they would use the funds the way he wanted the scholarship to be structured. Frustrated he came to me to figure out a way to accomplish his goal.

I explored his alternatives, re-interviewing the University's department in charge of scholarships and donations, looking at existing supporting organizations, local community funds and donor advised funds. I presented the client with my results and explained he had other options such as setting up a private foundation to manage the scholarships, independent of the university. After reviewing his options, he chose to create and fund the foundation which bore his name. With a relatively minor gift, I structured the foundation and applied for both its tax exempt status and for approval of the scholarship program my client wanted to establish. I received approval on both items.
I set up the board of the foundation with the client, his friends and advisers, whom it was expected would continue the program if my client passed away. For the past several years the foundation has been making