Karen A. Meckstroth

Practice Overview

Karen Meckstroth is an estate planning attorney who works with clients to create estate plans that address each client’s unique needs. She believes that an effective plan addresses both the tax planning aspects of estate planning and the nontax aspects, taking into account the client’s personal values and family dynamics.

Karen is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law as certified by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization.

Her practice focuses on estate planning, charitable planning, trust administration, and fixing out-of-date plans, including irrevocable trusts.

Karen works with clients on both fundamental planning and advanced planning (wealth preservation through gifts of partial interests, grantor retained annuity trusts, intentionally defective grantor trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, and charitable split interest trusts).  Karen assists private foundations with formation, tax exempt status, corporate governance, termination, and compliance.

Many of Karen’s clients incorporate philanthropy in their planning.  Estate planning is an opportunity to give the next generation a “charitable inheritance.”  For some, estate planning is an opportunity to define their legacy – answering the question, “How is the world different because I passed through it?”

Karen is a frequent speaker on topics such as incorporating philanthropy in the family wealth plan, selecting and preparing successor trustees, and reforming irrevocable trusts. Karen presented Post-Mortem Alteration of Irrevocable Trusts and Retroactive Effect to the Silicon Valley Bar Association

Practice Areas

• Appellate
• Banking & Mortgage
• Estates and Trusts

Education

• J.D., University of California, Hastings College of the Law
• M.A. and B.A., University of California at Berkeley
• Language Certificate, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

Admissions

• All California state courts
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• U.S. Tax Court