Janet Brewer has practiced California estate, gift-planning, and probate law exclusively since 1991. She is a California certified estate planning and probate specialist -- one of fewer than 200 practicing in Santa Clara County and fewer than 2,000 practicing in California (out of almost 200,000 lawyers statewide).
Ms. Brewer specializes in preparing wills and revocable living trusts, administering estates and trusts, probating estates, forming family limited partnerships and limited liability companies, and establishing a wide variety of tax-sensitive trusts – including children's trusts, charitable trusts, and irrevocable life insurance trusts. She also prepares estate tax returns for decedents whose estates have more than $5,000,000 of assets.
Ms. Brewer has served as an Instructor in the CFP (certified financial planner) program at UC – Santa Cruz and has taught estate planning for the UCSC Certified Financial Planner certificate program.
In September 2009, the California State Bar Board of Governors selected her to serve a 3-year term as a member of the Executive Committee of the Solo and Small Firms Section of the State Bar.
Prior to founding her estate-planning practice, Ms. Brewer worked as a corporate attorney for a number of firms, including Corvus Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Hills Bros. Coffee, and Telebit Corporation. She received her law degree from the University of Denver Law School in 1975 and was admitted to the California Bar in 1977. She earned her MBA degree from Golden Gate University in 1982 and received her Masters of Laws degree in Taxation (LLM - Tax) at GGU Law School in 2010.
Ms. Brewer is also a member of STEP (the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners), an invitation-only group of estate planning professionals who have special expertise in the area of international estate planning. She frequently prepares estate plans for foreign nationals who own property or live in the United States and for US citizens who own property abroad.
Bar Admissions: California, 1977; Colorado, 1975.
Honors: Designated as a "Northern California SuperLawyer" in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.
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