Pre Intensive B – Special Needs Trust Administration – Reviewing the Fundamentals and Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Lisa Soloway is a California Licensed Professional Fiduciary and owner of Soloway Fiduciaries, Inc. She has been administrating trusts, estates, and Conservatorships for seventeen years. The Contra Costa court regularly appoints Ms. Soloway to resolve contentious family matters and provide complex trust analyses and accountings.  Lisa is a long-time member of the Estate Planning Council of Diablo Valley and is President of the board of directors.  She is a proud member of the Professional Fiduciary Association of California, Past President of the East Bay Chapter, and a current board member.  Lisa also sits on the board of Wellspring Educational Services in Walnut Creek and the Regional Center of the East Bay.

For Herb Thomas, founder of Kairos Fiduciary Services, serving as a trustee for Special Needs Trusts and Settlement Trusts is more than a job or career. It is a calling that holds a personal significance, since he has a child diagnosed with special needs. Herb understands what parents and people who are injured need to consider as they move forward in their lives.

Herb has years of expertise in Special Needs Trust and Settlement Trust administration in the state of California and nationwide as well as a depth of experience in Conservatorships, Public Benefits Advocacy, and Probate Estate Administration. He is a California Licensed Professional Fiduciary (CLPF), with license number #86—meaning he was one of the first 100 people in California to earn the authority to serve as a professional fiduciary.

He is a frequent speaker at conferences such as the Academy of Special Needs Planners (ASNP), the Professional Fiduciary Association of California (PFAC), and the California SNT Symposium.  He is the co-author of chapter 15, “Setting Up Systems for Efficient SNT Administration” in the well-received book, Administering the California Special Needs Trust:

A Guide for Trustees and Those Who Advise Them. He was also a recent guest on the podcast Absolute Trust, where he discussed the benefits of working with a professional Special Needs Trust fiduciary.

Before opening a fiduciary practice, Herb served as the Benefits Advocate for Kaiser Permanente’s very first Community Benefits Advocacy program. He also worked at the

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for seven years as a Taxpayer Delinquency Investigator. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Sciences from San Francisco State University, and has served on the boards of a variety of non-profit organizations including Behavioral Intervention for Autism (BIA4Autism) and Legal Assistance for Seniors.

Herb is married and the father of three children. In his free time, he loves spending time with family and friends. The family loves to travel together and have visited Russia, Brazil, the African continent, Western Europe, and a great many beaches throughout Hawaii. He is an avid foodie and enjoys tinkering with and repairing electrical and mechanical gadgets.

Kevin Urbatsch is the principal of the special needs and settlement planning law firm, The Urbatsch Law Firm, in Berkeley, California. Kevin is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust, and Probate Law by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Kevin is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC). ACTEC is a nonprofit association of lawyers established in 1949. Its members comprise the top 1 percent of estate planning professionals from around the country. They are elected to the College by demonstrating the highest level of integrity, commitment to the profession, competence, and experience as trust and estate counselors.

Kevin serves as National Director of the Academy of Special Needs Planners (ASNP), a national organization of over 450 special needs planning professionals. Kevin has received several awards. In 2013, Parenting Magazine named Kevin one of the nation’s Top Child Advocates for his work in fighting for the rights of children with special needs. In May 2011, Kevin was presented the NAELA’s Presidential Recognition Award for his work in special needs planning. From 2010 through 2022, Kevin was named a Northern California Superlawyer. In 2009, Kevin was named KRON-TV’s Best of the Bay estate-planning attorney for Northern California.

In 2021, Kevin prepared a course for California’s Probate Judges on the legal background and issues for special needs planning and trusts before the court for California’s Center for Judicial Education and Research. The federal government flew him to Washington to do a program for the FFIEC Annual Conference to teach bank regulators the proper way to administer a special needs trust when a corporate fiduciary serves as an SNT trustee.

Ann Koerner is President and Founder of National Care Advisors – a firm dedicated to providing consulting services for attorneys, financial planners and trustees. National Care Advisors provides care and quality of life planning services for those families faced with physical disability, mental illness, developmental disability, or eldercare issues. Services include planning and case management applicable to Special Needs Trusts and government benefits preservation. National Care Advisors also specializes in post-litigation resolution consulting services specific to lien negotiation, Medicare Set Aside projections and administration.

Frank R. Acuña is a founding partner of Acuña & Regli, LLP, with offices located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Acuña & Regli has built its practice around the needs of licensed professional fiduciaries throughout the State of California. He is a California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate, and Trust Law and was admitted to the California Bar during 1985.