When It Hits The Fan: Consequences For Breaching Fiduciary Duties, And How To Avoid Doing It

Paul D. Epstein is an associate attorney with Acuña Regli where he represents professional and lay fiduciaries in Trust, Estate and Conservatorship administration and litigation.  He also represents clients on either side of the “v” in Trust and Will contests, partition, and quiet title lawsuits.  He has served as a court-appointed Personal Representative, Guardian Ad Litem and Special Master.  Before joining Acuña*Regli in 2018, he was an associate in the Triay Law Office for more than 10 years.  He is a 1999 graduate of the University of San Francisco School of Law, and was admitted to the State Bar in that year. 

In four years, Brian acquired both his B.A. in Economics and his M.S. in Applied Economics and Finance from UC Santa Cruz. He focused on computational finance and his thesis utilized artificial inte ligence algorithms to develop zero-delta portfolios.

While in college, he interned at a boutique financial planning firm, and after graduation, he worked at a public accounting firm that specialized in tax returns and tax consulting for private equity real estate investment structures. He then acquired his Enrolled Agent license with the IRS and opened a local tax practice that specialized in multi-state passthrough taxation and 501(c)(3) compliance. In 2018 he moved to Walnut Creek and was hired by Soloway Fiduciaries, and in less than a year he attained the California Professional Fiduciary License.

Brian is a passionate behavioral economics geek.  He enjoys outlining choice architecture, focusing on situations with lack of information, inaccurate information, bias, and personality heuristics. To fully complete the choice architecture, he uses Bayesian statistics to assess the risk that ideal outcomes may be undermined to alternative choice paths. His passion can be surprisingly helpful; it a lows for a preemptive defense against malicious attempts to undermine fiduciary administrations or other vulnerable situations.