Nextdoor Awards

Nextdoor Reviews From Clients

• Laura Patton comes with my highest recommendation. – C. Ballard

• Laura was pleasant, personable, and extremely responsive to communication which was important to us being in Oregon. I would recommend Laura Patton without any reservations. – R. Meek

• Laura Patton is amazing! She is not only smart, knowledgeable, organized and thorough, but kind, thoughtful, with hand holding as needed. Laura will go above and beyond the call of duty. She helped me with my mom’s Estate, and later with my husband and my Will and Trust. If you need a great Estate Attorney, Laura is it! She is local (Orinda) and wonderful! – T. Harari-Cohen

• Laura is knowledgeable, thorough and trustworthy and I have no qualms about recommending her for estate issues. – F. Cullom

More About Laura Patton

Orinda and East Bay families trust Laura W. Patton as their local expert in Trust Administration and Probate Matters. Laura works with people in the East Bay and all over California when they have lost a loved one and need legal help to find and transfer assets to heirs.

She is married and has three children, all of whom are young adults. She enjoys hiking, cooking, and traveling. Laura has volunteered her time with the Orinda Arts Council, local schools, and her church congregation.

Laura was born in Virginia, raised in northern Florida, and attended Newcomb College at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she graduated summa cum laude as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Her studies at Tulane concentrated on the fields of economics and German. She spent her junior year at the University of Hamburg, Germany, where she met her husband, who was a student from the University of Kansas.

After college she earned her J.D. from UC Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings), and passed the California state bar exam the same year.

After practicing law with a small law firm in Pleasanton, California, she started her solo practice in Contra Costa County. She is an active member of the local Estate Planning Council, which provides continuing education and networking for estate planning professionals.

Laura can refer her clients to a network of dedicated professionals who are resources for seniors and their families, through her connection with Senior Solutions. This group is committed to serving the needs of older members of the community, including real estate services, personal organizing and decluttering, private fiduciary and bookkeeping services, in-home care resources, geriatric evaluations and medical referrals, movers, accountants, financial advisors, and contractors who specialize in wheelchair-friendly remodeling.

Laura is a Preferred Service Provider for the Lamorinda Village, which supports seniors in the Lafayette, Moraga, and Orinda area with aging in place through social events, community resources, local rides, home repairs, and volunteer assistance.

Scholar Shield Legal Documents – Protecting Young Adults in Case of Emergency

Last year Laura started a legal document service for young adults. Why? Because parents have a big problem when our children turn 18. When an adult child has a medical emergency, the hospital will not talk to parents. Handling finances for them during a medical crisis is another major problem. Getting college records? Also restricted. The federal health privacy and banking laws are very stringent, and most young adults do not have the correct legal documents in place.

Typical legal fees for this type of work are much too expensive – well north of $1,000 – and the time to even get on an estate planning attorney’s calendar can be several weeks. So Laura created a way to provide high quality custom documents for families at a very reasonable flat fee. The easy process takes about 15 minutes to get rolling by going to the website at www.scholar-shield.com.

This service is designed for parents and grandparents who would like to get peace of mind for their California young adults in case of emergencies. For more information, check out the video below where Laura was interviewed about Scholar Shield Legal Documents by financial advisors from a local wealth management firm, the Del Monte Group, LLC.

For the audio version, please use the audio player below:

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