Randall Kaiden is an experienced California Estate Planning & Elder Law Attorney. He is a Martindale-Hubbell AV Rated Preeminent Attorney, Past President of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys Southern California District, and a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. He has been recognized by his peers as well as the community at large and holds a perfect 10 out of 10 rating on AVVO Legal for estate planning and elder law. His practice is centered on estate planning, elder care law, litigation, and the post-death administration of estates. However, Mr. Kaiden's practice goes beyond preparing wills and trusts to avoid probate and minimize taxes. Indeed, he is an expert with asset protection and government benefits, such as Medicaid, Medi-Cal, Social Security Disability, Medicare, and Veterans Pension Benefits. Mr. Kaiden also holds a Masters in Tax and is VA Accredited to represent claimants before the Department of Veteran's Affairs.
Legal Experience
In law school, Mr. Kaiden clerked at the family law courts in downtown Los Angeles as well as in Santa Monica. While obtaining his post-doctoral degree in taxation (LL.M.T.), he worked at the Family Law Access Project in San Diego, where he successfully mediated dozens of divorces. To this day, that early experience shaped Mr. Kaiden's ideas about how to successfully draft estate and elder law plans, i.e., always with an eye toward conflict avoidance.
After obtaining his Juris Doctor and Masters Degree in Taxation, Mr. Kaiden practiced corporate tax at KPMG, one of the largest audit, tax and advisory firms in the world. The corporate, property, estate, gift, and generation-skipping tax experience he gained at KPMG has continually proved invaluable in his current practice of trusts and estates. Indeed, that groundwork was a fantastic foundation that prepared Mr. Kaiden for his future work with complex trust and transfer tax planning techniques, such as generation-skipping trusts, charitable trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, asset protection trusts, family limited partnerships as well as family limited liability companies.
In 1999, Mr. Kaiden joined the highly regarded firm of Staker & Esquibias, Tax & Estate Planning Attorneys, P.C. This is where he gained most of his formal training with revocable living trusts, tax planning trusts, probate and trust administration, Medi-Cal planning, Social Security Disability and elder law. Several years later, Mr. Kaiden opened his own law firm, focusing on trusts, probate and elder law.
Mr. Kaiden continues to practice in these areas of law today. He presently helps clients through his Los Angeles and Ventura County-based law firm, Kaiden Elder Law Group, PC. His practice is focused on Probate Avoidance Trusts, Asset Protection Trusts, Special Needs Planning, Tax Reduction Trusts, Guardian Angel Trusts, IRA Retirement Trusts, Medi-Cal as well as Veterans Asset Protection Planning, Trust and Probate Administration as well as complex Trust Litigation.
Community Involvement
Recipient of the State Bar of California Wiley W. Manuel Award for distinguished Pro Bono Legal Services.
Mr. Kaiden's Active Memberships: National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, ElderCounsel, California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, and California State Bar Trusts & Estates Section as well as the Santa Clarita Valley, Ventura County, and Los Angeles County Bar Associations.
Awards: Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization and Certified Estate Planning Law Specialist by the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils.
Accolades: Martindale-Hubble AV Peer Rated Preeminent Attorney, Past President of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys - Southern California District, and AVVO Legal - Rated 10 out of 10 Superb for both Estate Planning and Elder Law.
Representative Cases
Mr. Kaiden's practice surrounds three separate areas of law, which frequently overlap. The first area concerns individuals or couples planning for their possible incapacity and/or death. This is the traditional estate planning end of the practice which involves revocable living trusts, wills, financial powers of attorney, health care directives, and trust funding. Mr. Kaiden is also a special needs advocate who regularly deals with all types of special needs trusts. Finally, Mr. Kaiden regularly handles complex estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax planning with the use of generation-skipping trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, charitable trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, family limited partnerships as well as family limited liability companies.
The second area of Mr. Kaiden's practice focuses on elder care law. Since many are still unaware of what exactly is “elder law,” a short explanation will be provided as follows: elder care law addresses the issues of how to pay for long-term care as individuals age. This area of law was relatively minor twenty years ago. Nowadays, however, people are living longer and the costs of care keep going up. In fact, most people are shocked to learn that long-term skilled care costs can range from $10,000 to $25,000 per month in California. Thankfully, there are Veterans Pension Benefits as well as Medi-Cal Benefits that can help pay for part of, or even entirely pay for, those rising care costs. When people are likely to run out of resources, Mr. Kaiden guides them through the labyrinthic Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California), and Veterans Pension Benefit rules. He also helps his clients establish asset protection trusts and subsequently apply for either, or both, of Medi-Cal and/or Veterans Benefits.
While the first two practice areas above address issues affecting people prior to death, Mr. Kaiden's third major practice area involves post-death concerns such as trust administration, probate administration, and estate as well as trust litigation. With proper planning, most people just need to deal with a little post-death trust administration. Unfortunately, a lack of planning or just plain poor planning sometimes gives rise to probates and litigation. Whether post-death administration issues are large or small, Mr. Kaiden tirelessly advocates for his clients in all of these areas to lessen the economic and emotional damage caused by such circumstances. He also delivers these services in an assuring and compassionate manner.
Representative Clients
While Mr. Kaiden helps a broad range of people, the representation itself always stems from issues surrounding incapacity, long-term care needs, legacy planning, taxation and death. Being that the results which occur from planning (or a lack of planning) in this type of law are fundamentally life-altering, the practice of trusts, probate and elder law is oftentimes emotionally charged. That means that clients are not just looking for black letter law answers, but rather are looking for solutions to some of the toughest questions that life throws at people.
In his estate planning practice, Mr. Kaiden helps people of all ages and circumstances deal with the issues surrounding death and incapacity. For starters, almost everyone (regardless of age) who either owns a home, has assets that total over $166,250, or has minor children needs to engage in basic estate planning. Failure to do so could result in disaster for their loved ones. This is even more pressing when there are blended families involved, children with special needs, a family business, and/or total assets per person exceeding $11,700,000. In all of the latter situations, it is almost guaranteed that a lack of planning will result in fights, partially (or completely) disinheriting loved ones, and/or an overall loss in the value of assets to be transferred.
In his elder law practice, Mr. Kaiden works with seniors and those who love them. While practically everyone needs estate planning, elder care law is generally for people over the age of 65 who will likely need help with long-term care as they age. The main focus of elder care law is to help seniors get the best possible long-term care benefits while helping them to live in the environment they want to live, through obtaining public benefits such as Medi-Cal and/or Veterans Pension Benefits to help pay for this care. While many are aware of Medicaid (Medi-Cal) in California, we find that most veterans and their spouses are shocked to learn that there are valuable long-term care benefits available to them through the VA. The full breadth of elder law planning is critical to ensuring that seniors do not end up broke in their golden years and are able to age with dignity. It is additionally crucial to ensure that their younger family members have the resources available to promote and advocate for their care. Unfortunately, this type of planning is almost always incredibly complex, however, it is oftentimes an outright necessity for families.
The representative clients in Mr. Kaiden's post-death legal practice - which includes trust administration, probate administration, estate and trust litigation - are spouses as well as children of a deceased loved one. In other words, Mr. Kaiden represents anyone who has suffered the loss of a family member. He helps his clients get through this tumultuous time with understanding and compassion, in the easiest, fastest, and most cost-effective manner. When fights break out, he is there to ensure a positive result and he tirelessly advocates for his clients.
Either during life or after death, there is another category of issues Mr. Kaiden regularly handles. That is, litigation cases which range from trust disputes to financial elder abuse litigation. Mr. Kaiden's passion for helping the elderly began when early on in his career, he helped an elderly client sue his financial planner for financial elder abuse. The abuse was so egregious that after Mr. Kaiden helped his client obtain a large settlement, all of the civil litigation records were turned over to the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office. Long story short, the DA then prosecuted this financial advisor and he was sentenced to six years in prison. Ever since that incredible experience, Mr. Kaiden has been protecting elders by fighting against financial elder abuse, as well as with many other types of trust and estate disputes.
