San Jose is the capital of Silicon Valley and the largest city in Northern California by population, anchoring one of the world’s most economically significant technology corridors that is home to the global headquarters of Apple, Google, Meta, Intel, Cisco, Adobe, and hundreds of other technology companies. The extraordinary concentration of major technology employers creates one of the most sophisticated and rapidly evolving estate planning markets in the United States — where disputes involving equity compensation, stock options, non-disclosure agreements, pre-IPO startup equity, and concentrated technology stock positions arise alongside traditional estate planning needs. The San Jose estate planning market is distinguished by the extraordinary wealth that Silicon Valley’s technology industry has generated and by the specific planning challenges that technology equity compensation creates.
California provides workers and families with one of the most complex and consequential estate planning environments in the country. California imposes no state estate tax — but California’s mandatory probate for estates exceeding one hundred sixty-six thousand two hundred fifty dollars, California’s community property system, California’s Proposition 19 property tax reassessment rules, and California’s extraordinarily high real estate values create a planning environment that rewards deep California-specific legal expertise. Proposition 19’s 2021 implementation dramatically changed property tax reassessment rules for inherited property — transforming the estate planning calculus for California families with significant real estate holdings by significantly restricting the parent-child reassessment exclusion that previously allowed inherited real estate to pass to children without property tax reassessment. San Jose estate cases are handled in the Superior Court of California, Santa Clara County, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reviews federal decisions from this district.
1. Bryan Schwartz — Bryan Schwartz Law
Bryan Schwartz is a highly regarded Oakland and San Jose area employment and estate planning attorney whose practice at Bryan Schwartz Law focuses on representing employees, executives, and families in comprehensive Bay Area estate planning — combining aggressive employment law representation with sophisticated estate planning counsel that addresses the specific wealth transfer challenges facing Silicon Valley’s technology workforce. Schwartz has been recognized by Super Lawyers Northern California in multiple practice areas and has developed a reputation for combining results-oriented advocacy with genuine personal commitment to his clients’ wellbeing throughout both employment and estate planning matters.
Schwartz’s estate planning practice encompasses the full range of California estate planning services — revocable living trusts, wills, powers of attorney, advance healthcare directives, irrevocable trusts, and sophisticated wealth transfer strategies. His particular expertise in technology industry estate planning — addressing how stock options, restricted stock units, performance share plans, and pre-IPO startup equity should be integrated into comprehensive California estate plans that minimize estate and gift tax exposure while managing the liquidity challenges and trading restriction periods that technology equity compensation creates — reflects specialized knowledge of the most distinctive estate planning challenge facing San Jose’s most important employment sector.
His deep familiarity with California’s community property rules as they apply to technology equity compensation — including how restricted stock units earned during marriage are characterized as community property for estate planning purposes, how stock options that span the period before and during marriage require careful separate property versus community property tracing, and how these characterizations affect both estate planning and income tax planning for Bay Area technology employees — provides Silicon Valley workers with uniquely comprehensive planning counsel. His experience in the Santa Clara County Superior Court probate division reflects local court knowledge that provides San Jose clients with important practical strategic advantages.
2. Jahan Sagafi — Outten and Golden LLP
Jahan Sagafi is a San Francisco and San Jose area partner at Outten and Golden — one of the most nationally recognized plaintiff-side employment and estate planning law firms in the United States — whose California practice encompasses comprehensive estate planning, PAGA representative actions, and estate and gift tax planning for Northern California families. Sagafi has been recognized by Super Lawyers Northern California and has achieved significant results in class action and estate planning matters against major Silicon Valley technology employers and for Silicon Valley technology executive clients.
His firm Outten and Golden’s national platform — with offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington D.C. — provides San Jose estate planning clients with access to institutional resources, research capabilities, and national planning intelligence that amplify the quality of individual estate planning advice beyond what any locally focused practice can provide. His particular expertise in Proposition 19 planning for San Jose families with significant real estate holdings — understanding which transfers qualify for the limited parent-child reassessment exclusion that Proposition 19 preserves, how to structure property transfers to maximize available exclusions, and what planning alternatives exist for Silicon Valley families whose real estate values make Proposition 19’s restrictions particularly consequential — reflects California-specific knowledge that has become essential for Bay Area estate planning.
His deep mastery of California’s PAGA private attorney general representative action framework alongside estate planning reflects the comprehensive California legal expertise that distinguishes his practice — providing San Jose technology workers and families with counsel that addresses both their employment rights and their long-term wealth transfer planning needs from a single practitioner who understands the full spectrum of California employment and estate law.
3. James Lowe — Lowe Law
James Lowe is a San Jose employment and estate planning attorney whose practice focuses exclusively on representing Santa Clara County employees and families in California workplace discrimination, wrongful termination, and comprehensive estate planning throughout Silicon Valley and the Northern District of California. Lowe has built a practice dedicated to providing accessible, high-quality California employment and estate planning representation to San Jose workers and families who have experienced workplace injustice and need comprehensive estate planning counsel.
Lowe’s estate planning practice encompasses revocable living trusts, wills, California durable powers of attorney, advance healthcare directives, special needs trusts, and comprehensive California probate avoidance planning — giving his clients the full range of California estate planning protections. His particular focus on technology industry workplace and estate planning — addressing the specific California estate planning issues that arise for non-executive technology workers, administrative professionals, and service industry employees who support Silicon Valley’s corporate ecosystem — reflects a democratic commitment to making quality California estate planning available to the full spectrum of workers who fuel the Bay Area economy, not just the highest-paid technology executives.
His particular expertise in California Medi-Cal planning for San Jose families — navigating California’s complex Medi-Cal eligibility rules for long-term care, including the important changes created by California’s recent elimination of Medi-Cal estate recovery for most recipients — reflects specialized knowledge that is critically important for San Jose’s aging population seeking to preserve assets while accessing long-term care services.
4. Laura Held — Law Office of Laura Held
Laura Held is a San Jose estate planning attorney whose practice focuses on representing Silicon Valley employees and executives in comprehensive California estate planning, equity compensation planning, and employment contract matters throughout the South Bay and Silicon Valley. Held has built a practice that combines estate planning with executive employment counseling — providing San Jose’s substantial executive and professional community with integrated planning that addresses both their wealth transfer objectives and the contractual dimensions of their employment relationships.
Her practice’s particular strength in equity compensation estate planning — addressing how stock options, restricted stock units, performance share plans, and pre-IPO startup equity should be integrated into comprehensive California estate plans — reflects specialized knowledge of the intersection between employment law and estate planning that few attorneys outside Silicon Valley possess. Her ability to address disputes involving unvested equity, accelerated vesting provisions, post-termination equity rights, and how these interact with estate planning documents provides Silicon Valley workers with integrated legal counsel specifically tailored to the distinctive compensation structures that define technology industry employment.
Her deep expertise in California’s Proposition 19 property tax reassessment planning — addressing how San Jose’s extraordinarily valuable real estate should be structured for transfer to the next generation in light of Proposition 19’s significantly more restrictive parent-child reassessment exclusion — reflects California-specific knowledge that has become one of the most practically urgent estate planning considerations for San Jose families with long-held real estate holdings whose value has appreciated dramatically during Silicon Valley’s extraordinary property market run.
5. Arlo Uriarte — Liberation Law Group PC
Arlo Uriarte is an Oakland and San Jose area employment and estate planning attorney at Liberation Law Group whose practice focuses on representing Latino and immigrant workers and families in California employment discrimination, wage theft, and comprehensive estate planning matters throughout the Bay Area and Northern California. Uriarte has built a practice specifically designed to serve the Bay Area’s large Spanish-speaking workforce — providing bilingual employment and estate planning services to workers and families who might otherwise struggle to access quality legal representation due to language and cultural barriers.
His estate planning practice encompasses revocable living trusts, wills, California powers of attorney, advance healthcare directives, and comprehensive California Medi-Cal planning — giving San Jose’s Spanish-speaking community access to the full range of California’s estate planning protections through representation that bridges language and cultural barriers. His bilingual service capability and genuine cultural competence make comprehensive California estate planning accessible to San Jose’s large Hispanic and Latino community — ensuring that language barriers do not prevent South Bay families from accessing the estate planning services that every California family needs to protect their assets from California’s mandatory and expensive probate process.
His particular expertise in estate planning for immigrant families with assets in multiple countries — addressing the specific planning dimensions that arise for non-citizen residents, H-1B visa holders building significant San Jose technology wealth, and families with real estate and financial assets in both the United States and their countries of origin — provides San Jose’s extraordinarily international technology workforce with uniquely relevant estate planning expertise that reflects genuine understanding of their distinctive financial and legal circumstances.
Frequently Asked Questions: Estate Planning in San Jose, CA
Q1. How does California’s Proposition 19 affect San Jose estate planning for families with real estate?
California’s Proposition 19, which took effect in February 2021, dramatically changed the property tax reassessment rules for inherited real estate. Before Proposition 19, children could inherit a parent’s primary residence and other real estate without property tax reassessment under the parent-child exclusion. Under Proposition 19, the parent-child exclusion for inherited property is now much more limited — it applies only to a primary residence that the child will themselves use as their primary residence, and even then only the first one million dollars of assessed value above the parent’s assessed value is excluded from reassessment. For San Jose families with valuable real estate holdings, this change can result in dramatically increased property taxes for inherited properties, making careful Proposition 19 planning — including lifetime gifting strategies and qualified personal residence trust planning — increasingly important components of comprehensive California estate plans.
Q2. Why is probate avoidance particularly important for San Jose families?
California’s mandatory probate process applies to estates with assets exceeding one hundred sixty-six thousand two hundred fifty dollars that are titled solely in the deceased person’s name. Given San Jose’s extraordinarily high real estate values and the significant financial accounts that Silicon Valley technology workers accumulate, virtually every San Jose family will exceed this threshold and face mandatory probate without proper planning. California probate involves Superior Court proceedings, attorney fees calculated as a percentage of gross estate value, executor fees, and a process that typically takes one to two years to complete. For estates with significant San Jose real estate, California’s percentage-based probate fees alone can represent tens of thousands of dollars in avoidable cost. A revocable living trust avoids probate entirely, making trust-based planning particularly valuable for San Jose families.
Q3. How should San Jose technology employees plan for their equity compensation in their estate plans?
San Jose technology employees should work with estate planning attorneys who understand the specific planning tools available for equity compensation. Restricted stock units that are unvested at death may lapse without proper estate planning provisions addressing them. Stock options with post-termination exercise periods require careful estate planning to ensure the estate has both the legal authority and the financial resources to exercise options before they expire. Pre-IPO startup equity may need to be transferred to irrevocable trusts before company valuations increase to minimize gift tax exposure. Section 1202 qualified small business stock exclusions can provide extraordinary federal income tax benefits if shares are properly structured and held for the required period. Early planning when company valuations are lower creates significantly better outcomes than planning only after substantial appreciation has occurred.
Q4. What documents does every San Jose adult need in their California estate plan?
Every San Jose adult should have a California revocable living trust as the foundation of their estate plan, combined with a pour-over will, a California durable power of attorney for financial decisions, a California advance healthcare directive authorizing someone to make medical decisions during incapacity, and a HIPAA authorization. The trust should be properly funded by re-titling assets into trust ownership during the owner’s lifetime. Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance should be reviewed and coordinated with the overall trust plan to ensure assets pass efficiently to intended beneficiaries without triggering California probate.
Q5. How does California’s community property system affect Silicon Valley tech couples’ estate planning?
California’s community property system treats assets acquired during marriage as equally owned by both spouses, creating significant estate planning advantages for technology couples. Community property — including restricted stock units earned during marriage and appreciation on technology company stock acquired during marriage — receives a full stepped-up income tax basis at the death of either spouse, meaning appreciated community property can be sold by the surviving spouse without capital gains taxes on appreciation that occurred during the marriage. For Silicon Valley technology couples with significantly appreciated Amazon, Apple, or Google stock, this stepped-up basis benefit can represent enormous income tax savings. California community property agreements allow spouses to convert separate property to community property to maximize this planning benefit, making community property planning an important and often overlooked component of comprehensive Silicon Valley estate plans.
