Overview
Laurelle M. Gutierrez has a diverse practice representing high-net-worth individuals and their families with respect to all aspects of gift, estate and generation-skipping wealth-transfer tax planning, as well as trust and estate administration.
Laurelle has extensive experience in the design and implementation of sophisticated intergenerational wealth-transfer planning strategies. She advises domestic and multinational high-net-worth clients and families to develop and orchestrate innovative solutions around wealth transfer, philanthropic giving and multifaceted estate planning needs. She has advised trustees and executors with complex probate and trust administrations, including successfully representing clients in estate tax and gift tax audits.
While in law school, Laurelle served on the University of San Francisco Law Review. She frequently writes and speaks on sophisticated estate planning and fiduciary income tax issues for professional organizations, including the American Law Institute, the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, the State Bar of California and CalCPA.
Results
- Designing multigenerational and multinational plans for high-net-worth individuals and families to foster family harmony while minimizing the effect of estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxes
- Advising fiduciaries in complex trust and probate administrations
- Structuring intrafamily gifts, sales and loans, including through the use of grantor trusts
- Creating, administering and terminating complex split interest trusts, including residence trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, charitable remainder trusts and charitable lead trusts
- Navigating fiduciaries through complex California fiduciary income tax issues
Recognitions
- American Jurisprudence Award for Legal Research and Writing
- Best Lawyers in America, Trust and Estates, Menlo Park, 2013–2025
- Chambers High Net Worth, Northern California: Private Wealth Law, 2016–2024
- Private Client Global Elite, 2018–2021, Legal Week
- Super Lawyers, Northern California, 2008–2021
Community
Credentials
Education
University of San Francisco School of Law, JD, 1993
University of California – Berkeley, BA, 1987
Admissions
California
Courts / Agencies
US District Court for the Northern District of California
