Elizabeth M. Engh

When Liz talks about estates, trusts and tax issues, the legal community listens. So do her many long-term clients who have come to count on her advice during her over 30-year legal career in the East Bay. For years, Liz has been a voice of the Continuing Education of the Bar, lecturing annually on legal changes affecting estate planning and trust administration. She has been the former chair of the Alameda County Bar’s Estate Planning section and has been active in the State Bar’s Estate Planning Section. Currently, she is a member of TEXCOM, the Trusts and Estates Executive Committee of the California Lawyers Association (formerly a Section of the State Bar of California) and is a member of the Mount Diablo Estate Planning Council. In 2007, the law firm of Aiken, Kramer & Cummings joined Wendel Rosen and Liz came in as a partner in the trusts and estates practice. She is busy helping clients reassess their strategies for transmitting wealth and protecting assets in light of ongoing shifts in the federal tax laws, particularly in regard to gifts. Most of her clients include multi-generational families and family-owned businesses but she reports seeing more and more LLCs and doing more incapacity planning. She is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law, certified by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization since 1992. Specialties: - Transferring family businesses and real properties in a well managed and tax efficient manner. - Works with other professionals to achieve the family goals of transferring wealth, minimizing estate, gift, income and real property taxation; especially focusing on avoiding reassessment for property tax purposes. - Establishing effective legal methods to involve and train the next generation of managers.