Compassionate Counsel and Proven Legal Experience, with Attorney Robert Clavel

0:02 We're excited today. Been in the probate space for six years and started working occasionally with this particular attorney, Robert Clavel, only about three years ago. And like most of us, a lot of phone calls, a lot of texts, emails, you know, business correspondence. Never really met him in person or even on video. We used to have him be a guest. I'm really excited to have Robert Clavel, who's an attorney at Clavel Law in Southern California. Robert, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. And I you know, I would say your focus, as we talked about before, is really on both probate administration and avoiding probate administration, what you call estate planning. So, let's talk about how did you end up in those two areas of the law? Of all the areas of the law in the entire legal code in California, how come that particular part? Yeah, [clears throat] good question. I you know, initially I graduated law school from San Diego, California Western School of Law, 2016, took 2017. I was working for a firm post bar, waiting for my results, and I had the idea, what if I went out on my own? So, I did. I went out on my own and started looking at different areas of law that that I felt that I could be of service to people, things that interested me in law school.

1:27 So, as I was doing some research, I kind of fell upon estate planning initially. And then also business and corporations, startups, more transactional work. So, I started looking into that, researching it, trying to get myself, you know, acquainted with not only the law of it, but also kind of the business of estate planning. So, that's kind of how I started. I started my law firm straight out of law school. A lot of people thought I was crazy. Looking back, I'm like, yeah, that was a little crazy.

2:06 [laughter] But you know, I'm I'm so glad I did it. It's been great for my family, it's been great for myself. It's It's definitely pushed me, I think, in ways that has helped me with just getting more knowledgeable. I mean, there's there's no one around you. Of course, I had mentors, and but I got to really know this stuff and learn it and be of service of my clients and the fear of don't commit malpractice was constantly there, you know? You know, unlike most other attorneys where they're starting in a firm and they kind of have the safety net of partners and senior attorneys and where they can kind of ask questions to and confirm their work. I [snorts] didn't have much of that. So it was it really pushed me to know my stuff and to and to make sure I can provide good competent service to my clients. And so, it was mainly a desire to serve, to serve like the average Joe, you know, these consumers. Everyone needs an estate plan. And I felt comfortable kind of doing that and starting there. You know, I agree that everybody who owns a house, I mean, real estate for sure needs an estate plan. Probably everybody needs an estate plan and some more summarize a level of a trust or more, you know, formal detailed documents. But you're right, everybody has a plan, because if you don't have a plan, the state of California has one for you. And it's kind of like the DMV, it's just not as good as the DMV's plan. So, I agree 100%. Now, I do know also that I'm not sure if it was a practice choice you made. I know you also do flat fee work. That I would describe you kind of as a higher volume probate administration attorney, as opposed to a lower volume, you know, larger estate.

4:03 And I know that you don't necessarily focus in or look to avoid litigation. So, talk a little bit about your business and kind of how you gravitated to, if I'm right, kind of more of a higher volume process focused, but for good value for the average customer.

4:21 [clears throat] Yeah, that's a great question. I think and you know, I always kind of viewed myself as a business person who was also a lawyer. who you know, who happened to be in the business of law. And because it's fascinating me so much, just the business creation, development, having systems in place. So, having to take on more volume means having a good system in place where you can be efficient, effective with the case load that you have. So, initially starting with estate planning, you know, I it was okay, how what's the process for myself, for the work? I kind of kind of opening up the curtain here, because and letting people know kind of from a business or owner perspective, what do we look at? So, I looked at, you know, what is the process for me? What is the workflow to see how these estate plans get created and what steps I need to I need to take to produce the work product. And then I looked at, okay, the client side, what's you know, what does a client need to do? What do they need to understand? What do what documents do they need to sign and fill out? And so, I looked at both sides of it and said, okay, how can I simplify this for both of us?

5:44 You know, so I kind of came up with this three-step process that we still use today, you know, we started eight years ago, of helping people through estate planning. and by doing so, that kind of gave me a good read on, well, how much time am I spending on this? How can I make this predictable, consistent as far as pricing goes? So then that kind of birthed very quickly flat fee pricing. the whole just one second. Just I just want to make sure, because

6:21 [clears throat] you know, what you're talking about is very revolutionary from an attorney point of view, but for those of us, you know, going around the world, we see these in other industries. This is not common in the legal practice, right? Like we notice the difference between, say, a customized burger at a burger place and McDonald's hamburger. Not to say one's better or worse, but the one is consistently done the exact same way or close to it. As a result, can be priced a lot less and for some people is better value. And yet right? And so, it's not And why is that? Well, they made a science of how to make a burger at McDonald's, the McDonald's way. And I think that just understand that those are business principles, that's not hamburger principles or McDonald's unique formula that can be applied to anything. It's interesting that my favorite business consultant, Michael Gerber, who's famous for business processes, and kind of came from an engineering manufacturing point of view, where I came from originally, has a version of his book for attorneys. And I've met attorneys who have this perspective. So, let me go back and just, you know, stop you right there for one second. How did you come to look at things this way? That's this is not normal attorney thought process. This is more business oriented. So, how did that come to be? You know, I call this kind of the blessing and curse of my experience is I am I am the first attorney in my family.

7:48 My parents were immigrants. My mom was born in Mexico, my dad was born in Chile. they came here, they were educated. My mom achieved a high school level of education. My dad almost achieved a college level degree, but you know, they got married, they had children. There's six of us in my family. So, we kind of had that American dream of, okay, we got to get the education, we got the college degrees, and I went further into going into law school. there are no attorneys in my family, so I had no real idea what was I what I was getting myself into initially. so, I think the revolutionary thought process of and I don't I don't want to say I'm the first one to do it, there's plenty of other lawyers that do it as well, but it is a it is a little bit of a of a kind of an novice thing to do or a niche thing

8:50 Novel. novel thing to do. to do flat fee pricing. So, but I always looked at I tried to look at things as a consumer. I think one of the number one things that a client kind of had hang-ups about when I was working as a clerk and as a post bar clerk, was like the unpredictability and uncertainty of legal fees. So I always thought, okay, how can I how can I make it more predictable? How [clears throat] can I make it more certain and consistent? So, that's not to say that there are cases that I have and that I take that because of the unpredictability of the work and I don't know how long it's going to take and how I don't know how, you know, when resolution will happen. We do have to do things a little bit more traditionally, like an hourly rate. But for a lot of things, there is predictability, there is certainty, and so we can do, you know, flat fee rates. But I would say that my experience, you know, for like I said, the just not being in an attorney family, not having any expe- any exposure to that kind of help me to think outside the box and say hey I think this is a good pricing model good for businesses good for the clients and it's it's worked out.

10:12 You know, I often talk to petitioners who are unhappy with an attorney after about 90 days and I would say 90% in my experience 90% of clients are unhappy with their attorney after 90 they love them when they sign up for the first 90 days and then they hate them after 90 days. And I think the number there's two aspects one's communication and the other one is the unpredictability of fees. It's not even that it costs that much it's that the attorneys industry as a tradition was kind of like we're going to send you a bill and you're going to pay it and when you stop we'll stop serving you. There's no other business that does that. Every other business you know needs happy customers at the end but somehow attorneys have operated too many operate as though it doesn't matter and in a time when the business was less competitive you could get away with that but in a time now with technology and with social media and ratings you know unless you are very niched and very have deep expertise that everybody has to line up to use you dealing with regular consumers you need to have happy customers at the end of the day or you're not going to be in business. Yeah that's exactly right. I mean I think I did want to touch on that point of communication. I mean often times there's great initial consultations and I'll get these consultations of people calling in and saying hey I had an attorney I'm looking for somebody else.

11:39 Started great and then never heard from him or her. You know I think that's not still the number one complaint for state bar complaints is communication is like the number one thing and so yeah that's we have a policy and we try to as best as we can to stick to it of 24-hour response time. You know it might not be exactly that same day but within the 24-hour period whether it's me or one of my staff members. That's huge I have to tell you because I'm constantly telling clients where maybe it's a mutual client that I operate realtor time or a realtor you text them you expect a response back in minutes. If nothing else I'll call you in a couple hours right and phone call for sure by that end of that day. That's the norm in consumer realtor business. Attorneys are the only industry where I'll call an attorney and they'll call me back like a week later and say I'm returning your phone call and I'm like what are you calling about? And it was a problem I had a week ago that because the guy called me back I found some workaround don't need him anymore but and then and they're baffled because to most attorneys calling back within a couple days or a week is considered adequate service but not to their customers in my experience. Yeah no it's definitely a it's definitely just it's just a service it's a customer service thing more than it is a like a law or a legal thing even though it's so embedded into our state bar professional rules and ethical conduct it's a communicate with our clients but it's a customer service thing and so again with my business mind I try to think of client facing what are they expecting what so built into our systems we have regular updates so that clients don't have to reach out to us ask for an update. We say part of our workflow is we complete these tasks send the client an update. We complete these next set of tasks send the client an update.

13:40 We're not perfect sometimes you know things take a little longer think people ask us for client updates it's fine but we try to stay ahead of the game proactive communication. but yeah I you know in relation to in relation to you know back to the flat fee you know discussion is it's it's just the old model of like of hourly rates and unpredictability it is another common concern and complaint of people you could do an hourly rate and at the end of the case bill 5,000 but it feels different when you don't have when you're not expecting it or you can say from the beginning I'm going to charge a flat fee for 5,000 people wrap their head around that and say okay you know and you it's the same result it's the same you know revenue but the delivery the approach the you know the transparency is is just so it's it'll it induces people to trust you and hopefully you know I'll speak for myself I've been trustworthy of that so you know that's so that's that's why I think it's just and it's growing I think the flat fee rate model is growing but there's still some of that there's still some of that traditional you know bill you point one point two hourly rate.

15:13 Well I also think you can value your work higher you know if truly somebody creates a better estate plan template that has four five super paragraphs that are the result of their incredibly detailed and in-depth experience and knowledge you can charge more for that but if you're if that's going in every plan you might as well just fix the price a bit or you know or maybe have some modifications it just seems like you said customers are much more comfortable knowing in advance what's going to cost and there's nothing that sets them off like an extra couple hundred bucks here or there that they weren't told ahead of time didn't expect ahead time doesn't make sense isn't explained they can't get an answer when they ask what it's about so yeah no I think you're you're hands are right on that. So now does your fixed rate model apply both for probate administration and for estate planning or are we talking about just the fixed rate model for estate planning only? So typically the well for estate planning it's almost always a fixed rate. like I said the only time we kind of stray from that pricing model is if there's uncertainty or complexity to the situation but generally speaking and I don't want to make this sound because we do try to do volume and I don't want to say like a one-size-fits-all but generally when you're within certain income ranges and net worth a lot of the same principles of the estate plan will apply to a lot of the those people.

16:48 And I should probably specify you know I'm talking from like maybe lower income you know maybe they have one property you know bank accounts vehicle to let's say a net worth of about you know 10 million if it's a if it's a couple. Generally it's going to be pretty similar but where the customization and the tailoring comes in is where what [snorts] are the values of these people what are what kind of needs do legal needs do they have do they have special needs children do they have you know concerns about you know I have a child or a beneficiary that I want to name but I don't think they're very good with money. There's asset protection strategies we can employ there. So yes we try to with estate planning we try to stay within this within this like flat fee pricing model with very few exceptions. When it comes to probate we generally follow the statutory fees. there are some cases where we are taking over from a previous attorney or a self-represented party is like hey you know what I need help you know I can't do this anymore.

18:11 I've done this with you. Right. That's how I started with you it's one of those. Yep yeah so then it's then you know if generally where we start is okay well this statutory fees apply depending on the size of the estate we may say look you've done 50% of the work. you're trying to save on attorney's fees we can negotiate what the final payment is. you know probate administration estate administration doing probates as maybe your audience knows is a attorney's fees are dictated by statute so it's not anything that we choose per se it is dictated by statute but we can attorneys can take a lower amount and we can say hey we're we'll negotiate a little bit on the on the overall price. I should say also there is a for those who are not aware the probate code does allow for what we call extraordinary fees those are those are fees that are allowed to be charged by the attorney for extraordinary services when those come up. So and those are usually billed at an hourly rate but you know so that's kind of how I do my probate administration side we usually go with the with the statutory fee but there are certain cases where we'll say hey we'll we'll negotiate and you know you've done 50% of the work or the previous attorney has done 30 40 50% of the work.

19:50 You know we'll we'll we'll we'll kind of negotiate that down a little bit. I had a case where a client where they didn't get the letters they didn't get the authority approved. Right? So, they did all the filing they did all the filing wrong so they got you know continued a couple times. And so we're going to change attorneys and they and they want to charge the entire statutory fee and I said you know, look at the list of things you're supposed to do. You're not doing any of that but okay, you gathered the documents and filed the petition. Like that's 5% of the work 10% of the work at most. Right. so, it is interesting having discussions with anybody about fees. We you know, people get sensitive about it and I certainly don't mean didn't mean to say that they were not doing the job. That was pretty obvious. If you if you get your if you filed the petition if you filed the petition and it doesn't get approved, you thought it was good when you filed it. I think by definition the court's saying you didn't do good work. I don't know. Is that Is that harsh? I mean it's a harsh reality. It's but that's the truth. Yeah, I mean in essence is what they're saying is there's deficiencies, right? So, There's only even if somebody pops out of the blue they don't know about and object or there's some fact that comes up but if you if you filed a petition and the court looks at it and says you're missing A, B, and C and you can't correct it and they're going to continue the case for 30, 60, 90 days.

21:12 It just seems to me that that's kind of you know, like the teacher gave you a little red mark on a couple of the answers. Sorry, not sorry but let's let's fix it and do better next time, right? That's that's why we want to have processes rather than just try to wing it each time. Right. This so this leads me to the question of the obvious inherent advantage of doing volume business. Okay, I know you do quite a bit of probate administration. I talked to other attorneys who do I mean I can check online. I pull up you know, when I research attorney I have access to it. How many cases they've done and when I see somebody's done one in the last 12 months. Those are the guys who walk into court and don't know what probate notes are in LA County and are surprised when the judge says did you give you the notes and they go there's notes? It's like this is going to be a tough one versus you know, the volume people you're checking them you're filing you're looking for the notes. You're trying to correct them before to get approved you had time. So, talk about the advantages of doing the volume and how you use the inevitable mistakes or problems as feedback to improve your process so that you're better next time. Yeah, I it's volume you know, doing volume probate administration state like any doing any volume anything just is just the greatest teacher. It gives you more experience. It gives you new legal issues to think about to research to like

22:34 [clears throat] figure out how to get to a solution and resolve. So, I mean here's the thing and I always try to be transparent with my clients with my potential clients is look, I'm not I'm not perfect. I'm not I don't have I'm not one of those guys that have the you know, photographic memory. I do have to go back and research things sometimes. I do have to go back and look at the local rules for the probate court sometimes. It happens every attorney whether they want to admit it or not they it happens. They do that. So, but just having experience it of doing multiple cases with different types of issues just that's like unbeatable. It's just that's that's that's where it's like you may not have the answer to every single question but you have the experience know how to find it. Mhm. And also how to deal with potentially an opposing party you know, someone else who's contesting a will or contesting a personal representative. you know, without that experience you may think oh got to fight this fight this to the death type of thing but with the experience you say oh, we can perhaps reach a resolution. We can we can figure out thing that something that's mutually beneficial to both parties. and different ways to get there. So yeah, doing I mean volume has an ex just experiencing different cases with different issues has been the greatest teacher and like I said for me personally it's it's just kind of been I've been on I've been on my own since the beginning. So, it was kind of like ooh, this is a new issue. I haven't dealt with this before. Let's go research. Let's hit the books. Let's research what are what can we do? How what's the procedure to get around this or resolve this? so you know, you do enough of that it's it's going to give you that the knowledge base. yeah. There's no substitute for volume, I think in any in any industry. If you can do something at 10 times you're going to learn 10 times the mistakes. You're going to see 10 times you the variety of possibilities.

24:50 You're going to see things that other people just don't see cuz they've only done a couple cases and so like I said for me I know I've done a lot of court confirmation sales. So, that's really my specialty. I know a lot of attorneys who are you know, great attorneys they've never had to do court confirmation sale and then they get one and I'll say okay, now you're stepping out of your area of expertise cuz this is a whole different arena. it might go smooth, you know, it happens but doesn't always go that way and so, I think this that's the power I think of doing something really focusing in and that really attracted me to you know, from the very beginning. Talk about estate planning. You must see I'm [clears throat] I'm sure people come to you with old estate plans done 20 years ago that you know, their circumstances change they want to redo it or their estate planning attorney passed, retired, moved out of the area and they have some questions on it. You have to kind of redo it. What are one or two of the most common mistakes that you see in plans done that you end up either having to correct or have to rewrite a new plan to avoid? Probably one of the most common things I see is online trusts. and

26:03 The answer here. I know the answer here. They don't fund the they don't fund the trust. They don't fund their here's the here's the issue with doing things online and I'm not you know, I haven't even looked into some of these products so I can't speak from personal experience but I can speak from personal experience of reviewing these types of trusts. Sometimes people are pulling templates offline

26:28 [clears throat] or from online from you know, the internet and they are filling in the blanks. and they're and they're not really knowing what it is to fully execute a trust and other documents that go with it that support your trust. I will say that's probably one of the top things that I see is is like of I and I can't really call it a mistake but just like something that happens within this world that we commonly have to say hey looks like you got this online, right? Yeah. Okay, so let me tell you what it's missing. Let me tell you where you're not protected. Let me tell you know, what documents you need to support your trust. So, I'll I'll say that that's kind of one of the top things is you know, there may be some good online products out there. now with the advent of AI who knows where this industry you know, this part of the industry is going to go.

27:33 [clears throat] but as of right now 2026, right? We're we're still in an age where people I don't think are trusting of AI completely. They don't embrace it completely and they want the knowledge expertise and experience an experienced lawyer to walk them through it. So, online trust I will say the second thing that I see is yeah, it's there's just some old trusts out there. you know, it doesn't seem long ago cuz we're some people will say I got it done in the 2000s you know, 2003. That's 23 years ago now. Yeah.

28:09 [laughter] It's not we're still in 2000 but it's still and that's 23 years ago. There's been some changes in the law. There's been some updates. I put a limit on that happen. I've I've cuz I'm an estate planning attorney. I'm the realtor and I'll say to them hey, see the property's in the trust dated or did you buy the property the trust in 1996? Have you had it updated? Oh, no it trust only 20 years old. But the property's 30 years old. You had the trust then. Did you update it? Check guess not. Well, it's at least 30 years old now. Like that's that's 30 years is a long time. Like you can't you know, cars that are 30 years old don't last so well. Right. How would a legal document last that long? Right. No, yeah, it's definitely something that I think with the passage it's it's a box that's checked and then we put it on the shelf and understandably I always you know, tell potential clients I joke around with them and say if I wasn't an estate planning attorney, I don't know that I would have one either. You know, it's something that just the average Joe doesn't always think about and then when you do it, maybe you don't think about it ever again. but it's important. It's important to maintain it updated. You know, have a have an attorney especially another thing that I kind of joke about with my clients. I'm relatively young still. So, I tell them hey, you know, I'm I'm a little bit more keen on the on the recent updates.

29:33 There's a there is a lot of older near retiring attorneys who have done things a certain way for a long time. and that's fine. That there's no there's no problem with that but like you said you like you said there's there's new ways of doing things, there's new technology, there's there's ways of kind of make of creating these estate plans so that they fit a little bit more kind of the modern couple or family or person. so you know, I think I kind of tell people one way or another, I'm still young enough that one way or another I'll either do your estate plan or your probate.

30:19 [laughter] you know, so it's again, it's just it's an it's important to kind of I think maintain, update your trust, make sure that it's it's something that's still at the time of your passing your intention, you know? Well, just in my lifetime so much has changed about, you know, family life from in that you know, mixed blended families way more common than it used to be. people in relationships that aren't married, but want certain provisions for other people way more common than it used to be. I think multiple states, multiple country assets, having homes in other areas there's way more of that than there was, you know, 30 years ago. And all these are things that probably need to be accounted for in your trust. Also, hospitals, doctors way more focused on compliance, and they're going to look at that paperwork very carefully. If your paperwork's right, great. If it's not right, you're going to have a problem. And so, these are all reasons why you know, in my way of thinking, of course it varies on who you are and your circumstances, any major life change you should have your plan reviewed, and also I think probably every 3 to 5 years. A lot The laws change quick enough now and I think the fixed price options have come down so much that if you need a special niche trust thing cuz you have a special case it doesn't cost as much as it used to bolt in versus 20 years ago, there's like one guy who would do that kind of trust. Nowadays with technology, there's there's more I think features. So that's my two cents, but everybody I think needs to take a look at I would say every 5 years for sure life changes review your estate plan. And now I know on your website, just kind of wrap things up cuz I know we're a little over time. Sorry about that. I could talk to you forever. I really learn a lot. you know, the first step, somebody who has an estate plan, maybe it's 10, 20 years old, maybe they've changed, divorced, kids, maybe they don't have one, they need one, they have a will, they think that's going to avoid probate, it's not going to avoid probate.

32:18 What's the first step in getting in touch with you and evaluating what they have and what the next steps are? Yeah, so like I mentioned in the beginning, we have a very what I think is easy process in working with us. We essentially set up an initial phone call, go over what is it that you need, you know? Some people say, "I need an estate plan." Okay, then we get a little bit more in depth, you know, what's your asset situation? What's your beneficiary who are your beneficiaries going to be? What are there any special needs? Are there any concerns there? we'll we'll kind of go into well, estate planning is more than just a trust and will. We also do powers of attorney. We want to make sure that all the bases are covered in terms [clears throat] of planning for someone's estate. So we'll we'll kind of do an in-depth discussion on that initial phone call. And then it becomes on the client side, it becomes a three-step process. Number one, we onboard them. So we say, "Hey, you know we got to get an a representation agreement in place, our [clears throat] contract for the service. We get some information from you through a questionnaire that we that we send out. and then we as a policy take payment up front. Kind of locks both of us in and says, "Hey, you're committed to doing this, we're committed to doing this." So those are the three steps for onboarding, and that's step one. Step two is we build out the documents according to our conversation, the questionnaire, the things that we talked about in terms of what are their values, what they want.

33:59 And then we'll set up another meeting. We'll set up another meeting and say, "Hey, this is what we have. Let's confirm and ensure that we have everything according to your intention." Probate code, estate planning is all about intention. So we confirm that. once that's all finalized, we go to step three, which is signing, executing the documents. so there's a lot that happens in the background, but that's, you know, on the client side, this is step one, two, and three to a to a complete estate plan. and yeah, that's how we that's how we function. Well, I appreciate that. And again, the website is clavellaw.com if you want to go there online and see more information. and the number below is phone number, office number [phone number shown on screen] and email as well. So if you would contact him or contact him through me. Like I said, I've used him personally. I've been involved in cases with him, and you know, really exciting Robert to get a chance to chat with you today about your business. And we left off that not only are you a father and a husband first according to your website, but you have five kids. I do. I do. I have five let's see if I can do this without a without a like missing it here. I have a boy, 13 girl, 10, almost 11.

35:24 Boy, seven, girl, just turned five yesterday. and then no, two days ago. And then and then a girl who's going to be three in May. So

35:39 Got our hands full. [laughter] We got our hands full. and I can't really take much credit. My wife is amazing. She does a lot of the child rearing. I mean, I'm I'm there too. I work from home a lot, and like I said on my website, I'm I try to be a transparent person and a sincere, genuine person. I'm not I'm not about the facade. This is how I come into work with my polo. I'm a very practical person, you know, I'm not about the formalities of any, you know, like things like that. The reason why I do things is my family. And I think a lot of people function like that in our society is we want to protect our families. We do estate plans for our families. I do this what I do first and foremost for my family. And so that drives a lot of it gives me a lot of motivation, drives my decisions in the business. So but yeah, we do have our hands full. I'm the same in that I only have one child, but she has three kids, four, two, and three months old now. and we're the local grandparents. We're there every day almost with them. So I have a sense of what your life is like. Three is not it, and I'm a grandparent, not a parent. I get the difference. But wow, good for you, good for your wife. Keep up the good work there. And again, if you're interested in working with Robert, please reach out to him. Robert, thank you so much for joining us today.

36:56 We really appreciate your time. Likewise, thank you. I appreciate it. And for the rest of you, this is Probate Weekly. We get together every week with a new episode, usually with probate attorneys or vendors help us be more effective with our clients, whether you're an attorney yourself or a real estate agent or a real estate professional. We want to we make sure that we do the best we can to help our clients build their wealth and preserve their income. If I can help in any way, reach out at Bill Gross Probate on social media. As always, make today your best day ever. Thanks.