Stephens Law Group, P C

The Stephens law group handled all my Estate planning needs efficiently and effectively! They helped make a difficult situation more manageable. His Office is very efficient and the others who work there kind and understanding and never condescending. James leadership and knowledge has helped my family to create a trust and understand it’s contents. His patience with those of us who don’t speak «legalese» is very much appreciated! I have had officials in the Legal and Tax industry who used my information tell me «Whoever is doing your Estate work is Fantastic!» I have referred him to my friends and they too are pleased with his work.
I recommend him highly!

James Stephens created our Family Trust and Powers of Attorney in 2006. He seemed competent although he was religious and liked to talk about his religion. He instructed us – in writing — to place all our property such as bank accounts into the name of our Trust. As part of his service, he was to change the Title to our house to our Trust and have it recorded. Or so he told us.
Recently the Title to our home came to our attention. Stephens had removed my name from the Title and put the house into my husband’s sole name as co-​trustee of the Trust! This directly contradicted his written instructions to us! I called him to discuss this but he did not return my phone calls. We have now had to hire another attorney to correct the Title to our home.
Years before we learned of the title problem, we had consulted Stephens regarding my parents’ Trust. At this time my father was 88 years old and my mother had dementia. My father wanted to make some changes. Stephens INSISTED that we inform and involve other members of the family in these changes — against my father’s wishes — before making them. In order to save my dad the stress and anxiety this would cause him we found a different attorney. The new attorney made my father’s changes without any issues or problems.
My father and mother have both passed on now. Despite Stephens’ dire warnings that we would be sued if we didn’t follow his advice, my parents’ Trust was executed and all distributions were made without incident, and certainly without any of the legal action Stephens threatened would occur.
We won’t be using Stephens again.
UPDATE: Our new attorney got a copy of the Title to our home and it turned out to be correct. Apparently the wording of the Quit Claim Deed created and recorded by Stephens had been incorrectly entered into real estate data bases. Since Stephens had never given us even a copy of this document, we had no way to check the real estate data bases against the recorded reality…
And yes, we should have known enough to demand a copy of the Quit Claim Deed from Stephens. But we were trusting him to provide the documents we needed.

I had my will, trust and power of attorney completed with Stephens Law Group in Agoura Hills and I can not recommend them enough! James is so knowledgeable and takes the time to listen to what your needs are and then tells you the best way to implement them through these legal documents. Don’t waste your money on Legal Zoom. James is an expert in estate planning and will answer any questions you might have thoroughly and thoughtfully.