Matthew Scott Belardes

I have been a financial planning and wealth management professional since 2006 with some of the best and largest financial firms in the world. While working at Morgan Stanley, I attended the University of San Diego School of Law and graduated from the evening program in 2011, a full year ahead of schedule. Since then I spent years focusing on the financial side of estate planning, often seeing the complications of poorly drafted trusts and the importance of carefuly drafted estate planning documents. This led me to sit for the California State Bar exam in 2019, where I passed the bar on the first sitting, so I can take ownership of the estate planning process on behalf of my clients and drafting their documents myself.

I started Praesidio Estate Planning in 2019 in response to seeing clients and the public overcharged and under-served by legal professionals. Too many of my wealth management clients reported to me that they paid several thousand dollars for their estate plan only to spend a half hour with an attorney who then passed off document drafting to a paralegal. You deserve better than this.

At Praesidio, we offer high quality, straightforward, and comprehensive estate planning services at an affordable price. Your family and your hard earned life savings are important to us and worthy of the time and commitment it takes to work out a comprehensive estate plan. My unique background encompassing over a decade of financial planning and investment management experience helps me frame our discussion and build your estate plan in consideration of long-term, multi-generational wealth management.