Rebecca Ann Gardner

When my father had a heart attack, and my mother had a stroke 2 weeks later, Rebecca Gardner and HMS drew up an emergency trust and estate preparation within a couple days and she came to my mother's house to perform the notarization. When my mother passed three months later, Rebecca worked with my ...sister and I to handle all of the filings, paperwork, and even attending court! She explained everything and made sure we always knew what was going on and why. We could not have made it through the way we did without Rebecca and HMS. Thank you!

Rebecca helped both my husband and I and my mother-in-law creat living trusts. She is an absolute professional and makes the process feel less stressful. I'm a realtor and I recommend her to all my clients once they buy a home so they too can receive excellent service when making sure all their wishe...s and assets are taken care of in case of a medical emergency or passing. Definitely worth the time and money for the peace of mind.

My wife and hired Ms. Gardner to restate our existing trust and wills. The existing documents were up to date, but 10 years old. Only change in the restatement was addition of one additional beneficiary. We indicated to Ms. Gardner that, being retired, we wanted to keep the cost down and she sugg...ested that we retain her on an hourly basic, indicating that her basic fee for drawing up a trust and wills from scratch was approx. $3,000. After the initial 1/2 hour meeting, we had only one additional meeting with Ms. Gardner, plus several short phone conversations with her non-lawyer assistants. To shorten this story, in the end we were billed a total of $2, 921.90 for this most simple "restatement" of the original documents. When I complained to Ms. Gardner she reduced the final billing by $350 (her hourly fee) I blame myself for failing to do my usual "due diligence" by shopping around and asking for a fixed price up front. Several friends (attorneys) agreed that this bill was indeed unconscionable, but that I should just file my complaint and forget it as going to arbitration before the State Bar of CA. would probably take about a year and I would most likely just be wasting my time. This review is not about legal competence, but excessive billing. So, to all others seeking estate planning, I truly recommend that you give Ms. Gardner a miss and do your homework, which I failed to do.