Kevin Urbatsch, Esq.

Kevin Urbatsch is the principal of the special needs and settlement planning law firm, The Urbatsch Law Firm, in Berkeley, California. Kevin is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust, and Probate Law by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Kevin is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC). ACTEC is a nonprofit association of lawyers established in 1949. Its members comprise the top 1 percent of estate planning professionals from around the country. They are elected to the College by demonstrating the highest level of integrity, commitment to the profession, competence, and experience as trust and estate counselors. Kevin serves as National Director of the Academy of Special Needs Planners (ASNP), a national organization of over 450 special needs planning professionals. Kevin has received several awards. In 2013, Parenting Magazine named Kevin one of the nation’s Top Child Advocates for his work in fighting for the rights of children with special needs. In May 2011, Kevin was presented the NAELA’s Presidential Recognition Award for his work in special needs planning. From 2010 through 2022, Kevin was named a Northern California Superlawyer. In 2009, Kevin was named KRON-TV’s Best of the Bay estate-planning attorney for Northern California. In 2021, Kevin prepared a course for California’s Probate Judges on the legal background and issues for special needs planning and trusts before the court for California’s Center for Judicial Education and Research. The federal government flew him to Washington to do a program for the FFIEC Annual Conference to teach bank regulators the proper way to administer a special needs trust when a corporate fiduciary serves as an SNT trustee. Kevin was instrumental in depublishing the appellate court opinion Scott v. McDonald (2018) 26 Cal. App. 463, a decision that would have wreaked havoc on using special needs trusts for persons with disabilities by leading a consortium of charities and professional organizations to submit a brief for its depublication. Kevin served as an expert witness in two matters that went to trial and as an expert on the planning needs of persons with disabilities in several other cases that were resolved before litigation.