By Corcoran Smith Law Corp. · Updated 2026-09-21

About Corcoran Smith Law

California Inheritance Law is published by Corcoran Smith Law Corp., a veteran-founded California litigation firm. This site exists to explain California probate, trust and inheritance law clearly enough that a person in the middle of it can understand what is happening and what has to happen next.

The firm

Corcoran Smith Law was founded by Mark C. Smith, a UC Berkeley Law graduate, former federal judicial clerk and U.S. Army combat veteran. Its courtroom practice is contested wills, trust and estate litigation, fiduciary misconduct and probate disputes, acting for heirs and beneficiaries. Alongside that, the firm prepares wills, trusts and powers of attorney, handles real estate transactions, advocates for veterans in VA disability claims, and serves California companies as outside general counsel.

The firm keeps offices in San Francisco and Sacramento and represents clients throughout California — every county in the state, because probate venue is fixed by where the decedent lived rather than by where a lawyer sits. The attorney who takes a case is the one who works it.

Reviews and independent records

Read reviews on Corcoran Smith Law’s Google profile. Reviews describe individual experiences; they do not predict the outcome of another matter. The State Bar links below let you check each attorney’s public license record.

The attorneys

Each of the three is licensed and active with the State Bar of California. Every bar number below links to the State Bar’s own licensee record, and each attorney also holds a record on the California Attorney Registry. The registry is a second way to reach and compare the public data; the State Bar remains the authority.

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  Mark C. SmithPrincipal Attorney & FounderLitigation and general counsel services

  Leads the firm’s civil disputes practice with big-firm litigation training and courtroom-focused judgment, and more than twenty years of military service behind every case. A former federal judicial clerk and U.S. Army combat veteran.

  Education

  UC Berkeley School of Law

  CA Bar No.

  319003

  Admitted

  December 11, 2017

  Registry

  Registry record

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  Nicholas JacobsAttorneyEstate planning, inheritance disputes and beneficiary rights

  Combines investigative rigor, calm communication and an unwavering client focus, built on eighteen years of law enforcement and crisis response before he came to the law.

  Education

  Northwestern California University School of Law

  CA Bar No.

  349672

  Admitted

  May 28, 2023

  Registry

  Registry record

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  Seth StewardLitigation AttorneyComplex dispute and civil litigation, inheritance disputes and beneficiary rights

  A former San Francisco prosecutor with more than thirty jury trials behind him, and the courtroom experience to carry the most complex estate, business and wrongful death disputes.

  Education

  The George Washington University Law School · Harvard Kennedy School

  CA Bar No.

  257561

  Admitted

  October 31, 2008

  Registry

  Registry record

Bar numbers, admission dates and license status verified against the State Bar of California on September 19, 2026. Re-check before retaining any lawyer, including us — status can change.

The team supporting them

Behind the attorneys is a team of 6 that keeps a matter moving, from the first call through the last step of a case. Their published roles show who handles consultations, intake, accounting and the work supporting the attorneys.

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  JulieOffice Manager

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  LydiaEstate Planning Legal Assistant

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  RichardInitial Consultation Manager

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  AngieAccounting Manager

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  JoyClient Intake Specialist

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  MarcoExecutive Legal Assistant

Seeing the elephant

“Seeing the elephant” is an idiom out of military lore, popularised during the American Civil War, for a soldier’s first encounter with the reality of combat — the thing you cannot be told about and can only meet. Some historians trace it further back, to accounts of Alexander the Great’s armies facing war elephants: a sight both awe-inspiring and terrifying.

It survives as a figure for the resilience it takes to face something overwhelming, and for the change that comes from getting through it. That is the firm’s name for the standard it holds itself to. It is also, fairly precisely, what an inheritance dispute feels like from the inside.

Where else these credentials can be checked

The California Attorney Registry indexes attorneys from the official State Bar of California roll rather than from paid submissions, which is the distinction that matters when you are checking whether someone is who they say they are. A record there carries the bar number, current license status, year of admission, law school, firm of record, and county — each dated, and each pointing back out to the State Bar’s own page so the chain can be followed to its source.

Two things about it are worth knowing. Contact details on a record come from the public file and are shown without a paywall, which is not the norm among legal directories. And a record can carry an identity check confirming that the attorney actually controls the contact information listed against their name — a different question from whether the license is valid, and the one that matters if you are worried about who is really answering. You can search the full directory for any California attorney, not only ours.

Whichever source you use, the State Bar remains the authority. The registry says so on its own pages, and so do we: confirm license status and any discipline history at apps.calbar.ca.gov before retaining any lawyer, including us.

What happens when you contact us

Every case profile submitted through this site goes directly to the firm. An attorney reviews it. If the firm can take the matter, we say so. If we cannot — because of capacity, conflict, or venue — we will tell you that too, and where appropriate we can help you find counsel who can, with your written consent.

Not every question needs a lawyer, and the site says so where that is true. If you are settling an uncontested estate or administering a trust that nobody is fighting over, the process pages and the duties pages are written to be usable on their own.

What this site is not

This is not a lawyer matching service or a directory. It is the firm’s own publication. Nothing here is legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. For the firm’s full practice — estate planning, real estate, veterans law and general counsel work alongside inheritance litigation — see corcoransmithlaw.com.

How we source and update what we publish

Corcoran Smith Law Corp. publishes this resource. Legal explanations link to the California Legislature, Judicial Council, courts and State Bar so readers can check the underlying rule. Census data supports the local fee examples; those examples do not predict a particular estate’s value or bill.

Automated tools assist with drafting, source checks and publication. A source-verification date identifies when the cited material was checked; it is not a promise that an attorney reviewed your facts or personally authored the page. The publication process checks citations, required disclosures, links and page structure. These checks cannot decide how the law applies to an individual case.

We update content when a legal rule, court resource or explanation changes materially. Rebuilding the website does not make an older source newly verified. Where a court’s procedures change, its current official instructions control. Browse the cited Probate Code sections, and use the firm’s contact form to report a correction with the page address and the statement concerned.