Estate Planning for Intellectual Property Rights

Matthew R. Owens | Sheppard Mullin

Matt Owens is a partner in Sheppard Mullin’s San Diego (Del Mar) office. Matt focuses his practice on trust, estate, and inheritance litigation. He has prosecuted and defended a wide range of matters in probate court, including trust contests, elder abuse actions, accountings, contested conservatorships and claims involving breach of fiduciary duty. His clients include high net worth individuals and families, corporate trustees, and private professional fiduciaries.

Matt is a certified specialist in estate planning, trust, and probate law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. He frequently speaks and writes on trust and estate litigation topics, is a member of the Executive Committee of the Trusts and Estates Section of the California Lawyers Association (TEXCOM) and served as Chair of the Executive Committee of the San Diego County Bar Association’s Estate Planning, Trust, and Probate Law Section. He was recognized in the Chambers High Net Worth Guide 2023 for Private Wealth Disputes – California, has been recognized as a Best Lawyers “Ones to Watch” each year since 2021, has been a Super Lawyers Rising Star each year since 2013, and was on Legal Week’s Private Client “Ones to Watch” list in 2020-2021. Matt holds a B.A. from the University of Mississippi and a J.D. from Santa Clara University.

Jaime B. Herren | Hartog Baer Zabronsky, AP

Ms. Herren is a litigator, patent attorney and experienced trial attorney whose practice focuses on managing complex assets, technology, digital assets and intellectual property (IP) in wealth and tax planning to litigation and licensing.

Ms. Herren’s experience includes high-value trust litigation and IP litigation in state and federal courts. Having served as in-house counsel, she values business ideals and advocates for early implementation of dispute avoidance and resolution strategies. She represents individuals and fiduciaries who manage unique assets – including IP, rights of publicity and cryptocurrencies. As a seasoned litigator, Ms. Herren views wealth planning as pre-conflict resolution. When litigation is the right choice, Ms. Herren is well versed in all aspects of state and federal trial practice, including representation before governing tax bodies.

An active member of the legal community, Ms. Herren is a member of the Trust and Estates Executive Committee of the California Lawyers Association and Vice-Chair for the Alternative Dispute Resolution committee of the American Bar Association section of Real Property, Trust and Estate. For many years, she was chair of the Litigation Section of the Contra Costa County Bar Association (CCCBA, 2016-2022). Northern California Super Lawyers named her a Super Lawyer in 2023 and Rising Star from 2016 to 2020.

Ms. Herren writes and speaks regularly on topic of litigation, trusts & estates and cross-over issues with IP. She is a chapter editor for CEB Trust and Probate Litigation and, for three years, she was a case alert author for the Trust and Estates Section of the California Lawyers Association. She has spoken at legal and industry conferences across the county from San Francisco to Washington D.C., Austin to New York City.

Ms. Herren is a seasoned trial attorney, beginning her career in law as intellectual property trial attorney with a boutique litigation law firm and continuing as a private wealth litigator at a national law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area. Before beginning her legal career, Ms. Herren was a rocket scientist who provided thermal engineering and hot fire test support for the main engines of the U.S. Space Shuttle.

I. Identifying IP in estate planning and in post-death estate administration | 12:00pm – 12:20pm

II. Assigning or transferring IP | 12:20pm – 12:40pm

III. Disputes over IP in post-death estate administration | 12:40pm – 1:00pm