Disclaimer and attorney advertising

Effective date: September 2, 2026. Please read this page before you rely on anything on this site or send us information.

Attorney advertising

This website is an advertisement for legal services under the California Rules of Professional Conduct and the State Bar Act (Business and Professions Code sections 6157 to 6159.2). Arthur E. Rothrock is the attorney responsible for its content. The firm is Rothrock Legal, located in San Jose, California. Reaching us: arothrock@rothrocklegal.com.

General information, not legal advice

The pages, articles, answers, and tools on this site are general information about California trust and estate law. They are not legal advice, and they are not a substitute for talking to a lawyer about your own facts. The law changes, and articles reflect the law as of the date shown on them. Do not act, or decide not to act, based on something you read here without first confirming it with a lawyer.

No attorney-client relationship until we both sign

Reading this site, using the deadline tool, sending a consult request, or emailing us does not make you a client and does not create an attorney-client relationship. That relationship begins only when you and the firm both sign a written engagement letter. Until then, we are not your lawyers, we have not agreed to protect any deadline for you, and we may decline your matter. We run a conflict check before we can discuss any matter, and if there is a conflict we may have to decline without saying why.

Deadlines are fact-specific

Every deadline described on this site depends on facts we have not seen: what documents were signed, what notices were mailed and when, who received them, and what a court has already done. Some deadlines are as short as 120 days, and missing one can end a case before it starts. Treat every date on this site as a reason to talk to a lawyer promptly, not as a calculation you can rely on.

The deadline tool and the consult request produce estimates only

The “How Long Do I Have?” tool applies a fixed set of rules to the answers you give it. It cannot see your documents, it cannot know about exceptions that apply to you, and its results are estimates, not advice. The consult request uses an AI service to organize and summarize what you send so that a lawyer can review it faster. The AI does not evaluate your case, does not give advice, and does not decide whether we take your matter; a lawyer does. Any follow-up questions it drafts are requests for information, not opinions about your case.

No guarantee of results

We do not promise or predict any outcome. Descriptions of prior matters, client comments, and recognitions on this site are not a guarantee, warranty, or prediction of the outcome of your matter. Every case is different. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Recognitions and specialization

Awards and recognitions are named exactly as the organizations that issued them confer them, and those names belong to those organizations. Super Lawyers is a registered trademark of Thomson Reuters. No attorney at the firm holds a State Bar of California legal specialization certification, and nothing on this site should be read as a claim to be a certified specialist.

Information you send us before we are engaged

We keep what you send us confidential, whether or not we take your matter, as the rules for California lawyers require (Rule 1.18). Even so, please keep these three things in mind. First, sending us information does not by itself stop us from representing someone else in the same matter, except where those rules say otherwise. Second, do not send us documents that belong to another lawyer’s client file, that you took without permission, or that you were told you may not share. Third, ordinary email is not fully secure, so do not include Social Security numbers, account numbers, or passwords unless we ask for them. How we store and delete what you send is described in our Privacy Policy.

Jurisdiction

Our attorneys are licensed to practice law in the State of California only, and this site describes California law. We do not seek clients in any state or country where our attorneys are not licensed, and we do not give advice about the laws of other states. Our cases are heard in California courts, including the Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose and the courts of neighboring Bay Area counties.

Links to other websites

Some pages link to courts, government agencies, and other websites we do not control. Those links are for your convenience only. We are not responsible for their content, and a link is not an endorsement.

Questions

Questions about this page go to arothrock@rothrocklegal.com. The responsible attorney is Arthur E. Rothrock, Rothrock Legal, San Jose, California.