Vy (“Vee”) Victoria is an attorney in Buchalter’s Irvine office, where she practices exclusively in trust and estate litigation. While based in Orange County, Vy maintains an active statewide practice spanning Southern California and the Sacramento region, where she appears regularly. She represents trustees, beneficiaries, creditors, and other interested parties across a wide range of contested fiduciary matters, including breach of fiduciary duty and surcharge claims, financial elder abuse, accounting disputes, capacity and undue influence challenges, trust contests, and petitions for court instruction on trust interpretation, modification, termination, and asset recovery. Vy appears regularly in the probate courts of Orange County, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento, and brings a working familiarity with the procedural practices and local customs of each. She prepares and argues petitions under Probate Code sections 17200, 850, and 859, litigates summary adjudication motions both offensively and defensively, and has obtained court approval of fee petitions, including extraordinary fees. Vy also participates in and leads Breslin-type mediations on behalf of trustees and beneficiaries in multi-million-dollar trust disputes, negotiating and drafting complex settlement agreements, advising in real time on conflicts with governing instruments and the tax consequences of proposed terms, and managing post-mediation filings to secure court approval.
Beyond contested matters, Vy counsels corporate and professional fiduciaries through all phases of California trust administration — navigating the contest period following a section 16061.7 notice, interpreting ambiguous trust terms, reviewing accountings for Probate Code compliance, preparing complex distribution agreements, and overseeing the sale of trust assets and any required court confirmation. She coordinates closely with accountants, wealth managers, business managers, and real estate professionals to ensure proper administration at every stage.
Vy’s litigation judgment is grounded in substantive planning and tax experience. Before joining Buchalter, she practiced in the Trusts, Estates and Wealth Preservation group at Dentons US LLP, where she prepared estate plans for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients that included revocable and irrevocable trusts, specialty vehicles such as ILITs, SLATs, SNTs, GRATs, QPRTs, GST/dynasty trusts, and privacy trusts, along with transmutation and pre- and post-marital agreements. As the primary associate for the firm’s California probate matters, she obtained final distribution orders and full fee awards on complex administrations, including ancillary estates for foreign decedents and estates valued in excess of $21 million with significant tax issues. Her work there also included analyzing cross-border tax questions, resolving property tax matters through corrective deeds and appeals, and preparing gift, fiduciary income, and estate tax returns as well as foreign trust and asset filings. Vy began her career as a commercial litigator at Michelman & Robinson, LLP, representing corporate clients in breach of contract, business tort, fiduciary duty, and fraud matters.