The firm

Patrick Phancao and Shadi Ala’i Shaffer have practiced law together since 2004. He was admitted in 2001, she in 2002.

Two founders

The work divides the way their interests do. Patrick takes the structures: businesses, holdings, advanced tax, and the arrangements that decide what a family owns and how exposed it is. He is also the one who handles the questions about nursing homes, Medi-Cal and the family house. Shadi takes the plans and the people: trusts, probate, and the long conversations that have to happen before any of it is written down.

Between them the practice covers the whole of a family’s life. That was the intention from the beginning, and she has already written it down better than we could:

“Together, we set out to create a law firm built on lifelong relationships, where we could support our clients through every stage of their lives.”
Shadi Ala’i Shaffer, on her own Justia profile

What a family needs at forty-five is not what it needs at seventy-five, and neither is what the children will need on the day they get the call. The firm was built to be there for all three.

Between them they have also spent more than a decade explaining this work to people who are not lawyers: a newsletter, a radio show, a book, and a video library of 119 answers. Most of that library is Patrick’s. He is the one on camera for asset protection, Medi-Cal, the business questions and the nursing-home questions.

She does not come from money, and she says so out loud:

“I don't come from a family of money. I'm self-made, first in my family to go to college, first to go to law school. I get it, nobody wants to write that check. It's not an easy check to write. However, I'm here to tell you that it is worth every penny.”
Shadi Ala’i Shaffer

The people

The eight people of the firm, photographed together

Attorneys

Patrick P. Phancao
Founder
Admitted to the State Bar of California, May 31, 2001.
(BAR ADMISSIONS, CONFIRM WITH CLIENT: California confirmed for both founders; Patrick's Florida and D.C. admissions are unconfirmed and his own page contradicts itself)
Shadi Ala’i Shaffer
Founder
Admitted to the State Bar of California, November 12, 2002. Speaks Farsi.
(NAME SPELLING UNCONFIRMED, rendered as "Shadi Ala’i Shaffer" per her own site heading)
Valerie L. Pasion
Partner
Admitted to practice in California.
positioned under the firm's succession plan, ensuring clients will be serviced for years to come.
Shilpa Bhatt
Attorney