Margaret Lodise

Practice Areas

Estate, trust and conservatorship litigation and appeals as well as estate, trust and conservatorship administration.

Professional Memberships

American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC): Fellow; Vice President 2024-25; Member of the Board of Regents, Program Committee, Fiduciary Litigation Committee, Professional Responsibility Committee and Long-Range Planning Committee; past Chair of the Fiduciary Litigation Committee and the Amicus Briefs Committee

Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles: Member and Past President   

Los Angeles County Bar Association Trusts and Estates Section: Member and Past Chair   

California Lawyers Association, Trusts and Estates Executive Committee: Member and Past Chair   

San Fernando Valley Bar Association: Probate Settlement Officer   

Loyola Law School: Adjunct Professor, 2011–2018 

City Club of Los Angeles: Board of Governors, 2003–present   

Pomona College: Board of Trustees, 2007–2023; Trustee Emerita, 2023–current  

Established the Arthur Lionel Williams and Lysle Blythe Williams Global Horizons Fund (named after her grandparents) to provide grants to students facing financial barriers that could prevent their participation in semester-long study abroad programs. 

Pomona College: Presidential Search Committee, Chair, 2016   

Pomona College: Torchbearers Board, President, 2007–2010   

Experience

Meg Lodise has more than 35 years' experience representing beneficiaries and trustees, conservators, individuals and institutional clients in connection with a range of matters pertaining to estate, trust and conservatorship litigation. In addition, she handles estate, trust and conservatorship administration and is also regularly called upon to be an expert witness.

Ms. Lodise handles appellate work concerning trusts, estates and conservatorships, and has been appointed by the court as a guardian ad litem in connection with significant matters. Her recent representative matters include successfully defending a trustee from claims of surcharge and improper investments; representing a professional trustee in connection with a dispute over the distribution of a trust; and representing a beneficiary of a disputed family trust, in which the beneficiary prevailed at trial and on the appellate level in having significant assets resulting from the sale of the family business transferred to her.

Her work not only achieves important resolutions for clients, but also shapes the future of trusts and estates law. As one example, she obtained a precedent-setting decision in O’Connor v. O’Connor (26 Cal.App.5th 871), defending an appeal brought to challenge the exercise of a power of appointment. In a published decision, the Court of Appeal affirmed the probate court orders, and in doing so, clarified California law on powers of appointment.  

Underscoring her respect in the legal community, Ms. Lodise was appointed by the Probate Court as Guardian Ad Litem for the minor children of entertainer Michael Jackson, a responsibility she carried out soon after Jackson’s death in 2009 and concluded in February 2020 with his youngest child, Prince Michael Jackson II ("Blanket" or "Biji") turning 18. In this role, Ms. Lodise initially advocated for the best interests of the performer's two sons and daughter due to disputes over Jackson's affairs, including the resolution of certain contracts proposed by the estate's Special Administrators, but opposed in part by Jackson's mother, Katherine.  Ms. Lodise continued to represent the interests of the children after the initial dispute in connection with the ongoing administration of the estate.      

Publications

Ethical Considerations in the Representation of Fiduciaries and Beneficiaries, Published: Daily Journal, February 2023

Crisis in Conservatorships, Published: California Trusts & Estates Quarterly – Volume 13, Issue 1, Spring 2007, Co-authored by Margaret G. Lodise, Edward J. Corey, Jr., Peter S. Stern

Education

Awards