About the Authors
RUSSELL S. BALISOK has been in private practice emphasizing business tort and personal injury litigation since 1975. He practices with the firm of Balisok & Associates, Glendale. He received his J.D. degree from Southwestern University in 1975. He has been involved in nursing home personal injury litigation since 1980, and in 1984 was a founding member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Barrister’s Subcommittee on Legal Problems of the Elderly. He serves on the Board of Directors of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, an organization that provides training and technical assistance to legal services projects and engages in consumer advocacy campaigns on behalf of patients in skilled nursing facilities. Mr. Balisok has acted as amicus or as counsel of record in several major elder abuse cases, including ARA Living Centers Pacific v Superior Court, College Hospital v Superior Court, Delaney v Baker, Barris v County of Los Angeles, and McCall v PacifiCare.
KIRSTEN M. FISH is a partner at Needham Kepner & Fish LLP in San Jose. Her practice focuses on personal injury/wrongful death litigation and elder abuse litigation. She graduated from Santa Clara University School of Law summa cum laude and received her B.S. in chemistry with honors from the University of California at Davis. Ms. Fish is a frequent guest lecturer on elder abuse topics and has been a speaker for the annual review seminar “What’s New in Tort & Trial” since 2010. Ms. Fish has also taught legal research and writing to first-year law students at Lincoln Law School in San Jose since 2009, is on the board of the Santa Clara County Trial Lawyers Association (SCCTLA) and is on the Consumer Attorneys of California’s (CAOC) Board of Governors. In 2014, she was named SCCTLA’s Trial Lawyer of the Year and CAOC’s Street Fighter of the Year. She was also a finalist for CAOC’s Street Fighter of the Year in 2018 and was named Lincoln Law School’s Professor of the Year in 2015, 2018 and 2019.
JUDY L. HITCHCOCK is a senior staff attorney with Legal Assistance to the Elderly in San Francisco, specializing in elder abuse. She received her B.A. degree in 1973 from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a Master of Social Welfare degree with a specialization in aging in 1978 from the University of California, Berkeley, and her J.D. degree in 1983 from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Ms. Hitchcock drafted the legislation providing for the issuance of restraining orders to abused elders and dependent adults. She is a former chair of the Multidisciplinary Team of the San Francisco Consortium for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, and has spoken at conferences for attorneys and other professionals about restraining orders and issues related to elder abuse.
DAVID G. KNITTER is a partner with the law firm of Knitter & Knitter, LLP, in Vacaville. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and his J.D., from McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. Mr. Knitter practices in the areas of financial elder abuse, contested conservatorships, and trust and probate litigation. He is a past member and current advisor of the Executive Committee for the Trusts and Estates Section of the State Bar of California (TEXCOM) and current Chair of the State Bar of California Educating Seniors Project. He is Past President of the Solano County Bar Association (SCBA) and was honored as Attorney of the Year in 2006. Mr. Knitter has written extensively on financial elder abuse, undue influence, and trust and probate trust litigation issues. He has presented locally and nationally for organizations including the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA), the Elder Financial Protection Network, county bar associations, local estate planning councils, and civic and professional groups. Topics have included undue influence, financial elder abuse, trust and probate litigation, and related subject matter.
PETER G. LOMHOFF is an attorney in private practice in Oakland representing plaintiffs in nursing home and elder abuse cases. Mr. Lomhoff received his B.A. degree from Reed College in 1966, a Master of Arts degree from the University of Chicago in 1970, continued with graduate studies at Harvard University, and received his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, where he was an associate editor of the California Law Review. Mr. Lomhoff was a law clerk to the Hon. William T. Sweigert, United States District Court for the Northern District of California, from 1975 to 1977. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform Lawyer Referral Service. He is a lecturer on nursing home and elder abuse law and litigation.
DANIEL D. MURPHY is a San Francisco estate and trust litigation attorney, whose practice primarily focuses on financial abuse of the elderly. He was an author of Senate Bill 2107 (2001), which revised the definition of “financial abuse” under the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act (Welf & I C §15610.30). In addition to writing for CEB, he speaks on the subject of financial abuse for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. He is a former member of the board of directors of Legal Assistance for Seniors, a nonprofit legal aid organization in Oakland, California that serves the elderly and the poor. Since 2013, he has been a member of the executive committee of the Estate & Trust section (TEXCOM) of the State Bar of California.
JODY L. SPIEGEL is a staff attorney with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), a statewide nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to improving the choices, care, and quality of life for California’s long-term care consumers through direct advocacy, community education, legislation, and litigation. Before joining CANHR, Ms. Spiegel worked with Bet Tzedek Legal Services as director of its Nursing Home Advocacy Project. Ms. Spiegel is a frequent lecturer to community and professional organizations, and also the author of several consumer guides on longterm care laws and practices. She received her B.A. degree from Wellesley College, and her J.D. degree from the University of Southern California Law Center.
KATHRYN STEBNER is the owner of Stebner and Associates. She has been in private practice emphasizing elder abuse and medical malpractice litigation since 1985. Ms. Stebner received her J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1985 and is licensed to practice in both California and Oregon. She is currently on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association and Consumer Attorneys of California, and is a frequent speaker and author on elder abuse litigation. Ms. Stebner is currently the CAOC liaison for “Protect our Parents”—a consortium of elder advocacy groups involved in California long-term care, state policies, and laws. She received California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform’s Legal Advocacy Award in 2001 for recognition of her efforts on behalf of California long-term care residents.
About the 2022 Update Authors
LINDA S. DURSTON received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley, and her J.D. from New College of California School of Law in San Francisco. She came to estate, special needs, and elder law in 1999 after six years of representing individuals in Social Security and SSI disability claims. Ms. Durston is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA), California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), East Bay Trusts & Estates Lawyers (EBTEL), and Berkeley Albany Bar Association. She was the chair of the Elder Law, Conservatorship, and Guardianship Committee of the Alameda County Bar Association Probate Section as it transitioned to EBTEL. Ms. Durston has also served as a member of the California State Bar Trusts & Estates Executive Committee, where she helped draft the California Conservatorship Jurisdiction Act and edited articles for the Trust & Estate Quarterly. Before practicing law, she lectured in Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, and English at the University of California, Davis, and San Jose State University. Linda Durston is an update co-author of chapter 4.
KIRSTEN M. FISH. For biographical information, see About the Authors. Ms. Fish is a co-author of chapter 6A.
KARMAN GUADAGNI received her B.A. from University of Oregon and her J.D. from University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She is the Managing Partner at Stebner Gertler Guadagni & Kawamoto, where her practice focuses primarily on institutional elder abuse litigation. Throughout her career, she has focused on litigating neglect cases involving pressure ulcers, falls, sexual abuse, and other serious injury and death cases and on holding residential care facilities for the elderly and nursing homes throughout California responsible for their wrongdoing. Ms. Guadagni has been selected as a Rising Star among California’s Super Lawyers annually from 2015 through 2021, is a frequent speaker and author on topics related to elder abuse and neglect, and has served as a guest lecturer at Stanford Law School since 2015. She is on the board of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association and is the president of Friends of ECDC, a nonprofit benefitting Emeryville Child Development Center. Karman Guadagni is an update co-author of chapter 4.
JUDY L. HITCHCOCK. For biographical information, see About the Authors. Ms. Hitchcock is the author of chapter 8.
DAVID G. KNITTER. For biographical information, see About the Authors. Mr. Knitter provided assistance with chapters 6 and 7.
PETER G. LOMHOFF. For biographical information, see About the Authors. Mr. Lomhoff is a co-author of chapters 2 and 3, and he provided assistance with chapter 5.
JODY L. SPIEGEL. For biographical information, see About the Authors. Ms. Spiegel is the author of chapter 4.
KATHRYN STEBNER. For biographical information, see About the Authors. Ms. Stebner is a co-author of chapters 5 and 6A and an update co-author of chapter 4.
