Amy Shelf, Estate Planning Attorney

Amy Shelf received an undergraduate degree from Columbia University and a J.D. from Hastings College of the Law, where she graduated magna cum laude. While in law school, she had an externship with the San Francisco Probate Department, where she learned as much about family psychology as she did about probate practice.

Shelf has spent her entire legal career as a lawyer practicing estate planning and guiding clients as they plan for the certainties and uncertainties of the future. After practicing for several years with a law firm, she opened her own practice concentrating on affordable estate plans for clients of all means, with an emphasis on involving family members -- especially adult children -- in the planning process.

Shelf's childhood weekends were spent with her grandmother, the director of a senior center, who gave her the opportunity to see joy and dignity in aging and from whom she inherited her outspokenness.