Lydia Lee Lockett

Lydia Lockett is a Los Angeles private wealth services attorney who focuses her practice on complex trusts and estates litigation, contested conservatorship proceedings, and elder abuse matters.

Ms. Lockett is experienced in administering complex estates and trusts. She routinely advises clients on myriad issues, including ownership and governance of closely held corporations, family partnerships and limited liability companies (LLCs). She also advises on matters arising from fractional real estate interests and fiduciary duties between spouses.

As part of her practice, Ms. Lockett provides comprehensive representation from inception to trial for both beneficiaries and fiduciaries in cases involving will and trust disputes, elder abuse, and breach of fiduciary duty.

Ms. Lockett's recent representative matters include:

• representing co-administrators in a high profile, complex, multi-jurisdictional, multi-case litigation involving an $800 million intestate estate with multiple claims of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, vulnerable adult abuse and undue influence arising from dozens of multimillion-dollar transactions
• serving as co-trial counsel in the representation of trust beneficiaries in successfully obtaining a multimillion-dollar judgment, prejudgment interest, double damages and attorneys' fees in a six-day bench trial involving claims of elder financial abuse and undue influence
• representing an administrator ad litem in charge of a $30 million New York corporation in multistate litigation, which included the Florida probate of the former owner's intestate estate, defense against a New York wrongful termination suit facing the estate and the corporation, and a Florida declaratory relief action regarding the corporation's ownership
• representing a beneficiary and former co-trustee in highly contentious litigation between heirs to a real estate empire worth more than $25 million
• defending an heir in a series of high-profile cases spanning multiple jurisdictions against allegations that the heir's actions resulted in the plaintiff's disinheritance with alleged damages in excess of $100 million
• representing a fiduciary seeking the return of wrongfully appropriated trust assets and redress for multiple instances of elder financial abuse with damages in excess of $20 million

Ms. Lockett served a concurrent two-year term on the Trusts and Estates Section Executive Committee of the California Lawyers Association (formerly the State Bar of California), and is a member of the board of the California Young Lawyers Association.

Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Ms. Lockett served as a judicial extern for the Honorable Suzanne H. Segal, Magistrate Judge for the Central District of California, and the Honorable Robert Gary Klausner, District Court Judge for the Central District of California. Ms. Lockett also served as a note and comment editor of the Loyola Law School of Los Angeles Law Review, and was a member of the nationally-ranked Byrne Trial Advocacy Team.

Currently, Ms. Lockett serves as the Los Angeles office's co-coordinator for Holland & Knight's national Women's Initiative.